Guild Wars 2

mistsim.2748:

- Muddy terrain is not being slotted by anyone because no one cares about cripple, and the initial immob is not a game-changer. this utility needs to do more. revamp it, buff it, or remove it.

That’s for PvE. For PvP/WvW it’s obviously used pretty widely. It very rarely leaves my skillbar regardless of what type of build I’m running, it’s that good. PvE isn’t the only game type, some skills just aren’t going to be very useful in PvP but are really powerful in PvP (warrior hammer for example.)

mistsim.2748:

this is why most of the things written in this very thread so far cannot and will not be taken seriously. you guys are being silly. 20-25% damage boost on 5 players? do you have any idea how OP that is? 10% is great and makes a huge difference for a group’s damage output. there are glyphs in a much worse shape.

It works out at a 2.5% party damage buff, sun spirit in all Zerker teams adds more. The celestial form version is even worse. Nobody is going to take it in its current state.

In some of the posts above the conern about the lack of pet focused mechanics was brought up. Id like to bring up something ive been consisdering lately.

Shout Druids. Or any ranger taking the nature magic line shouldn’t be too concerned about this.

Nature magic line provides a copy of all boons you recieve to your pet. Meaning a ranger in melee wont have to worry about boon support for his pet as long as HES receiving boon support.

Shout rangers with the new heal as one will be able to do almsot the same thing in both directions. meaning they can use a ranged pet or be in ranged themselves with a melee pet in the group without concern of missing out on might. They can simply copy them over. When traited this will have a 16 second cooldown so thats pretty good uptime.

What im trying to say is that atleast as far as boons go the methods for maintaining boons on both the ranger and hte pet are already going to be available to us.. We can take BM and NM with shouts for complete boon coverage (as well as increased pet survivability/damage) and the druid line. We should be able to deal moderate dps even in a healing spec through a constantly maxed out pet while were keeping not only the pet but also our team mates alive.

Atleast that is how I percieve the available synergy.

Levetty.1279:

mistsim.2748:

this is why most of the things written in this very thread so far cannot and will not be taken seriously. you guys are being silly. 20-25% damage boost on 5 players? do you have any idea how OP that is? 10% is great and makes a huge difference for a group’s damage output. there are glyphs in a much worse shape.

It works out at a 2.5% party damage buff, sun spirit in all Zerker teams adds more. The celestial form version is even worse. Nobody is going to take it in its current state.

Source? Math?

Edit: nvm did it myself. So this is misleading. Yes it is only a 2.5% buff over 20 seconds, but over 5 seconds it is 10%. The over 20 seconds part may be important in PvE, but a party 10% boost to spiking is significant in pvp and a 20-25% boost would be very overpowered. Even in PvE, 2.5% buff assumes that fights last at least 20 seconds which in a lot of cases isn’t true. Furthermore, the recharge can be reduced to 16 seconds which averages damage out to 3.125% over 16 seconds if we want to get theory crafting.

sorry, I should clarify I only speak from a pvp perspective. in spvp/raids, +10% damage to 5 people is a huge buff to the squad’s burst. I wouldn’t necessarily slot that glyph in pve encounters.

It works out at a 2.5% party damage buff, sun spirit in all Zerker teams adds more. The celestial form version is even worse. Nobody is going to take it in its current state.

Well, hold on a minute.

Spotter and Frost Spirit are consistent weak effects or random strong effects, so, boiling these down to flat damage percentages in order to compare them ‘apples to apples’ style is reasonably good logic.

Glyph of Empowerment is a non-random strong effect of fixed length.

Which means you + the recipient can swing the outcome with your play because timing strategies are now a factor, and battle length > 20 seconds changes the impact on a practical level.

A 10% damage increase applied to a single attack at random without warning is worlds apart from a 10% damage increase that persists for multiple hits on your timetable while letting everybody else know ‘hey, now’s a great time to hurt things’.

/edit: Mcorcha already covered >20 second timing while I wasn’t paying attention. Whoops.

Vox Hollow.2736:

It works out at a 2.5% party damage buff, sun spirit in all Zerker teams adds more. The celestial form version is even worse. Nobody is going to take it in its current state.

Well, hold on a minute.

Spotter and Frost Spirit are consistent weak effects or random strong effects, so, boiling these down to flat damage percentages in order to compare them ‘apples to apples’ style is reasonably good logic.

Glyph of Empowerment is a non-random strong effect of fixed length.

Which means you + the recipient can swing the outcome with your play because timing strategies are now a factor, and battle length < 20 seconds changes the impact on a practical level.

A10% damage increase applied to a single attack at random without warning is worlds apart from a 10% damage increase that persists for multiple hits and lets everybody know ‘hey, now’s the time to hurt things’.

You are correct. This is why everyone should take courses on statistics in school so they can learn to analyze statistics and find out what they really mean/entail.

I’m afraid I’m one of those who’re not too thrilled about the Druid.

I really wish they’d have improved on the pet mechanic, instead of adding this celestial form or at the very least ditched the pet in favor of the celestial avatar, if it’s a must. Why would a druid bring a pet? There’s no synergy, except for this one adept trait.

Secondly, I’m absolutely not happy with the druid’s intended role as a field medic. Too much emphasis on healing. Why can’t I play a druid that is supportive in a different way, besides healing? To me, being the healbot of the party is not a fun way to play and to my understanding it also contradicts the core concepts of GW2 in regards to the holy trinity.

The glyphs I’d like to give a try, but since the minor traits of the druid line only favor heavy healing specs, I don’t see how I could make a druid variant work, that’s a little less focused on healing. There’s not enough variation. Don’t force every druid to be a healer! Provide this option through selectable traits and the staff, but also put something into this traitline for druids who want to be more selfish or supportive in a different way.

Last but not least …

Solar Beam: Improve the visual effect (sun ray!) and allow it to hit up to 3 adjacent targets, like the fireball on ele staff. Maybe even add an effect that applies blind under certain conditions. I mean, it’s a concentrated ray of sunlight afterall.

TLDR: Didn’t pick Ranger to play a Monk :\

I’ve been watching a lot of the WoodenPotatoes vidoes this weekend. From what we’ve seen it looks as though the Wyvern and that teleporting rock-dog is going to be joining our pet inventory. It may be possible we’ll get more out of the Wyvern than the rest of the changes coming to the Ranger as a whole. This is very positive as until now we’ve really had nothing to contribute to groups.

Don’t forget the positioning aspect of the skill as well. Frost Spirit (1000 range), Spotter (600), and banners (600) all have over twice the range of GoE (300 range, only affects those who are in it when it is activated and don’t leave the range).

The argument here is that given the relatively short range of the skill, and the positioning required to activate it, a 10% party wide damage buff for 5 seconds isn’t rewarding enough. A Revenant with Assassin’s Presence provides a 10% damage buff to crits just by being in a 600 radius, for example. Banner of Dsicipline too, has a 600 radius and stronger, longer, effect.

Also compare to say, Quickness, which is essentially a 50% damage boost/action boost. Many skills that provide quickness also provide it in a much larger area.

Compared to skills/traits of similar effect, GoE is quite subpar, and is not rewarding enough for its mechanics.

I also suggested increasing the cooldown along with increasing the damage provided. Doing so would give the skill higher risk, but also higher reward, adding depth.

I think this is an interesting option.

I said, in WoW, that it would be interesting if Hunters could have healing and tanking specs; especially if the pets could be the healers and tanks (with some guidance from the player, obviously).

I liked the idea of my pets being able to heal and tank in raids.

However, as I said on another thread, I would still like to see better options for DPS, as well.

ATM, my main priority would be some decent, untargeted, stealth utilities.

Rangers really should be able to blend into their surroundings, if anyone can, otherwise what is the point, frankly?

@Tigaseye
We’re getting the smokescale pet, which can create a smokefield that we (and allies) can blast for stealth

This is a 10% buff wit a 300 radius. Pretty sure frost/spotter radius is way bigger so i don’t see a reason to chose the glyph in any circumstances considering we’re going away from the zerker meta.

Ltomato.8649:

@Tigaseye
We’re getting the smokescale pet, which can create a smokefield that we (and allies) can blast for stealth

How long will that stealth effect last?

Because, ATM, it would (sadly) take a lot to get me off my Mesmer, in WvW.

I don’t like being thief-bait.

Yep. People who are saying that the glyph of empowerment is super strong with 10% are forgetting about it having one of the smallest buff ranges in the game.

A ranger will not be able to longbow with this skill unless it’s with a platoon of ranged attackers, easy to AoE down. In melee range, again, easy to AoE down a group of dudes in 300 range, and many mobility skills will send allies out of range.

It’s so much of an “all-in” ability mechanically, but doesn’t provide enough of a benefit to counter the risk and strategy involved in setting it up and using it.

How long will that stealth effect last?

Rangers have 2 on demand blasts as of Druid, so it would last 6 seconds if you’re solo roaming. If you’re with a group though, you can easily get max stealth stacks off of one smoke field. i.e. thief pistol 5.
EDIT: You could theoretically get 6 more seconds with sword/greatsword leaps, but sword leap takes a while to get to, and greatsword leap is insane to aim now.

Rangers have 2 on demand blasts as of Druid, so it would last 6 seconds if you’re solo roaming. If you’re with a group though, you can easily get max stealth stacks off of one smoke field. i.e. thief pistol 5.
EDIT: You could theoretically get 6 more seconds with sword/greatsword leaps, but sword leap takes a while to get to, and greatsword leap is insane to aim now.

Thanks for the info.

Well, forget that, then.

I don’t know the changes to Mesmer, but assuming they still have better stealth, I will have to stick to that.

Also, another concern is that, if you’re on longbow, will your pet even be near enough to give you stealth?

Could be giving stealth to the melee players, just to be targeted yourself.

Alright pre-beta feedback/suggestions:

1. Staff stance, please give us the stance all ranged staffs use, instead of the hammer stance.
2. Pet synergy skill for Staff and possibly CAF is needed. On Staff I’d place it on skill 3, making the pets next attack a 600 range port next to the target. This would fit with the mobility aspect of the skill.
3. Make the Staff 3 a teleport. This would help us fill the role Thief/Mesmer currently occupy in PvP.
4. “Offensive support aspect” for CAF 2 could be 2-3s poison.
5. Offensive support for CAF 4 could be in the form of Pet synergy, making the pets next attack inflict Chill. That I think would fit with the water aspect of the skill.
6. Glyph range seems low but we need to see that in live for better judgement.

Irenio you’ve done great work with the Druid and I can’t wait for friday to test it out!

An interesting combo you could try that would require some positioning is using the smoke field, the greatsword 3 to leap through, allowing you to get a stealth maul. That could have some potential.

If you put it on passive or no target, the smokescale probably could be close enough to put the field in reasonable range.

EDIT: I know I’m sounding like a broken record over this, but it can’t be emphasized enough- 300 range is the base DODGE range. If you pop GoE, if you or your allies even dodge, you lose the bonus. Surely it should have a larger effect to make up for that.

Ltomato.8649:

If you put it on passive or no target, the smokescale probably could be close enough to put the field in reasonable range.

I don’t really have time for that and leaving pets on passive, permanently, doesn’t seem to work, either (they just start attacking, anyway).

I often suffer from skill lag and really bad fps in zergs and by the time I realise I have to stealth, I normally need to do it right now.

Not try to get an unresponsive, slow pet, to return first, before I can use it and even then, only for 6 seconds (with no other options to follow up with).

Smokescale is going to be almost mandatory in any pvp form. On demand, very large Smoke Field? Instant pet slot in any build. Not to mention that it hit like a truck in the reveal video.

I think i glyphs would work as old ranger traps would be much better and make so much sense.
Ground targeted skills that trigger when an ally/enemy (we as well) step on it. No need to check out conditions/health or whatever, just trigger if the simple condition of ally/foe is on the Glyph.
No need to change any mechanic about th glyph.
This could bring the lost trapper ranger gameplay and would make so much sense with the small AoE range.

It wouldn’t change much when playing solo but it would bring a massive support role when used correctly, you could do a pull to a warrior casting 100 blades, or a pushback/daze to keep the ele channeling an skill.

It could be a very interesting way to play support with hard CC skills, something that none of the other classes has thus making our niche in raids/dungeons and everyday content. Healing for itself is not enough were all the classes can support themselves.

Tigaseye.2047:

Ltomato.8649:

If you put it on passive or no target, the smokescale probably could be close enough to put the field in reasonable range.

I don’t really have time for that and leaving pets on passive, permanently, doesn’t seem to work, either (they just start attacking, anyway).

I often suffer from skill lag and really bad fps in zergs and by the time I realise I have to stealth, I normally need to do it right now.

Not try to get an unresponsive, slow pet, to return first, before I can use it and even then, only for 6 seconds (with no other options to follow up with).

You can potentially get 3-4 blasts (depending on traits) plus a leap on the smokefield (need to test this of course). Also if you are running longbow, Hunter’s Shot should give you plenty of time to get to the pet for the combo field. I always have my pet on passive during wvw zerg fights, it will be stupid and die on its own if you don’t. Those are my thoughts on it anyway. As you can see I have already jumped on the Smokescale meta pet ship

Without testing, the two things that I find absolutely certain are glyphs needing better range, Staff3 is not an excuse for making all glyphs low range pbaoe.

And astral 1 needs a damage component.

Random little thoughts:
- Seed of Life blossom, they wanted to differentiate a bit from the #1 skill. I suggest they add a poison to it, as it’s an exploding plant/mushroom, it adds to the trait that spawns mushrooms and gives two traits that specifically supports condition play with the druid, something that seems a little lacking. I also suggest making the radius a tad bigger. a 1 second delay support move with only a 180 radius is going to be pretty hard to get much use out of. 240 radius wouldn’t be bad.

- Ancient Seeds, could potentially work against taunted foes too. But that’d probably be a bit too strong/convenient/too much self-synergy. Would be fantastic though.

- Glyph of Tides could be changed to knock-down/launch to offer more synergy with Ancient Seeds.

- Glyph of Equality could use a little less cooldown.

Just a few main notes. I’m just excited overall. x.x

Draeyon.4392:

Tigaseye.2047:

Ltomato.8649:

If you put it on passive or no target, the smokescale probably could be close enough to put the field in reasonable range.

I don’t really have time for that and leaving pets on passive, permanently, doesn’t seem to work, either (they just start attacking, anyway).

I often suffer from skill lag and really bad fps in zergs and by the time I realise I have to stealth, I normally need to do it right now.

Not try to get an unresponsive, slow pet, to return first, before I can use it and even then, only for 6 seconds (with no other options to follow up with).

You can potentially get 3-4 blasts (depending on traits) plus a leap on the smokefield (need to test this of course). Also if you are running longbow, Hunter’s Shot should give you plenty of time to get to the pet for the combo field. I always have my pet on passive during wvw zerg fights, it will be stupid and die on its own if you don’t. Those are my thoughts on it anyway. As you can see I have already jumped on the Smokescale meta pet ship

OK, well I guess I will give it a go.

I can see where you get that feeling, Ltomato.

But that doesn’t make me want to undermine the good skillcurve effort in Glyph of Empowerment, so much as call out Banners and Shouts for vesting a solid chunk of their challenge in range and then featuring ranges so large they may as well not exist.

This game would be alot better off if you had a demonstrably different output in support skills depending on how well you played them. Something needs to exist to distinguish good play from bad play. I honestly feel like Glyph of Empowerment is using Range as the dividing line in a way that will sincerely cause you to exercise your spatial awareness skills. And that’s a good thing.

I don’t think we should be saying “let’s make this more brainless”, we should be saying “why do we allow these other things to be so brainless”?

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.

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.

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.

Could you make it so that you’re able to target allies with Solar Beam? I get it, it’s supposed to be healing through positioning, but at least give us the ability to help out that one guy who keeps running out of the love ray. Maybe it could even do a little better healing for that target.

Could the Astral Wisp cure a condition on allies it passes through as well? There are so many skills here that heal that I feel you should add something that makes them seem a bit different. Not only in how they deliver their healing, but what they do. Could this skill also grant Fury to your pet when he attacks the Wisped target? There should be a skill on this weapon that buffs your pet like other weapons have. Healing doesn’t really count.

Ancestral Grace is a pretty cool skill. Did I hear you were making it into a blast finisher? Excellent… Aside from that would you consider having it grant a short duration of Vigor to allies? Like I said before, healing is great, but it gets a bit overdone when that’s the only thing happening here. It would also give it a bit of Synergy with the Nature Magic line, and don’t you DARE tell me that staff shouldn’t work with the Nature Magic line XD.

If Astral Wisp starts removing conditions, then Vine Surge shouldn’t anymore. It doesn’t make sense for shooting vines at peoples’ legs to make them move again anyways. I don’t know how you’d react to this… but could this skill inflict poison or bleed? A few stacks preferably? A bit of condi synergy would be great even though noone would be taking this weapon for condis.

Sublime Conversion is pretty good as is. I’ve heard a suggestion where this could be turned into a light field so that enemy projectiles fired through it also have a chance to cure conditions from you. Just saying.

I don’t see any problem with the glyphs really.

Natural Stride could use some changes when you consider it’s competing against a group sneak mode and lower cooldown glyphs that all turn into aoe heals with condi removal. Maybe make it so that removing a condition from an ally has a 33% chance to grant a few seconds of Swiftness or removing a condition from an ally has a chance to remove a movement impairing condition as well. Even gaining bonus benevolence when you don’t have Cripple, Chill, or Immobilize would be cool.

Grace of the Land should grant a second or two of Resistance too. You know, cuz Resistance is awesome.

Lingering Light would be even more awesome if it removes conditions with the changes I suggested.

Ancient Seeds sounds stupid good in some situations with that ICD. Instead of increasing the ICD maybe just make it apply a lesser version of Entangle that doesn’t immobilize for as long. Also, does this skill count as a survival for the purposes of the survival skills trait?

My feedback:

Pet needs to go or they need to integrate it better into the new traits/weapons and the F5. Like I would have been perfectly fine if the F5 is a “combination” with the pet would disappear and the ranger would gain enhanced stats based on the pet equipped. At least that would have better player-pet interaction.

Druid just needs to make up it’s mind do you want to be a celestial healer or a half-ranger.

I also think they should have put more effort in reworking celestial avatar to working as a substitute for the pet traits. Just as they did with reaper shroud.

Could you make it so that you’re able to target allies with Solar Beam? I get it, it’s supposed to be healing through positioning, but at least give us the ability to help out that one guy who keeps running out of the love ray. Maybe it could even do a little better healing for that target.

Could the Astral Wisp cure a condition on allies it passes through as well? There are so many skills here that heal that I feel you should add something that makes them seem a bit different. Not only in how they deliver their healing, but what they do. Could this skill also grant Fury to your pet when he attacks the Wisped target? There should be a skill on this weapon that buffs your pet like other weapons have. Healing doesn’t really count.

Ancestral Grace is a pretty cool skill. Did I hear you were making it into a blast finisher? Excellent… Aside from that would you consider having it grant a short duration of Vigor to allies? Like I said before, healing is great, but it gets a bit overdone when that’s the only thing happening here. It would also give it a bit of Synergy with the Nature Magic line, and don’t you DARE tell me that staff shouldn’t work with the Nature Magic line XD.

If Astral Wisp starts removing conditions, then Vine Surge shouldn’t anymore. It doesn’t make sense for shooting vines at peoples’ legs to make them move again anyways. I don’t know how you’d react to this… but could this skill inflict poison or bleed? A few stacks preferably? A bit of condi synergy would be great even though noone would be taking this weapon for condis.

Sublime Conversion is pretty good as is. I’ve heard a suggestion where this could be turned into a light field so that enemy projectiles fired through it also have a chance to cure conditions from you. Just saying.

I don’t see any problem with the glyphs really.

As for the Pimple uhh.. Seed of Life. Could you make it look like a “blossom” and not a postulating tumour of love and back cheese? I’m just saying, it looks nasty.

Natural Stride could use some changes when you consider it’s competing against a group sneak mode and lower cooldown glyphs that all turn into aoe heals with condi removal. Maybe make it so that removing a condition from an ally has a 33% chance to grant a few seconds of Swiftness or. Removing a condition from an ally has a chance to remove a movement impairing condition as well. Even gaining bonus benevolence when you don’t have Cripple, Chill, or Immobilize would be cool.

Grace of the Land should grant a second or two of Resistance too. You know. Cuz Resistance is awesome.

Lingering Light would be even more awesome if it removes conditions with the changes I suggested.

Ancient Seeds sounds stupid good in some situations with that ICD. Instead of increasing the ICD maybe just make it apply a lesser version of Entangle that doesn’t immobilize for as long. Also, does this skill count as a survival for the purposes of the survival skills trait?

Vox Hollow.2736:

I don’t think we should be saying “let’s make this more brainless”, we should be saying “why do we allow these other things to be so brainless”?

That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m not calling for a larger range on the glyph. I think that the range is a genuinely interesting challenge. However, I believe the reward should be on par with the challenge required. i.e. “This isn’t brainless, why is it weaker than things that are brainless”

Seems to be working fine, Gaile.

This one? Yeah is seems very visible to me

Druid spec looks awesome and I thank the devs for making it. Most of the negative feedback is uncalled for and biased so don’t let it work you guys up.

My only complaint is that glyphs might be a little weak for their effects at the moment, except for the elite.

Don’t worry Gaile, there so much going on and excitement about the Druid i’m pretty sure this will be visible.
Here my intake all condensed about some changes in druid.

Avatar state seems to have too much healing. I mean really too much.
I’d like to see some changes in the avatar to be more support in a different way because right now it seems to have almost 10 healing skills that do almost the same.
Avatar state should be available at any charge in the astral bar.

• Cosmic Ray: Needs damage component.
• Seed of Life: Some resistance applied also?
• Lunar Impact: This one looks cool. Hard CC
• Tidal Surge: Also cool. Brings some utility with the water field.
• Natural Convergence: Also very cool. Right now the only damaging.

Glyphs needs to be ground target 900-1200 units. AoE area too small. I would even go to make them trigger in ally/foe contact trap like. The only exception the Glyph of unity changing the range to 600. once tethered the tether itself should have a greater range to allow the skill to be useful. If the foe/ally will break it just walking away tow steps to be able to come back untether is not really useful.

Avatar state:

• Glyph of Rejuvenation: This one is cool.
• Glyph Alignment: Clear conditions and heal. Okeish i guess. Redundant with seeds of life thou… Could be better give might and swiftness.
• Glyph of Equality: Cool. Need to be instant thou.
• Glyph of Empowerment: another one that is stange/unclear uses We already heal for all the team, even more healing? What about increased boon duration, affecting also the active boons? like 20% for 6 seconds maybe?
• Glyph of the Tides: Nice. need a range of 600 at least, within 300 you do not need to pull anything. Ground targeted so we could do a pull to a warrior casting 100 blades.
• Glyph of Unity: Another one healing? we have enough healing just with astral#1 what about sharing boons? Boons between the allies are shared in the same fashion as the shout We heal as one. That could be massively cool and would give so much game play.

Out of avatar state:

• Glyph of Empowerment: Players are worried the 10% damage is weak and something we already have with the frost spirit. What about give a X stacks of an stack boon that improve damage and lose one stack per attack. Max duration 20 seconds so it will not stack again on itself.

Traits

• Grace of the Land seems redundant with Seed of Life. In avatar state we don’t need more condition mitigation, we cleanse conditions every second.
  What about spotter like aura, when in combat up to 5 allies (us included) get a 33% condition damage reduction.

Some (all?) of these may have already been brought up:

• Synergy between pet/ranger in druid traits – where are they?

• Ranger pets should always get boons applied by the ranger (if within range), and not be left out because of the 5 man limitation. This also goes the other way around, when your pet applies a buff, ranger should always get the buff (if within range).

• Where’s the damage when using the celestial form? If nothing else, buff pet damage (like double up) when in this form, to compensate for the lack of outgoing damage

• No more skills that roots us in place, we have enough of them already (quite frankly, these should all go away, for all classes)

• Live Vicariously could include some form of “when you are healed, so is your pet” and vice versa

• Syngergy between other weaponsets when traiting for druid? Syngergy between traitlines?

More feedback after balance patch and druid beta.

The thing about Life Shroud is that it’s a one trick pony- healing only. I think that’s fine, given teh extreme amounts of healing that it can put out. Through traits, we also get strong control as well. Some condi clears or resistance for allies (outside of traits) could be interesting to play with somewhere on the kit. Resistance would be cool because it would allow counterplay against Druid from boon stripping.

I like the short range on the glyphs- they’re low cooldown, and the short range means you really need to be in the right place at the right time, which is a big part of the ranger playstyle already, albeit offensively vs defensively. It does feel like they are lacking some aspect, however, either boons or combo finishers, for example.

I’ve stated my views on Glyph of Empowerment a lot above already- More damage boost, longer cooldown. High risk, high reward, depends highly on communication and positioning to be effective.

Glyph of Unity is a really strange thing to me, though. It seems counter intuitive mechanically to the rest of the kit- instead of supporting the team, the glyph is self based. I would suggest lowering the damage returned, but have the glyph return damage based on allies within a range. It would work with the kit much better and clearly, as you would pop the glyph and work on healing through the damage your allies are taking/returning. It also has the low range aspect, so I don’t think that scaling off of allies would be too powerful given that the damage returned was reduced.

I also agree with previous posts that life shroud glyphs could use some different mechanics, but it seems difficult to find a place for them without shifting the focus of Druid or making it too powerful.

Overall, I really like the design of the Druid, and I especially appreciate the thematic variation between normal druid form and the celestial form.

I have read through much of the forums regarding the Druid and it seems that the main concern is that the base form of the druid doesn’t seem to be as thematically plant based as people would have liked. Of course, when the Druid transforms into the Celestial Avatar, it is only fitting that the celestial theme carries through all the weapon skills and all the celestial form of the glyphs. This is really a cool feature in my opinion, and has some very beautiful animations. I even enjoy the dark blue color scheme. It’s unique. It’s good.

Celestial Avatar Mechanic:
I loved it.
I can already see some possible builds that uses this druid mechanic. if one were to not use the glyphs, it might be possible to have a decent dps build while also having a viable defensive option.
I really think that the druid elite specialization give the ranger a chance to compete against the other professions. Finally.

I love the theme, I love the skills and animations, and I think this is good for the ranger overall.

Since we are leaning towards Monk with the Druid spec…you know what would be awesome?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiting_Prayers

Firstly I want to say I’m happy with the Druid, my only concern is the skill tuning needs to be done very carefully to allow the Druid to be played outside of a pure healer role.

Secondly I think the celestial form charging needs to be clarified, particularly does it have to be fully charged to use? And secondly how efficiently this can be done with other weapons, I have seen some very worrying maths suggesting it well… Can’t really. this is something which needs to be addressed sooner rather than later as an inability to use the profession mechanic properly could damage the ability to provide feedback I’m bwe3

Halan.7931:

Could effects in normal non-transformed form be changed to green (staff 2 and 3), or golden-yellow (staff 1)? Use more rangery colors like green, yellow, golden, brown, not the guardian ones (white and blue).

And make seed of life look less disgusting. Currently it looks like "It’s something dangerous that’s going to explode, run away).

It was hard to see the bloom in the reveal video. It looks like a white colored flower bloom? It reminds me of a “moon garden” white petaled flowers that bloom at night, and on a full moon they appear to glow as they reflect moon light.

Very fitting for a celestial themed avatar? I liked it. although it was difficult to see the bloom in detail.

Feedback on Druid:

Staff skills
Astral Wisp: Send a wisp to attach to your foe. While attached it will circle the foe, healing allies it passes through. (if pet is healed by wisp they gain resistance for 5 sec or they gain protection for 3sec) this would be similar to other weapon skills on the ranger.
Alternatively
Vine Surge: Send forth vines that immobilize enemies and cleanse conditions from allies. (Your pet next attack applies 5 sec cripple)

Celestial Avatar:
I think this transform should also affect your pet.

My idea was to make the pet grant regen/resistance/protect/stability(3stacks for 5 sec for stability) to nearby allies for 3 sec and can only occur once per ally(this effect doesn’t affect the pet. To make it so that core rangers wouldn’t really lose anything )?

Utility skills:
Glyph of Alignment: Damage and apply conditions to nearby foes. (Think this form needs a break stun)

Glyph of Unity: Tether yourself to nearby foes. Whenever you receive damage, deal damage to the foes tethered to you. (Think this form needs stability)

Traits:
Ancient Seeds: Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe summons roots to entangle them. (I think the pet should also be affected by this trait)

I think druid should be more offensive so that ranger can have more choices rather than druid only do heals which is a waste as an elite specialization. If player who wants to really do massive healing can go in celestial form for some player who want to do dps in druid can choose to not go in to celestial form.
Glyph of empowerment need to buff up for real 10% damage for 5second who is going to waste an utilities slot for that and in druid glyph of empowerment is party support skill if the skill buff up it will open up meta party available for druid rather than only healing I think glyph of empowerment should have increase damage modifier for 30% and last for 10 second and the cooldown for 15second
I think most of the druid want to choice between dps and heal.
In druid traits line all of them is only healing not even a damage modifier in it
It is kinda disappointing on the traits but the ideas for druid is good but still can be better

Lyger.5429:

My feedback:

Druid just needs to make up it’s mind do you want to be a celestial healer or a half-ranger.

I also think they should have put more effort in reworking celestial avatar to working as a substitute for the pet traits. Just as they did with reaper shroud.

It’s nice to have a trait line that isn’t inflated with pet traits. There were some really cool traits to choose from in the druid line.

Keep in mind, you can simply use the celestial avatar mechanic without using all the glyphs. this leave two trait lines, a weapon and 5 utility skills to choose from. The pet will see plenty of play and i’m glad we got a different mechanic that isn’t pet related. Ranger needed more viable options.

The only difference between this thread and that 1500 post omega thread is that there is a 1st post with “structure” (and if by “structure” you mean a giant header that says The Druid Feedback Thread). Come on, you can do better than that!

…that said, here’s my very little feedback. Overall I do like the specialization and the new pets, but I won’t have more to say really until I get to play the specialization on the next beta weekend.

Staff Skills
Solar Beam - Its an Auto Attack, so its pretty much fine as it is. I’m not sure the healing amounts really justifies the damage trade-off though but we’ll need to actually play in the next beta weekend to know. 3 targets is kind of low.
Astral Wisp - I see nothing wrong with this skill.
Ancestral Grace - Could use an invulnerability. Stream didn’t really show or say if there was one or not.
Vine Surge Needs more targets. 3 targets is kind of low.
Sublime Conversion - Converts all projectiles into heals? Yes please!
Weapon General - Many Ranger weapons have at least one skill that is animal themed and one skill that benefits the pet in some way. Staff doesn’t. Not a big deal, just different.

Glyphs - I like them the way they are. I have no suggestions yet.

Celestial skills - so many heals…..but I like them the way they are. I have no suggestions yet.

Pets
Tiger - Did you guys show us its F2 skill?!? What is it?!?
General - Looks like pets still have to stop moving in order to attack. This still makes some pets (Dogs and Cats) way better than all the others as a function of how short their attack animations are.

It is simple, healing alone will get the ranger/druid get kicked out of groups sooner or later as:

a) If a pure healer is not/no longer needed the druid will be worthless

and

b) the ranger is not in the meta now and as the ranger won’t change this won’t change in the future, so noone will invite a ranger if no healer is needed.

Give us a second aspect with a damage or buffing setup or both so the druid/ranger has a future and not just a short spark when things are new and exciting.

The healing aspect is great, don’t get me wrong, but the druid is just not complete.

I think druid should be dps and astral form is the true healer just remove the Astral bar will do whoever wants to heal stay in Astral form forever. If druid and Astral form add up together we got almost 10 healing skills and what is the purpose served? 10 healing skills is that a joke? So I think druid goes dps and Astral form goes for healing
Gaile please let druid excess to pve content with everyone not only healing them we also can fight with them in the front line YESSSS WE CANN!!
oh yeah for ranger sword AA please fix and allow the storm spirits move around when we traits to it as a spirit I don’t think we need health bar since it is a spirit just remive health bar will do Thanks appreciated