Guild Wars 2

Well,it’s really late here,so I’ll try to keep my feedback clear.Keep in mind that I’m not used to speak in english,so prepare your eyes for suffering

BACKGROUND:
I have been playing gw2 since release,and among necromancer,ranger has been my most played prof,on a little asura.Now rerolling to a human male…

The only things that I would change are:

+Staff needs to deal damage in some more of it’s skills.If not,a whole mechanic needs to be in place for supporters to get rewards in events and bosses

+The healing glyph needs a little ¨oomph¨,or it will just feel like a generic heal.Give it self regen on Celestial Avatar form,not too much,not too little.This promotes cross-traitline sinergy

+Talking about sinergy,this is something that the druid lacks with many of the core ranger mechanics.Adding small amounts of boons to some skills (Maybe the healing seed?).Let druid apply poison with one skill or two.With that you would have more options on taking WS/NM

+The glyph of empowerment needs a different Celestial effect.Increased healing by 10% for a short period of time won’t cut it.15-20%,or make it heal on top of the current effect.

+New(and old) pets still need changes in their AA so they can move while attacking,allowing them to hit moving targets (given how the pets stop for a second before they activate de skill)

The Druid Reveal:

Celestial Avatar Mechanic:
How is the green energy bar drained? slowly with time or by only using the Celestial skills?

I really think this is a great new mechanic for ranger. I am pleased that they gave us something other than trying to enhance the pet mechanic. The pet mechanic just needs to be repaired, not enhanced. That’d be a waste of an Elite Specialization in my opinion.
one more note: I am not to keen on the idea that many boons should be added. perhaps regeneration or vigor, but protection based boons should be left to the guardian.

Weapon Skills:
( All the animations for celestial weapon skills were very beautiful)

Cosmic Ray - I like that this is a simple skill. It allows the player to only focus on positioning to support their allies.

Seed of Life - I really like the synergy with the trait Verdant Etching. I think this will be a very useful skill in all game modes.

Lunar Impact - The healing aspect of this skill is good. Should It also deal damage to foes? I realized it provides 3 seconds of daze. that seems pretty beneficial, so perhaps no damage addition is required?
- perhaps add the regeneration boon to it? and/or vigor for allies.

Tidal Surge - overall, I like it. Regeneration on allies during the interval of the entire skill might help make it more impactful.

Natural Convergence - I find this skill to be fitting for Celestial form, I like it.

Staff Skills:

Solar Beam - I like the skill, but the animation of the beam was difficult to see in the video. Hopefully it looks like a big beautiful ray of sunshine :P

Astral Wisp- I am happy that the druid got a wisp skill. if anything is added to it, perhaps regeneration for allies that pass through it?

Ancestral Grace - this is a great positioning skill. 1200 range? that is generous. I don’t think a damage component should be added to it. Wisps shouldn’t really being doing damage in my opinion. perhaps regeneration could be a possible additive if something is needed.

Vine Surge - I’ve heard that this skill should get bleed conditions? It might help provide synergy with possible condition builds.

Sublime Conversion - This is a pretty unique skill, i’m interested to try it out in the Beta.
Glyphs in base and celestial form:
a side note: the inverted form of each glyph in celestial form is a great idea.

Glyph of Rejuvenation - This skill and its inverted form is very tactical, I like it a lot.

The remaining utility glyphs feel a little barren. Perhaps this would be a good place to add the regeneration boon. Glyph of Alignment or Equality could probably have something added.
also, I am a little concerned that the cool down may be a little to long for what the actual glyphs are offering. either the CD should be decreased, or the glyphs slightly buffed?

Final Thoughts
I am really excited to play the druid. I think it was nicely designed and has many different uses. It is also very thematically pleasing.

Taushullu.6180:

Just a quick repost to official feedback thread.
__________________________________________________________________

• Dismisses pet which was supposedly ranger core mechanic.
  • I thought specializations were meant to enhance or otherwise change the profession mechanic? Druid does absolutely nothing for the pet.

Questions that I hope will be answered in beta:

• Is healer all druid can be? Poor synergy with rest of the profession?
• Can Celestial Avatar form be useful without healing gear? Should it be?
• Can enough astral force be gathered just from combat to have enough Celestial Avatar uptime? Is healing from staff a requirement to have enough astral force?
  • Suggestion for Celestial Being: Astral force should also be gathered from pet attacks.

I personally think the pet mechanic needs to be repaired, but not enhanced with the druid specialization. I think its good that rangers are getting the Celestial avatar.

However, your suggestion about pets contributing to filling the celestial energy bar is interesting. maybe a good idea? maybe a horrible idea? I’m not sure

I’m cautiously optimistic for the time being.

There are probably numbers that need to change — I feel like glyph of empowerment should provide something like +33% damage, for example, in order to justify slotting it. Ranger skills for boosting a group’s DPS are a lot more limited and usually riskier, so I see no reason for them not to be much stronger.

Otherwise, defensive support is a legitimate, accepted thing already, and healing is, in theory, an entirely valid form of defensive support. Whether it works in practice depends on how things are tuned — if things do too much damage or there are too many control effects, then players will still have to avoid as much damage as possible and there’ll be no value to bringing a healer.

Dodges, self-defence skills, and self-healing skills don’t invalidate healing. Every single one of them either imposes a cost to DPS, imposes some sort of risk, or is simply too limited to use all the time.

I can really deal with all of the Druid changes and additions…

What needs to be adjusted are the pet attack mechanics (stopping before connecting with an attack) and Event Contribution through healing, rezzing, and defending.

Irenio states that the Zerk Meta will not be compliant going forward, but as it stands now the Zerk Meta is the only way to guarantee getting event credit.

If i want to heal my fellow adventurers and really be serious about it, i would have to concentrate on healing as my primary consideration. Why would i do this with the way anything is calculated in the current game ? Does not matter which game type is played PvP, WvW, PvE, damage is the only way to guarantee the maximum chance to get full credit.

Other players who will come in here and say it is all ok, more then likely have not Main healed in other games, most of those other games are structured to give a main healer credit for doing just that. GW2 is sorely lacking in this category.

This needs to be addressed quickly if you really want me and others to embrace the idea of what your vision of the Druid should be. If i know that i will get the same credit as a Zerk Meta player will, i will champion this class change 100%. Otherwise this is a skill i will ignore and go back to waiting for my Ranger to get fixed…. again.

As I’ve looked over the staff skills, glyphs and traits, and judging from what Irenio said on the stream concerning positioning, I’m starting to see a theme to the Druid’s playstyle, in that it’s supposed to be a highly mobile healer, which will primarily be augmented via Natural Stride and Ancestral Grace.

To that end, I would like clarification regarding CC effects on the Druid while in Ancestral Grace’s wisp form. Is it interruptible while the Druid is in transit? Can the wisp be locked down by immobility/knock down/cripple? I would definitely suggest clarifying the status of CC on Ancestral Grace’s tooltip.

I do believe that the Druid should be invulnerable to all CC and direct damage while in transit (i.e., while under the effects of Ancestral Grace). Condition stacks should still tick down but cannot be freshly applied during the skill’s duration. If this is too overpowering, maybe increase cooldown to ~15 seconds or decrease range to 1000?

The benefits to this would be to keep the Druid mobile as they use Ancestral Grace to move to or from their allies, use their heals or glyphs, and then move to the next person in need once Ancestral Grace comes off cooldown.

Counterplay to this? Prevent the skill from being usable while under hard crowd control. This allows enemies to engage in a sort of “whack a mole” fight with the Druid as they try to predict where they’re moving while a wisp, and then attempt to lock them down and keep them there before Ancestral Grace comes off cooldown. The Druid will be forced to pick the right time to use the skill so they don’t blow a critical escape when it is most needed.

Regarding the glyphs: I lean towards agreeing with the others who are saying their range might be too low, but I will take a wait and see approach with this before commenting. I want to see how they play with the rest of the Druid’s skillset before deciding they need alteration.

Off topic: I really do appreciate your work, Irenio, even if some others don’t get it. Thank you for caring about the Ranger, and I eagerly look forward to providing you with ample feedback on both the state of the base Ranger and the Druid; it’s far and away my favorite profession in the game and I want it to be the healthiest it can be!

Druid Traits
Druidic Clarity
This skill affects your pet as well, and grant 3s of resistance along with the condition removal upon transform.
Verdant Etching
This skill also turn all glyphs into stun-breakers.
Lingering Light (Cosmic Wisp)
The wisp also orbits your pet and grant 2s of protection along with the heal when it passes through an ally.
Ancient Seeds
This trait affects knocked back foes as well.

Staff
Solar Beam
This attack also pierces 5 targets and applies .5s of slow on each pulse.
Astral Wisp
The wisp also cleanses 1 condition each time it passes through an ally.
Ancestral Grace
This skill also damages enemies for the same base amount as the healing portion of the ability. The radius also increases to 650.
Vine Surge
The vines no longer immobilize. Instead this skill creates an impassable wall that lasts 3s and stuns enemies for 1s if it hits.
Sublime Conversion
This skill also becomes a light field.

Glyphs
All cooldowns must be drastically reduced for the effects they offer. At the moment, the glyphs do not compare with Mesmer mantras.

I think staff #1 should apply a 3 seconds of 1 burn at the end of it’s channel (so no more than 2 stacks at once with how slow it is, real slow application). Kind of like holding a magnifying glass to the light. And maybe some bleed to the vines. And a minor burn on the wisp (another word associated with flame and themes well with the sun).

All very minor applications just enough so the weapon can fit either power or condition builds without losing all application for 10 seconds. It has a place with power builds atm but very little for condition users. Because Rangers aren’t the most might-stacking class, and with low application, I wouldn’t be worried about running into more burn spike damage issues, and the weapon becomes more well rounded.

That’s just a personal thought. I feel like because the Druid is so invested in healing, the staff just begs to be a part of hybrid or settler type builds, since power builds usually require 2-3 stars to be totally effective, where condition builds typically do better with healing support (while remaining in any way slightly offensive).

Plus it just makes sense to have a bit of burn and bleed when harnessing the sun and vines.

Edit: One day I’ll learn to not do larger posts on my phone. Fixed the mess of auto-corrections.

I love those new pets but not really sure about the heal skill glyph. I fell that it should be atleast a sort of offensive support or something like that since all the druids skills are basically all heal. we also need that pet AI fixed, other than that I think its fair. if I didnt see those new pets I would have stopped playing but the pets with some good help on surviving condi and group fights does sound fair and support for PVE. i would have love the druid if it was more like a dps support buffer or something different like the solar beam should just give players Vigor than a heal because this too much heal on ranger skill will only make players depend on druids and I personally want them to do their own work too and learn how to dodge roll. there should also be some buff skills on glyphs rather than having it to just fully heal. also some good offensive that have condition damage to assist on build diversity with at least 3 set of weapons so that people won’t just do zerk.. i cant believe most player only think zerk is the only way tho since this build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8YjEqQNLWyCOsAVLGIEqdHCgqun3WPG4C40X9EulhrB-TpgPgAA7P0WGAA does work better than zerk also in pvp…

Dradiin.8935:

I can really deal with all of the Druid changes and additions…

What needs to be adjusted are the pet attack mechanics (stopping before connecting with an attack) and Event Contribution through healing, rezzing, and defending.

Irenio states that the Zerk Meta will not be compliant going forward, but as it stands now the Zerk Meta is the only way to guarantee getting event credit.

If i want to heal my fellow adventurers and really be serious about it, i would have to concentrate on healing as my primary consideration. Why would i do this with the way anything is calculated in the current game ? Does not matter which game type is played PvP, WvW, PvE, damage is the only way to guarantee the maximum chance to get full credit.

Other players who will come in here and say it is all ok, more then likely have not Main healed in other games, most of those other games are structured to give a main healer credit for doing just that. GW2 is sorely lacking in this category.

This needs to be addressed quickly if you really want me and others to embrace the idea of what your vision of the Druid should be. If i know that i will get the same credit as a Zerk Meta player will, i will champion this class change 100%. Otherwise this is a skill i will ignore and go back to waiting for my Ranger to get fixed…. again.

most rangers are on Zerk Meta build because they havent tried this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8YjEqQNLWyCOsAVLGIEqdHCgqun3WPG4C40X9EulhrB-TpgPgAA7P0WGAA

I agree with Ronpierce about adding some conditions to staff. Ideally staff should be a hybrid weapon that can be used in either power or condition builds since it is so well tuned for support.

Conditions would be especially helpful since the best offensive grandmaster trait, Ancient Seeds, is just begging to be used with a condition set up.

Ehecatl.9172:

I agree with Ronpierce about adding some conditions to staff. Ideally staff should be a hybrid weapon that can be used in either power or condition builds since it is so well tuned for support.

Conditions would be especially helpful since the best offensive grandmaster trait, Ancient Seeds, is just begging to be used with a condition set up.

agree with the addition of conditions , even though we have sharpen edges and a pet that only generates 8-12 bleeds (if you use a Lynx) sharpen edges needs a lot of Critical hits and doing so takes away from different gear choices having to take precision.

Vines : added bleeds
Solar beam : blind on 3rd hit (0.5second reason 0.5 seconds then even at 100% duration it will only reach 1second) supporting blinds from Range while healing , the blinds also add a form of damage migration.

Ehecatl.9172:

I agree with Ronpierce about adding some conditions to staff. Ideally staff should be a hybrid weapon that can be used in either power or condition builds since it is so well tuned for support.

Conditions would be especially helpful since the best offensive grandmaster trait, Ancient Seeds, is just begging to be used with a condition set up.

That’s exactly it, I love the idea of the vines, overall the Druid just screams conditions to me, or at least, condition compatibility, but not all parts totally support it yet, but there is still time. The staff should definitely be a bit more universal, and could be without throwing it’s balance out of whack.

Similarly, and another note, Irenio mentioned wanting to add some damaging capabilities to the blossom (#2 Astral skill, and traited glyph proc), to differentiate from the #1 heal. And to that, I suggest increasing the abysmal radius of 180 to 240 and adding a poison AOE burst to it. It’s essentially a mushroom or some other weird looking plant that swells up and explodes, it’s such a beautiful place to add a bit more condition damage for the Druid while accomplishing intended goals, adding utility to the Druid, and playing well with the Ranger’s niche of being one of the poison masters.

Just some thoughts.

ONE MORE THING! please fix the pet where when we jump off some cliff that they should also jump down with us or when we jump up or make them teleport to us, because there is nothing more annoying than a pet who you have to wait for ever to run towards you and to your target and by the time they arrive you are already dead… make the f2 instant cast without waiting to catch up to target and being out run just by jumping up and down a space..

Aomine.5012:

Mcrocha.3891:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Flaws in Glyphs:

Glyph of Empowerment
This ability won’t see any use whatsoever. Developers said it’s supposed to be the “Everybody, be alarmed, I’m going to pop this so use everything you got”

With all due respect. With 10% damage increase it’s mathematically incorrect to use it over any of our self-DPS boosts.
If it is supposed to be an active DPS buff (like mentioned) for a short amount of time, the damage has to be at least 20%.
I would personally prefer it to be an ability (let’s say … 40 sec CD?) that would boost all damage by 35% for 5 seconds (5 players).
Let’s be real. Time to Compare: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Feel_My_Wrath!%22

Empowerment will never be 20% buff. Much less 35% that is ridiculous and would be completely broken in pvp. Feel My Wrath isn’t really comparable because quickness doesn’t buff damage by a flat percentage, but is much more variable. Try to suggest something more realistic like giving it a small might application or something.

Speaks for yourself..

Quickness effectively increase the “DPS” by 45~50%.
DPS is a more accurate measure than Damage.

20% is not too much for merely 5 secs every 20 secs.

Otherwise makes it has at least 75% up time. (15 secs / 20 CD)

DPS is not a more accurate measure than damage because they are different things. Damage is just a single number equating to how much damage a single skill could produce. DPS assumes that every single action hits a target over a certain time frame to calculate the average damage one would produce per second.

Quickness gives the potential to do more damage over a specific time frame, but only if all of the extra actions allowed by the action speed increase connect with the target. This is a very important distinction when considering an environment like pvp where one cannot assume that all of the extra actions would produce damage on a target. Hence why, Quickness and a flat damage modifier such as GoE are not comparable. PvP-wise the overall effect of Quickness is difficult to track and relies on a number of unpredictable events, while a flat damage increase is a more realistic and predictable effect.

Mcrocha.3891:

Quickness gives the potential to do more damage over a specific time frame, but only if all of the extra actions allowed by the action speed increase connect with the target. This is a very important distinction when considering an environment like pvp where one cannot assume that all of the extra actions would produce damage on a target. Hence why, Quickness and a flat damage modifier such as GoE are not comparable. PvP-wise the overall effect of Quickness is difficult to track and relies on a number of unpredictable events, while a flat damage increase is a more realistic and predictable effect.

Except the low range means that if you even dodge, the damage from GoE is lost. It’s not a cast and forget skill at all- if anything, it’s much more limited than quickness- which is why it would make sense to increase the effect.

I really love the concept for Druid. There is 1 small thing that need to be tweaked, I’m not going to bother posting about skills or traits till I see them in action.

1) The Staff Idle Animation.
The staff Idle Animation being shown for Druid is very awkward… it’s the same animation that Daredevil and Revenant are using… Both of which, are using that animation for melee attacks. The idle animation for Druid, should be the same one as Ele, Mesmer, and Necromancer. The reason I say this, is because of Druid being used as more of a healer it should be put into the spell casting idle animation instead of the “I’m going to smack you” animation that Revenants and Daredevil are using.

Wolfey.3407:

I really love the concept for Druid. There is 1 small thing that need to be tweaked, I’m not going to bother posting about skills or traits till I see them in action.

1) The Staff Idle Animation.
The staff Idle Animation being shown for Druid is very awkward… it’s the same animation that Daredevil and Revenant are using… Both of which, are using that animation for melee attacks. The idle animation for Druid, should be the same one as Ele, Mesmer, and Necromancer. The reason I say this, is because of Druid being used as more of a healer it should be put into the spell casting idle animation instead of the “I’m going to smack you” animation that Revenants and Daredevil are using.

That’s not really how they are classified though. For the most part, the alternative stance use uses the staff as more of a focus and cast with their hands. And with Guardian staff 1 he just jabs with it. Druid holds it with two hands because they channel the magic out of the top of the staff. Because how old Druid is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the idle animation was created for the Druid first…

Sound nothing but logical Wolfey, I agree. I tried it on thief, and it didn’t bother me. However, if ele would have that animation it would bother me. While ranger may be a ‘melee-ish’ class (so far they did not use artificers – the mage class – weapons), Druid definitely is. It’s caster subtype now.

ronpierce.2760:

That’s exactly it, I love the idea of the vines, overall the Druid just screams conditions to me, or at least, condition compatibility, but not all parts totally support it yet, but there is still time. The staff should definitely be a bit more universal, and could be without throwing it’s balance out of whack.

Similarly, and another note, Irenio mentioned wanting to add some damaging capabilities to the blossom (#2 Astral skill, and traited glyph proc), to differentiate from the #1 heal. And to that, I suggest increasing the abysmal radius of 180 to 240 and adding a poison AOE burst to it. It’s essentially a mushroom or some other weird looking plant that swells up and explodes, it’s such a beautiful place to add a bit more condition damage for the Druid while accomplishing intended goals, adding utility to the Druid, and playing well with the Ranger’s niche of being one of the poison masters.

Just some thoughts.

That would be amazing. The poison burst makes sense thematically because of the flower explosion but also mechanically as you’d be providing healing and condi cleanse to allies while denying healing and applying a condition to enemies. I really enjoy skills that have a dual effect like that.

A good combo would be to open with Vine Surge and hit with the auto to proc Ancient Seeds, then activate the Avatar State and use Seed of Life on the target. Then start channeling Natural Convergence to cover your poison and bleeds and maybe ending with more immobilize to set up a burst with another weapon set.

ronpierce.2760:

Wolfey.3407:

I really love the concept for Druid. There is 1 small thing that need to be tweaked, I’m not going to bother posting about skills or traits till I see them in action.

1) The Staff Idle Animation.
The staff Idle Animation being shown for Druid is very awkward… it’s the same animation that Daredevil and Revenant are using… Both of which, are using that animation for melee attacks. The idle animation for Druid, should be the same one as Ele, Mesmer, and Necromancer. The reason I say this, is because of Druid being used as more of a healer it should be put into the spell casting idle animation instead of the “I’m going to smack you” animation that Revenants and Daredevil are using.

That’s not really how they are classified though. For the most part, the alternative stance use uses the staff as more of a focus and cast with their hands. And with Guardian staff 1 he just jabs with it. Druid holds it with two hands because they channel the magic out of the top of the staff. Because how old Druid is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the idle animation was created for the Druid first…

That’s fine, even if they are using the staff as a focus, why should they hold it horizontal when they idle instead of vertical? Keep in mind, i’m talking about when they are in idle, not when they are casting.

How It’s currently Held:
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/256daStaff.jpg

How I think it should be held:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n201/hk_2/GuildWars2/ele_staff_ilde2.jpg

Keep in mind also, with respect to casting, Necromancers cast with 1 hand while holding on to the staff but they aren’t holding the staff horizontally, they are holding it vertically.

I am disappointed with this Druid as a spec for Ranger. I feel the art and roll would fit better with another base profession. I solo play mostly (not very healer friendly) so I guess I get to use my old Ranger to farm with.

I was hoping for a “fight fire with fire” Mordrem style nature (dps, support) caster using the staff.

Lack of Conditions seems to be the biggest problem with Druid Staff line… Seems to be pushed more into Cleric vs Apothecary for example

Zeres.8713:

Amazing work Irenio.

I think everyone needs to accept its role as a healer/play it before going off on how mad you are, if you want to be dps.. don’t take druid lol.

And that’s the trouble. All the other professions got an additional line where there was a bit of something for everyone’s play style. Not so here.

Even so, the Elite Spec concept they’ve dribbled out over the past few months has come across as lukewarm at best. There’s nothing Elite feeling about them and I often wonder if ‘Elite’ was used in lieu of “Superfluous crap we tacked on for Heart of Thorns” just because.

I’m trying to be diplomatic and failing here. It’s my opinion – but opinions are tightly interwoven with perceptions of what is fun for the individual. To me Celestial Avatar is as stupid and as broken for the Ranger as Death Shroud is now for Necromancers.

This isn’t the Druid I’d hoped for- say an augmentation to Beastmastery that would have altered pets to make them ‘Dire’ versions as in D&D. Or a staff-wielding powerhouse.

I’d hoped for a Melee Staff with a three ability chain auto chain with the third strike offering a three hundred radius low level heal.

-Button two being a short recast bramble field which bleeds and a cripples those within it(immobilised if traited for.)

-Button three Thorns -a strong strike at the ground which does a low level point blank area damage and for a short duration gives the party combined protection and retaliation.

-Button four wasp swarm- summons a swarm of angry hornets to poison and slow your oponents- functions the opposite of the quickness enhancement.

-Button five Healing spring – take it from traps, keep the same cooldown or lower it and have every step fo the auto attack chain have the ability to proc a water finisher that heals all within the radius of the spring.

I was hoping for somethign that would take aspects of Beast Mastery, Nature Magic, and Survival and add a little something more to them. All to make a semi frontline healing/melee role that would synergise with those respective trees.

What you’ve showcased is such a radical departure from Druid. It leaves me wondering that if you were willing to squander development time and funds on something so completely different why not give Ranger something akin to the Druid above and just make the ‘Celestial’ its own class apart from rangers/druids- the same as the Revenant?

As it is- anybody who’d wanted to play the druid mentioned above will role a Ventari Revenant. And even then that will be sans pets. Which int he end won;t be nearly as fun as what we could have had.

If I had it my way, if I had the money to give you the time to do so I would say swallow the bitter pill, murder your darling, and develope the druid again from the ground up with more of an eye to the underlying class you’re building it over.

Oh how I wish to have Sharpening Stone cd go 5 sec lower without the trait line of survival.

Mincsk.6028:

I am disappointed with this Druid as a spec for Ranger. I feel the art and roll would fit better with another base profession. I solo play mostly (not very healer friendly) so I guess I get to use my old Ranger to farm with.

I was hoping for a “fight fire with fire” Mordrem style nature (dps, support) caster using the staff.

Smiles lol

I would say that the theme is actually a pretty good fit for the druid. The idea that the druid is all plants and animals is not really in line with a historical druid.

ranger does have dps. It can be argued that its not so good, but that’s a fit-it-up problem. they shouldn’t have to make the elite spec do more dps just to cover up what the ranger already has access too.

so if you want a dps/support build, you can do that with druid.

build:
celestial avatar (your defensive option)
longbow
another weapon
any utility skills you want, you don’t have to take the glyphs
two additional trait lines to pick from

ranger is arguably the most under-powered profession in the game
the druid will give the ranger a lot more options for builds and play styles.
my opinion.

Except the low range means that if you even dodge, the damage from GoE is lost. It’s not a cast and forget skill at all- if anything, it’s much more limited than quickness- which is why it would make sense to increase the effect.

Where are you getting that from?

I just listened to that section again, and he doesn’t seem to indicate whether or not the effect persists on the recipients individually ala’ Quickness or is in a constant state of reapplication ala’ Spirits.

They did accidentally show Glyph of Unity’s PR clip at first, which is the one with the Tethers that may have left you with a ‘constant reapplication’ impression. They had accidentally skipped ahead in the script and had to double-back, which made the video folks scramble a bit.

This is Glyph of Empowerment.
https://youtu.be/K2ZHhJQn0B8?t=10m19s

For what it’s worth, I think it’s Persistent ala’ Quickness.

The boon icon for Glyph of Empowerment doesn’t behave like Spirits’ boon icons; where the blinking speeds up as the effect is expiring and then refreshes itself as a big version of the icon that shrinks to a right-sized static image. The boon icon in the video is only a shrinky-dink once at the start of the skill, and only has fast blinking once at the end of the 5 second span – implying a single application.

Eric.7813:

Mincsk.6028:

I am disappointed with this Druid as a spec for Ranger. I feel the art and roll would fit better with another base profession. I solo play mostly (not very healer friendly) so I guess I get to use my old Ranger to farm with.

I was hoping for a “fight fire with fire” Mordrem style nature (dps, support) caster using the staff.

Smiles lol

I would say that the theme is actually a pretty good fit for the druid. The idea that the druid is all plants and animals is not really in line with a historical druid.

ranger does have dps. It can be argued that its not so good, but that’s a fit-it-up problem. they shouldn’t have to make the elite spec do more dps just to cover up what the ranger already has access too.

so if you want a dps/support build, you can do that with druid.

build:
celestial avatar (your defensive option)
longbow
another weapon
any utility skills you want, you don’t have to take the glyphs
two additional trait lines to pick from

ranger is arguably the most under-powered profession in the game
the druid will give the ranger a lot more options for builds and play styles.
my opinion.

Actually i think the disappointment in general is that the avatar state is solely focused in heals with redundant skills all over the place. The Druid brings a lot of CC and support which is a nice change against the selfish ranger mechanic.

To keep the healing theme would be enough just with the spamming of #1. And that’s actually good. The other avatar skills could be something more support oriented and somehow damage for rewards tagging purpose.
Also the Glyphs in avatar state would benefit alot from different mechanics than just heal heal heal.
To change the Avatar to be more group support instead just heal i think would make everyone happy.

Onne last point. The GM trait that reduce condition damage 33% when in Avatar State. Someone pointed out that is redundant to Seed of Life.

I agree. Could it be an permanent aura from the druid Spotter like? Although i would test it with 33% to see if it works, if it’s too overpowered it could be reduced to 20%.

Eric.7813:

I actually think thats a problem in this game. professions have these random 1 heal skills.
This whole idea that you can throw in a single heal skill and say you have a support role is a joke.
The tempest was revealed with a whole mosh-pit of skills. i feel like thats a big mess. I’d rather see a common theme with a specialization.The guardian is excellent at protecting and providing boons. However, there is really no class or spec that can come out and just provide noticeable healing. So changing the celestial avatar to be more support based, other than healing, would be kinda silly because we have tempest, guardian and ventari to fill that role.
" Thank gosh that water ele saved me" said no one ever.’
I think the game needs some noticeable healing niche.

Obviously you are misinformed as in the actual game Ele can blast enough healing in water to not need any druid around. you can not heal for more than 100%.
Ventari is quite strong as well.

I agree Druid shouldn’t be the same as the rest, simply work out the kind of support it’s not yet there.
Resistance is a boon is underused yet. Druid would be the perfect place to have it.

In this line changing Grace of the Land to work all the time while in combat spotter like would give us a differentiating point.
We have so many possibilities: Boon copying, Resistance, damage mitigation… Could make the Druid so much interesting than spam 1 to 0 to heal.

Edit: being thinking about Glyph of Empowerment. Some points made here are very valid, we already have frost spirit that gives the same boon. Even if we can place the spirit anywhere the glyph feels really meh and underwhelming. Insta DPS for the maul Quickening Zephyr like is not enough.
What about, and this is just for the sake of being unique, give for example 10 stacks of bloodlust like buff for 20 seconds. Each action executed (hit or not) will drain one stack of those, so the power of the attacks diminish with the use.

Ltomato.8649:

Mcrocha.3891:

Quickness gives the potential to do more damage over a specific time frame, but only if all of the extra actions allowed by the action speed increase connect with the target. This is a very important distinction when considering an environment like pvp where one cannot assume that all of the extra actions would produce damage on a target. Hence why, Quickness and a flat damage modifier such as GoE are not comparable. PvP-wise the overall effect of Quickness is difficult to track and relies on a number of unpredictable events, while a flat damage increase is a more realistic and predictable effect.

Except the low range means that if you even dodge, the damage from GoE is lost. It’s not a cast and forget skill at all- if anything, it’s much more limited than quickness- which is why it would make sense to increase the effect.

The buff is applied to allies not enemies so it can’t be dodged.

Solar beam buff up a little by adding damage and condition into in such as cripple or burn because it is solar i think it should have burn condi on it.

Astral wisp can add cripple into to synergy with Predator’s Onslaught

Glyph of empowerment can change to increase damage for 30% for 10 second and cooldown 15second so that we can buff the team not only healing them since druid dps is not so good then lets make us a healer and a good buffer to the Pve or else druid will be kick out from the entire pve world.

In master trait line i don’t see any useful trait in it

Celestial Shadow – When you leave Celestial form, you and your allies gain AoE superspeed and stealth for 2 second only seriously?

Verdant Etching – Reduce recharge of your glyphs by 20% and everytime you activate a glyph you plant a Seed of Life. It will cover the condition weakness that rangers typically had.

Natural Stride – Reduce duration of movement impairing conditions by 50-66% and your movement condition is increased by 33% (i.e. perm swiftness) as long you do not have any movement impairing conditions. Great trait for getting from place to place.

We can have perm swiftness even without natural stride warhorn 5 skill and change weapon and signet of hunt seriously idk that is natural stride is good for? maybe change into a damage modifier so druid can be more offensive rather than a healer without proper buff for the team. Storm Spirit sucks and glyph of empowerment not worth taking it so what? druid only healing? mehhhh

I feel as if the druid is very niche, it will see use in raids and maybe potentially limited use in WvW. WvW tends to be spike damage where healing isn’t always a good option, though in some cases it is, but water fields tend to do the jump good enough. Honestly, while I love the thought of being a healbot this really worries me. Ranger has not had a part of the game they actually shine, they’ve always been at best second best, but most of the time one of the worse options to pick from and they gave us a niche specialization. I worry that who ever designs this class doesn’t know what to do with Ranger. This is even more apparent to me after 3 years of pets still being very broken amongst other skills.

alex.5132:

Solar beam buff up a little by adding damage and condition into in such as cripple or burn because it is solar i think it should have burn condi on it.

In master trait line i don’t see any useful trait in it

Celestial Shadow – When you leave Celestial form, you and your allies gain AoE superspeed and stealth for 2 second only seriously?

Natural Stride – Reduce duration of movement impairing conditions by 50-66% and your movement condition is increased by 33% (i.e. perm swiftness) as long you do not have any movement impairing conditions. Great trait for getting from place to place.

We can have perm swiftness even without natural stride warhorn 5 skill and change weapon and signet of hunt seriously idk that is natural stride is good for? maybe change into a damage modifier so druid can be more offensive rather than a healer without proper buff for the team. Storm Spirit sucks and glyph of empowerment not worth taking it so what? druid only healing? mehhhh

I don’t think staff is supposed to be a condi weapon and I don’t want it to be a hybrid either. So no burn and I don’t think it should get cripple either as we already have immob on Vine Surge.

Celestial Shadow at 2s is fine; the game doesn’t need more stupid long duration stealth running around. 2s is enough to let allies escape/reposition which is the purpose of the trait.

Natural Stride is the WvW trait. With Hoelbrak/melandru runes and lemongrass food you have essentially perma immunity to immob, cripple, and chill so long as enemies aren’t running +condi duration food. You don’t have to take SotH or worry about swiftness.

It’s been mentioned elsewhere but I’ll strongly suggest that Glyph of Tides gets reversed. Its regular form should be drawing enemies in to set up whatever is about to happen next (Maul, Splitblade, coordinated bomb). In Avatar form, I’m focusing on healing me and/or my group so it’d make the most sense to get the enemies away. This could be made into a knockdown instead as Rangers are already hated for our usage of knockbacks...

The fundamental problem is Druid is like an entirely different profession, not a development of Ranger, and not appealing to those drawn to the Ranger play style.

There will be a big market for powerful support characters if HoT content comes through, so Druid will be played, but not by Rangers.

Rangers would have been a lot happier if you scrapped the pet code, and redesigned pets from the ground up to really be dynamic and almost an extension of the ranger in a second body, as it should have been from the beginning (else why is the ranger specialty a pet, when almost every profession is crawling with ‘pets’). That would have been a much more satisfying use of development time.

Pikka.6023:

The fundamental problem is Druid is like an entirely different profession, not a development of Ranger, and not appealing to those drawn to the Ranger play style.

There will be a big market for powerful support characters if HoT content comes through, so Druid will be played, but not by Rangers.

Rangers would have been a lot happier if you scrapped the pet code, and redesigned pets from the ground up to really be dynamic and almost an extension of the ranger in a second body, as it should have been from the beginning (else why is the ranger specialty a pet, when almost every profession is crawling with ‘pets’). That would have been a much more satisfying use of development time.

One of the issues you have to start to believe is that the Devs do not fundamentally know how to handle the ranger. If you’ve been around since launch as a ranger like I have, you’d see how much they have struggled. We still have pets that are very lackluster in almost all situations they either die to fast, easily dodgable or not responsive enough. Half of our skills are either worthless, or we already have another skill that is just much better, looking at you “Protect Me!” or the abilities are easily mitigated such as spirits dying easily. I do not expect anything different with druid, it would not surprise me if they see little to no use in HoT.

I know this isn’t really feedback, but it’s an idea that you might be interested in. With the HUGE focus on healing regarding the druid skills, we will likely see a lot of healing going to waste. How can this be fixed? Allow over-healing. A stacking shield kinda like lifeforce on necromancers. Stupid idea? Amazing idea? I like it at least.

It’s feedback in the sense that I see a potential problem with the amount of healing going to waste and am offering an idea on fixing that problem.

Mcrocha.3891:

Ltomato.8649:

Except the low range means that if you even dodge, the damage from GoE is lost. It’s not a cast and forget skill at all- if anything, it’s much more limited than quickness- which is why it would make sense to increase the effect.

The buff is applied to allies not enemies so it can’t be dodged.

The range on the tether is 300. Dodge roll is 300 range. If the tether is applied to an ally, and the ally dodges away or the druid dodges away, the tether is broken and the buff is completely lost.

Ltomato.8649:

Mcrocha.3891:

Ltomato.8649:

Except the low range means that if you even dodge, the damage from GoE is lost. It’s not a cast and forget skill at all- if anything, it’s much more limited than quickness- which is why it would make sense to increase the effect.

The buff is applied to allies not enemies so it can’t be dodged.

The range on the tether is 300. Dodge roll is 300 range. If the tether is applied to an ally, and the ally dodges away or the druid dodges away, the tether is broken and the buff is completely lost.

You’re talking about Glyph of Unity which is not the same as Glyph of Empowerment.

Oh. Glitch in the matrix. I could have SWORN Glyph of Empowerment tethered to allies…

OH! I rewatched the videos- empowerment was sandwitched in between unity and irenio mispoke and said “tethers to allies” when referencing unity instead of enemies which must be where I got that from. Hmm. Maybe it should tether allies

In that case, I don’t understand your argument that it’s any different from a quickness skill. The duration of it is short- which makes sense since it’s meant to be a burst skill, but it’s still less effective than say, a banner of disc/strength or revenant assassin’s presence. It’s just 10% more damage compared to quickness’s 50% more EVERYTHING.

Most quickness skills have a larger radius as well.

I’m not sure what your argument is against increasing the effect of the skill.

Would it be possible for some of the new condition removal skills/trait to affect the ranger’s pet as well?
The 3 that I saw were Seed of Life (CA2), Druidic Clarity (Adept Trait) and CA Glyph of Alignment.
I dont think Seed of Life could be changed given its a 1200 range ground targeted AoE skill but could 1 (or both) of the other sources affect the pet by default?

I’m a bit concerned that the combionation of Staff+Celestial avatar (and the 2 are clearly designed to be used together, as was even said before in a blogpost about chronomancer) is a bit lacking in general utility outside of healing. I’ll just go through those skills.

Staff:

1. Small heal, Small damage, long range, effect in a line
2. Decent heal, Medium damage, long range, small radius
3. Large heal, long range, small radius
4. Short CC, Condition cleanse, small damage, long range, effect in a line
5. Anti Projectile. Small Heal.

Transform:

1. Large Heal, long range, small radius
2. Good Heal, condition cleanse, long range, small radius
3. Huge Heal, cc, long range, normal radius, blast finisher
4. Huge Heal, small radius, water field
5. Stong CC in a decent radius.

Many of these skills are really really similar in fuctionality. I get that druid is designed to be a healer, but I think these skills are really one dimensional and don’t really have a lot of depth added to them. Any difficulty in using them is reduced to actually being able to hit your allies with your heals and outside of the one obvious waterfield and blastfinisher setup I’m not sure they have much synergy with each other. Both skillsets basically sound like having the same problem longbow had, before the skills were completely changed and the stealth element was introduced.

The other problem is that I don’t think there will be a lot to do in a large chunk of the time you fight, because (especially if you add a dedicated healer) a lot of the time people will just have full health. After that there isn’t really much you can do to protect your allies, and I don’t think just camping your other weapon set will be the best solution.

That being said, I obviously have to try it all out myself before I can give deeper feedback. I think the specialisation has it’s use, but a lot is keeping it from becoming truly great. My first reaction is that it could some more ways to deal a bit of damage to enemies (doesn’t need to be high at all) and access to boons like protection for your team. Maybe not Aegis, because that is really a guardian boon.

Ltomato.8649:

In that case, I don’t understand your argument that it’s any different from a quickness skill. The duration of it is short- which makes sense since it’s meant to be a burst skill, but it’s still less effective than say, a banner of disc/strength or revenant assassin’s presence. It’s just 10% more damage compared to quickness’s 50% more EVERYTHING.

Most quickness skills have a larger radius as well.

I’m not sure what your argument is against increasing the effect of the skill.

The argument is from a pvp perspective. Think about it this way: lets say Maul hits for 5000 damage. An Empowered Maul with a 20% increase as suggested would hit for 6000. Let’s say that if you had quickness you hit with Maul so you do 5000 and then auto attack once with the extra action speed gained from quickness. However, we can assume that the mauls hit in both situations, but there is no guarantee that the extra attack will hit because the actions of the opposing player may prevent it from hitting. In this scenario, Empowered Maul hit for an extra 1000 that quickness Maul did not. I hope that demonstrates how they are different.

The reason why I do not think 20% buff is appropriate is because it would make bursting too strong in pvp. Too much reward for too little cost(only 16s cd and possible heals+condi cleanse as well), not to mention that the reverse effect of 20% heal effectiveness would be very strong as well.

Just a few thoughts I wanted to add to the conversation. Overall I’m really impressed by the spec. It improves on rangers weaknesses and strengths as well. The mechanics are unique as is the flavor. It was all completely unexpected and I couldn’t be more excited to try it when HOT launches (real life plans for next weekend).

For all who are worried about the Druid’s damage. Please take a minute to read the base damage values on the staff tooltips. You can find them all here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid. Then, compare those values with the base damage values on our existing weapon sets. I think you’ll find the damage to be competitive, not to mention even edging out certain skills we already have. If you have any amount of experience with the base ranger class, this should be an easy comparison to make.

In terms of damage you also can’t ignore the pet. The introduction of base condition damage to ALL pets is a very real and significant buff. Not to mention the damage shown on the new pet f2s. Smokescale did around 9k on its f2? That’s without buffs like might and fury, or vuln stacked to max on the target. Furthermore even if Druid’s will need to sport some form of Healing Power gear to be competitive in new content, or pvp/wvw for that matter, the Druid will be sacrificing less personal damage because pet stats are unique.

Returning to the staff I think the weapon brings a great deal of utility. Kiting with it is going to be dreamy I think. Staff 5 looks fast enough to use reactively in pvp to avoid a burst. I am curious to see whether or not staff 3 will be available to us while disabled, in the same way mesmer movement abilities work. It would certainly help with the lack of stunbreaks, as moving 1200 range while stunned/dazed should be enough to get you away from the burst. Staff 4 looks really interesting to me. Does the 3 target cap apply to the entire skill? Or is it per wave? 3 targets per wave is what I would hope. I also wonder if we’ll be able to manipulate the skill in order to get off multiple hits on single targets.

As others have asked before me adding a damaging condition to Staff 4 would fit the weapon set quite well and guarantee it’s use in a much larger variety of builds.

Overall the Glyphs look impressive to me. We get all the pbaoe we’ve ever needed! As others have mentioned we do lack in stunbreaks if we go full Glyphs. That makes the base lack of stability a little more troublesome. I also don’t like how our one stunbreak is potentially one of the most altruistic skills we have. If we have to pop Glyph of Equality for ourselves 10 sec before our team needs it that’s gonna suck. Easy solution would be to add a stun break component to Glyph of Rejuvenation.

I also would like to see Glyph of Empowerment reduce incoming damage for your team, vs improving their healing. I think a damage reduction synergises well with your Celestial Avatar as your healing instantly becomes more useful.

Speaking of Celestial Avatar this thing looks absolutely amazing. I’m a bit worried we lose altogether too much counter pressure by using this form. Obviously it’s not meant to be an offensive powerhouse but a couple small changes would go a long way. Someone earlier mentioned adding a Poison tick to the seed of life. Seems awesome. Would see use with Poison Master trait as well. Irenio mentioned he wanted to add more functionality to Tidal Surge as well. Have this pulse Retaliation to allies you heal with this. The Druid still wouldn’t be boon heavy, but you would punish players a little for attacking you while an Avatar. It would also go well with your elite Glyph.

Overall I’m very excited for the Druid. My impression is that it just needs some small tweaks here and there. Good luck guys and have fun testing this beast next weekend!!!

I would always welcome adding support to my Ranger because I do enjoy helping the group out while dealing damage. Problem I’ve got is the Druid feels a bit out of place with the rest of the Ranger, and its just a healbot mode when you use the elite.

The elite for me is a major letdown, turning everything you do into heals. Meh. I definitely won’t be picking the elite, and if I have to because of the new content then I’m just going to either refuse and ignore people moaning or go to another class which I shouldn’t have to because the “healer” was essentially crammed into one class.

I found the new pets far more cooler than the Druid.

A thought occurs, if Space-cadet mode needs charging from active healing, won’t that kind of make any weapon other than staff useless?

Maybe one of the minor traits should add a small auto-heal to pet attacks, affecting both ranger and pet so as to provide a steady charge for non-staff gameplay.

Also switch the third minor with Natural Stride. Provides more utility throughout the whole game, rather than the extremely limited utility of the present set-up.

It may step on the toes of Signet of the Hunt, but SotH still has a damage increase utility to it.

Also someone suggested changing the colour scheme of staff to match the rest of ranger skills, providing a sort of day and night cycle to the two modes. This would make Starman mode less obnoxious and more of a contrast to the main class. I could live with ET form, then and I think it would make more sense for a lot more people, too.

Please change the staff holding animation to the caster version of it, and it would be nice if we get the pets instantly in the BWE coming up.
Otherwise I really like this spec and it’s quite unique. The only thing I’m worried about is how useful healing is going to be with the content besides raids/WvW. I’m currently waiting to try Druid out before I say what I think of it completely though.

Mcrocha.3891:

The argument is from a pvp perspective. Think about it this way: lets say Maul hits for 5000 damage. An Empowered Maul with a 20% increase as suggested would hit for 6000. Let’s say that if you had quickness you hit with Maul so you do 5000 and then auto attack once with the extra action speed gained from quickness. However, we can assume that the mauls hit in both situations, but there is no guarantee that the extra attack will hit because the actions of the opposing player may prevent it from hitting. In this scenario, Empowered Maul hit for an extra 1000 that quickness Maul did not. I hope that demonstrates how they are different.

The reason why I do not think 20% buff is appropriate is because it would make bursting too strong in pvp. Too much reward for too little cost(only 16s cd and possible heals+condi cleanse as well), not to mention that the reverse effect of 20% heal effectiveness would be very strong as well.

That’s true offensively regarding quickness vs empowerment, but quickness also provides a bonus defensively as well in that you can get off other skills quicker, right?

Also, just because your maul hits at 20% bonus damage doesn’t mean that the next attack will either- if your opponent reacts fast enough to a quickness’d auto after maul, then you’ll have forced a reaction that you can take advantage of, same as if you just had the 20% bonus damage. You’re also giving up a utility for it, that would likely provide extra control or mobility or defense.

Also consider that you’d have to trait very specifically into certain traits to get the reduced cooldown, heals and condi cleanse. I also suggested increasing the cooldown of the skill along with the damage increase to make it higher risk.

EDIT: I just checked again and it looks like the trait drops Seed of Life which isn’t an instant condi clear/heal either (although it is a small aoe), so it’s less defensively useful than say, traited survivals. so you do give up defense for the offense.

Also consider all of the new options that other specs are getting in terms of mobility, damage, and damage mitigation. Landing and timing the big hits to fall within the short duration is going to be harder than it sounds, I think, especially when contending with other taunts, invulns, and heals, and damage mitigation.

Dradiin.8935:

I can really deal with all of the Druid changes and additions…

What needs to be adjusted are the pet attack mechanics (stopping before connecting with an attack) and Event Contribution through healing, rezzing, and defending.

Irenio states that the Zerk Meta will not be compliant going forward, but as it stands now the Zerk Meta is the only way to guarantee getting event credit.

If i want to heal my fellow adventurers and really be serious about it, i would have to concentrate on healing as my primary consideration. Why would i do this with the way anything is calculated in the current game ? Does not matter which game type is played PvP, WvW, PvE, damage is the only way to guarantee the maximum chance to get full credit.

Other players who will come in here and say it is all ok, more then likely have not Main healed in other games, most of those other games are structured to give a main healer credit for doing just that. GW2 is sorely lacking in this category.

This needs to be addressed quickly if you really want me and others to embrace the idea of what your vision of the Druid should be. If i know that i will get the same credit as a Zerk Meta player will, i will champion this class change 100%. Otherwise this is a skill i will ignore and go back to waiting for my Ranger to get fixed…. again.

I believe people are forgetting that Druid is still a Ranger. They have pets that still tag mobs for credit. Also you still have off weapons for attacking and generating celestrial energy to pump out some quick heals.

Knighthonor.4061:

Dradiin.8935:

I can really deal with all of the Druid changes and additions…

What needs to be adjusted are the pet attack mechanics (stopping before connecting with an attack) and Event Contribution through healing, rezzing, and defending.

Irenio states that the Zerk Meta will not be compliant going forward, but as it stands now the Zerk Meta is the only way to guarantee getting event credit.

If i want to heal my fellow adventurers and really be serious about it, i would have to concentrate on healing as my primary consideration. Why would i do this with the way anything is calculated in the current game ? Does not matter which game type is played PvP, WvW, PvE, damage is the only way to guarantee the maximum chance to get full credit.

Other players who will come in here and say it is all ok, more then likely have not Main healed in other games, most of those other games are structured to give a main healer credit for doing just that. GW2 is sorely lacking in this category.

This needs to be addressed quickly if you really want me and others to embrace the idea of what your vision of the Druid should be. If i know that i will get the same credit as a Zerk Meta player will, i will champion this class change 100%. Otherwise this is a skill i will ignore and go back to waiting for my Ranger to get fixed…. again.

I believe people are forgetting that Druid is still a Ranger. They have pets that still tag mobs for credit. Also you still have off weapons for attacking and generating celestrial energy to pump out some quick heals.

Pet is the worst way to tag foes since most foes die in 2 secs in a zerg.

Plus they lack AOE, cleave, and range.