Guild Wars 2

origin.1496:

Mmmmm. Where’s their pet? Unless that hulking mass in the background is something, I spy no pet in their art.

Well, I mean you said it yourself. It’s a pet. As to what kind? Wyvern/Raptor/Trex dino pet things ala Jurassic Park pleeeeeeaaaaaaase? Plz plz plz plz plz plz…

I really hope Staff is a powerful sweeping cleaving melee weapon loaded with blast finishers. Two would be perfect.

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Looks a bit like an oakheart, which would be cool. Druid might have an entirely unique pet selection for all we know.

If it does turn out to be a melee staff I’d be fine with that, though I am still hoping for a ranged caster set up.

Am I the only one seeing the Druid transforming her left arm (by using her right-hand/staff to do it) into a treant/root arm?
Body-part shapeshifting?

Isn’t that creature on the right the head of the thing that was chasing a player during one of the HoT teaser videos? It was like a cross between a reptile and a feline. It chases a player until they leap off a ledge and glide into the mursaat city.

Mirage.6754:

Am I the only one seeing the Druid transforming her left arm (by using her right-hand/staff to do it) into a treant/root arm?
Body-part shapeshifting?

And after enough practice you become a harvesting node with guaranteed cinnamon sticks.

Mirage.6754:

Am I the only one seeing the Druid transforming her left arm (by using her right-hand/staff to do it) into a treant/root arm?
Body-part shapeshifting?

Looks like her hair to me.

Ehecatl.9172:

Mirage.6754:

Am I the only one seeing the Druid transforming her left arm (by using her right-hand/staff to do it) into a treant/root arm?
Body-part shapeshifting?

Looks like her hair to me.

I guess it does, too! But it doesn’t look much like Sylvari hair, as opposed to the leaves directly on top of her head…! I can hope ^^

So I went to Wikipedia to search for druid.
Turns out they were famous for making sacrifices.

It said: “These men predict the future by observing the flight and calls of birds and by the sacrifice of holy animals: all orders of society are in their power… and in very important matters they prepare a human victim, plunging a dagger into his chest; by observing the way his limbs convulse as he falls and the gushing of his blood, they are able to read the future.”

Imagine sacrificing your pet and your foes o.O

I also see the shadow thing in the background… could mean there might be new pets for druid/ranger with HoT?….

Medens.4960:

So I went to Wikipedia to search for druid.
Turns out they were famous for making sacrifices.

It said: “These men predict the future by observing the flight and calls of birds and by the sacrifice of holy animals: all orders of society are in their power… and in very important matters they prepare a human victim, plunging a dagger into his chest; by observing the way his limbs convulse as he falls and the gushing of his blood, they are able to read the future.”

Imagine sacrificing your pet and your foes o.O

In real life, yes they did perform sacrifices for certain rituals, but in almost all fantasy the generic Druid wouldn’t dream of sacrificing an animal for anything but the most dire of circumstances so I don’t see us actually doing that.

That being said if we get the bad kitten Druid that performs ritualistic sacrifices I’d be kittening ecstatic.

Mcrocha.3891:

jcbroe.4329:

At this point, why are we letting ourselves even debate what it could be?

Wednesday/Thursday blogs should drop, and Friday is the reveal. Time to buy a ton of alcohol to drink in either celebration or to forget an awful reveal, or make a drinking game and take a drink (not a shot, you might die) every time the devs look displeased to be talking about ranger, sigh, or have no idea what they are talking about in regards to Ranger (“most dangerous game looks really strong, it will definitely need toning down, hue hue hue”).

Agreed, everybody just calm down and wait for Wednesday since we at least know that Ranger wasn’t removed from the game LOL. Last prediction: Aspects will be seasonal and Druids will be walking Nature Rituals that pulse effects/environmental changes in a ~1200 range, which would very easily change the “pvp landscape”.

I like the way that sounds a lot

Medens.4960:

Imagine sacrificing your pet and your foes o.O

Isn’t that already happening in boss or bigger scale fights?

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Nothing can be as bad as Dragon Hunter folks, absolutely nothing…

Amineo.8951:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Nothing can be as bad as Dragon Hunter folks, absolutely nothing…

I think Dragon Hunter is cool. It might not be great, but I think the concept is nice.

Mcrocha.3891:

Amineo.8951:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Nothing can be as bad as Dragon Hunter folks, absolutely nothing…

I think Dragon Hunter is cool. It might not be great, but I think the concept is nice.

It should have been Sentinel instead of Dragon Hunter, that would’ve fit the class more, with wells instead of traps that give buffs to allies and condis to ennemies, improved virtues and CC Longbow skills…

here’s what I suspect:

If you choose Druid, your Pet gets replaced by one of those tree-thingies, they’ll get their own window for customizing like the normal pets. There’ll probably be 3+ trees to choose from.

Pet-swapping (F4) gets replaced by a powerful skill for the new pet.

They’ll be stronger than the normal pets, cuz there’s no more swapping. I guess there’ll be a healer tree, a power tree and a condition-tree or sth. like that.

Maybe there will also be an additional control-option, because rangers still have F5 unused. Could be an additional skill for the tree, or maybe a command to make them stay at a point – no leash range maybe? Maybe they even contest points now. Maybe there’s one tree with which you can swap places after a decent CD (90 seconds maybe).

It could be possible that the trees have stats depending on your own, so you can costumize the trees a bit more. I don’t think so though, cuz of balancing-concerns.

Staff could be similar to Necro-Staff: AoE ranged mixed Power/Condition DMG. Maybe some healing-spell with a water-field, probably some poison, bleed and stuff like that.

Amineo.8951:

Mcrocha.3891:

Amineo.8951:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Nothing can be as bad as Dragon Hunter folks, absolutely nothing…

I think Dragon Hunter is cool. It might not be great, but I think the concept is nice.

It should have been Sentinel instead of Dragon Hunter, that would’ve fit the class more, with wells instead of traps that give buffs to allies and condis to ennemies, improved virtues and CC Longbow skills…

Yeah, maybe if it was a sentinel, but it’s not, this is a sort of inquisitor version of guardian. This isn’t the guy who protects everyone, this is the guy who hunts down evil and puts an end to it, it’s selfish and it’s there to put an end to the target, not to help allies.

Amineo.8951:

Mcrocha.3891:

Amineo.8951:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Nothing can be as bad as Dragon Hunter folks, absolutely nothing…

I think Dragon Hunter is cool. It might not be great, but I think the concept is nice.

It should have been Sentinel instead of Dragon Hunter, that would’ve fit the class more, with wells instead of traps that give buffs to allies and condis to ennemies, improved virtues and CC Longbow skills…

afaik elite specs were supposed to be sideways of the main class not straight upgrade :P

although I dunno if the actuall reveal will be on wednesday – iirc the same guy was responsible for druid as was for scrapper and scrapper was “officially” revealed at thursday afternoon….. actually we may even not get anything before twitchcon with all reveal done at event…..

Durzlla.6295:

Amineo.8951:

Mcrocha.3891:

Amineo.8951:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Nothing can be as bad as Dragon Hunter folks, absolutely nothing…

I think Dragon Hunter is cool. It might not be great, but I think the concept is nice.

It should have been Sentinel instead of Dragon Hunter, that would’ve fit the class more, with wells instead of traps that give buffs to allies and condis to ennemies, improved virtues and CC Longbow skills…

Yeah, maybe if it was a sentinel, but it’s not, this is a sort of inquisitor version of guardian. This isn’t the guy who protects everyone, this is the guy who hunts down evil and puts an end to it, it’s selfish and it’s there to put an end to the target, not to help allies.

Yeah see, that lore/concept is cool to me. Guardians are like the light and virtuous and are hunting down and slaying the evil or unrighteous.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Amineo.8951:

Mcrocha.3891:

Amineo.8951:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

In b4 “druid is so bad I’m quitting”

…can I have your stuff?

Nothing can be as bad as Dragon Hunter folks, absolutely nothing…

I think Dragon Hunter is cool. It might not be great, but I think the concept is nice.

It should have been Sentinel instead of Dragon Hunter, that would’ve fit the class more, with wells instead of traps that give buffs to allies and condis to ennemies, improved virtues and CC Longbow skills…

afaik elite specs were supposed to be sideways of the main class not straight upgrade :P

although I dunno if the actuall reveal will be on wednesday – iirc the same guy was responsible for druid as was for scrapper and scrapper was “officially” revealed at thursday afternoon….. actually we may even not get anything before twitchcon with all reveal done at event…..

It would be frustrating a.f. if they won’t reveal anything before Friday, which is probably what’s going to happen , I’m afraid

If we’re lucky and behave like good lil’ rangers we’ll get a blog post or write up detailing skills and abilities tomorrow. Otherwise Friday will be the Absolute earliest because that’s the first day of TwitchCon.

Next week seems more likely. They’ll probability announce the new talk show at TwitchCon, Guild Chat.

• Agreed, everybody just calm down and wait for Wednesday since we at least know that Ranger wasn’t removed from the game LOL. Last prediction: Aspects will be seasonal and Druids will be walking Nature Rituals that pulse effects/environmental changes in a ~1200 range, which would very easily change the “pvp landscape”.

That would kitten off every single Herald Player because their stuff only pulses in a 600 Radius.

NapTooN.6283:

• Agreed, everybody just calm down and wait for Wednesday since we at least know that Ranger wasn’t removed from the game LOL. Last prediction: Aspects will be seasonal and Druids will be walking Nature Rituals that pulse effects/environmental changes in a ~1200 range, which would very easily change the “pvp landscape”.

That would kitten off every single Herald Player because their stuff only pulses in a 600 Radius.

Well, there are no Herald players right now, only people who have played around with it at a Beta event, If the Druid performs better than the Herald at whatever playstyle they want to play, they can just play Druid. Since nobody has a Revenant character they have put time into, its a mute point really.

I just want some ground targeted staff AoE tbh with ally buffs and enemy debuffs, as well as synergistic traits.

Halan.7931:

Amineo.8951:

It should have been Sentinel instead of Dragon Hunter, that would’ve fit the class more, with wells instead of traps that give buffs to allies and condis to ennemies, improved virtues and CC Longbow skills…

“Wells that give buffs” are called Consecrations.

Only one Consecration gives a buff, stability, but all we wanted was something different to play, it’s obvious that the devs does not know how to make Guardian different and fix issues like Shield/Tomes/Spirit Weapons.
I main Guardian for 2 years now and needless to say I’m very disappointed with what we got: Useless Traps 4 times inferior to Thief and 7 times inferior to Ranger, even the changes made are pathetic and I hope you guys does not get the same treatment for the Druid…

Amineo.8951:

Useless Traps 4 times inferior to Thief and 7 times inferior to Ranger,

What? No.

A Ranger and a DH working together laying traps in WvW is gonna be devastatingly good.

Huh, I hadn’t considered a ranger dragonhunter duo. Both with trapper runes will be incredibly aggravating to fight. Gonna be great.

my favorite teaser artwork personally

Well spiritually, real life Druids use the Animal skin to become one with the animals.

this is where fantasy rpg get the concept of Druids shapeshifting into Animals. Because thats what the Druid priest would do, spiritually using the animal’s skin and wearing it over their body like a cloak.

Do you have a source for that, Knighthonor? Because I can’t recall reading any myths or informative documentary pieces about the druids that said they wore animal skins to become one with animals.

The only thing druids did with animals was sacrifice them. Druids were prophets and healers and wielded magic in general. They weren’t any more focused on nature than your typical wizard.

Ehecatl.9172:

Do you have a source for that, Knighthonor? Because I can’t recall reading any myths or informative documentary pieces about the druids that said they wore animal skins to become one with animals.

The only thing druids did with animals was sacrifice them. Druids were prophets and healers and wielded magic in general. They weren’t any more focused on nature than your typical wizard.

Druids were very much so tied to nature, most of their rituals paid very close attention to the alignment of the celestial bodies and important dates such as Equinoxs. And I’ve heard the same thing as Knighthonor.

Keep in mind the only documents we have on anything Druid related also comes from 3rd party. Druids were not too keen on sharing info with outsiders, and everything we have on them was observed, not first hand.

Knighthonor.4061:

Well spiritually, real life Druids use the Animal skin to become one with the animals.

this is where fantasy rpg get the concept of Druids shapeshifting into Animals. Because thats what the Druid priest would do, spiritually using the animal’s skin and wearing it over their body like a cloak.

Citation needed?

The only natural affinity Druids had was the general reverence for the natural world held by they Celts and the Druids were simply the priests of those faiths and frankly that’s about the limit of what is known about them.

All this shape shifting and animal bonding stuff is things that got tacked on in fantasy novels and games.

“A druid (Irish: druí; Welsh: derwydd) was a member of the educated, professional class among the Celtic peoples of Gaul, Britain, Ireland, and possibly elsewhere during the Iron Age. The druid class included law-speakers, poets and doctors, among other learned professions, although the best known among the druids were the religious leaders.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid

I am aware of that, but what you described isn’t very different than many religious groups. They weren’t any more tied to nature than any other tribal shamanistic caste you might find. In the myths the word druid was basically synonymous with sorcerer.

And I am aware most of the information comes from Roman observers and are probably heavily slanted toward demonizing them. I’d still like a source in case he’s read something I have not, but I’ve never read that they wore animal skins to become one with animals. A LOT of what we imagine when we think of druids in fantasy was fabricated fairly recently and has no basis in historical truth.

That was my point. The very little we do know is basic stuff. There’s virtually no hard details just as there’s very little of any had details on any of the British Isle cultures prior to the Roman arrival.

Pretty much anytime someone says “Druids were/did ____” it’s something that got tacked on, most likely in the modern era.

Mmm.
Something something Samhain, yadda yadda pagan precursor to halloween costumes?
Maybe?

You know, most people look at that picture and play ‘guess the background monster’. And I’m just sitting here wondering if the grass-covered-ground rising up is a significant element of a staff casting animation, or if somebody’s just doing a solid job of not drawing feet.

Substance E.4852:

That was my point. The very little we do know is basic stuff. There’s virtually no hard details just as there’s very little of any had details on any of the British Isle cultures prior to the Roman arrival.

Pretty much anytime someone says “Druids were/did ____” it’s something that got tacked on, most likely in the modern era.

Sorry, I wasn’t responding to you. I was responding to Durzlla’s response to me and didn’t see your post until I sent mine!

I agree with you on what you said.

Ehecatl.9172:

Substance E.4852:

That was my point. The very little we do know is basic stuff. There’s virtually no hard details just as there’s very little of any had details on any of the British Isle cultures prior to the Roman arrival.

Pretty much anytime someone says “Druids were/did ____” it’s something that got tacked on, most likely in the modern era.

Sorry, I wasn’t responding to you. I was responding to Durzlla’s response to me and didn’t see your post until I sent mine!

I agree with you on what you said.

lol funny how these forums work sometimes.

Guys that’s clearly a Quaggan as a pet.

Screw the staff or whatever pet shaped smudge it is on the background. Look at that shoulderpad, we will have a tiny zoo on our shoulders!

Our elite should be “Summon Wicker Man”, accompanied with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WddjLLFxoow