Guild Wars 2

Honestly, even if we have access to CA on demand, healing is still pretty much subpar. The game is designed to never have hardcore trinity; hence, the whole combat revolves around that principle. It’s simple, how can you be effective healer when there’s no ally targeting to be used? or you can’t see their HP? You AoE da crap out of your heal hoping that it will heal something or someone. That’s healing for GW2. Fortunately, due to the stacking-friendly environment, it works to some degree. The healing mechanic, though not entirely mediocre, is… kinda meh. It works but it’s nothing to be in awe for.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Swagger.1459:

This is exactly what I’m talking about with you.

Nothing was implied. Don’t assume. Improve your reading comprehension.

Write less and read more.

Thanks

That’s fine by me… But you were the 1st to imply that I’m out of touch when I said that Ranger is not supposed to be the healer as in other MMOs (which you agree on… ?). Then you misinterpreted an expression I then explained. Then you felt offended.

Anyways:
As you already said. Druid is supposed to be the burst and best healer which he now already is. Quality of Life changes for CAF #1 and #2 are only thing and exactly what we need. (4th time I’m saying this already?)

Not sure about staff#5 being a dome, we already have Axe for dome-like reflect. But I’d definitely improve it for higher healing for a set amount of projectile damage converted, though. Having it a pure Astral Bar filler feels extremely wrong.

I enjoy reading your spin doctoring and assumptions. Won’t work on me unfortunately.

And this is what I mean with you being out of touch with just about everything… You actually made a comparison to a reflect from axe and a dome from staff that would heal from incoming projectiles… Sigh.

And raids are coming so we shall see just how poorly the Druid healing goes…

Swagger.1459:

And raids are coming so we shall see just how poorly the Druid healing goes…

Will probably be better than the Guardians…

Swagger.1459:

Tragic Positive.9356:

There is one huge difference that people don’t understand.

Druid is not supposed to be the healer. He is supposed to be a healing support. And that part he fits as good as he can. If you can’t adapt to that – that’s nobody’s else fault. Druid is supposed to bring sustain and utility. Not to mean unstoppable 4K healing per second cleansing nonsense.

This game doesn’t work on a triangle Tank>Dmg>Heal setup and never will. Druid in a party/raid doesn’t mean a Healing Power, Healing Power and Healing Power build. It means a Support that helps the raid recover from mistakes and damage that can’t be mitigated. And that he does. Druid is a good specialization that fits into GW2.
If your party keeps making mistakes more often than once every 10 seconds – your party is cursed to fail any content you are in.

If you can’t understand that people are responsible for their own HP and “healers” are only meant to cover mistakes and damage that simply can’t be avoided (out of energy when people already dodged some of the attacks or pulsing dmg aura from raids) – than it implies that you just might have a wrong idea about this game.

Because your goal in party is not to heal. Your goal as a druid in party is the same as everybody’s else. To defeat the content. If your healing is not needed – don’t use healing traits from druid and go the full booster that is incredibly powerful.

Druid is supposed to be the burst healer and the best healer.

Yes they are making “roles” because raids will require them.

Your post is out of touch with what’s going on.

I suggest you read up about raids so you’re in the loop…

This is bullkitten, isn’t true, and shouldn’t be true. Ventari is literally 25% of revs entire class, and can dole out substantial healing. The druid shouldn’t be the only healer, nor the best.

Engis have a complete heal tree that needs reworking along with the medit.

Ele should also have a viable heal spec with water, but not to the tier of druid and Rev.

Druids have a single spec devoted entirely too healing. So do the above, especially rev

Malpractice.7850:

Swagger.1459:

Tragic Positive.9356:

There is one huge difference that people don’t understand.

Druid is not supposed to be the healer. He is supposed to be a healing support. And that part he fits as good as he can. If you can’t adapt to that – that’s nobody’s else fault. Druid is supposed to bring sustain and utility. Not to mean unstoppable 4K healing per second cleansing nonsense.

This game doesn’t work on a triangle Tank>Dmg>Heal setup and never will. Druid in a party/raid doesn’t mean a Healing Power, Healing Power and Healing Power build. It means a Support that helps the raid recover from mistakes and damage that can’t be mitigated. And that he does. Druid is a good specialization that fits into GW2.
If your party keeps making mistakes more often than once every 10 seconds – your party is cursed to fail any content you are in.

If you can’t understand that people are responsible for their own HP and “healers” are only meant to cover mistakes and damage that simply can’t be avoided (out of energy when people already dodged some of the attacks or pulsing dmg aura from raids) – than it implies that you just might have a wrong idea about this game.

Because your goal in party is not to heal. Your goal as a druid in party is the same as everybody’s else. To defeat the content. If your healing is not needed – don’t use healing traits from druid and go the full booster that is incredibly powerful.

Druid is supposed to be the burst healer and the best healer.

Yes they are making “roles” because raids will require them.

Your post is out of touch with what’s going on.

I suggest you read up about raids so you’re in the loop…

This is bullkitten, isn’t true, and shouldn’t be true. Ventari is literally 25% of revs entire class, and can dole out substantial healing. The druid shouldn’t be the only healer, nor the best.

Engis have a complete heal tree that needs reworking along with the medit.

Ele should also have a viable heal spec with water, but not to the tier of druid and Rev.

Druids have a single spec devoted entirely too healing. So do the above, especially rev

Where did I say they should be the “only healer”?

Don’t blame me, that’s essentially how Druid was advertised at twitchcon. I’m just the disappointed end user. Go look up the twitchcon transcripts or watch the video… You’ll also see our pets performing better too lol. Way to sell guys! GG

Here ya go pal…

http://dulfy.net/2015/09/25/gw2-druid-ranger-elite-specialization-livestream-reveal/

Three quarters of the time I don’t even bother with skills #1, #2 or #5 (unless I’m trying to knock down a break bar) because the first two are too difficult to reliably hit unless dealing with a group of melee mindlessly hacking away at an enemy.

Skill #3 is great since it’s got a large enough AoE that I can reliably hit what I’m trying to heal and #4 is just downright amazing, though I wouldn’t mind seeing a slight radius increase.

Swagger.1459:

Malpractice.7850:

Swagger.1459:

Tragic Positive.9356:

There is one huge difference that people don’t understand.

Druid is not supposed to be the healer. He is supposed to be a healing support. And that part he fits as good as he can. If you can’t adapt to that – that’s nobody’s else fault. Druid is supposed to bring sustain and utility. Not to mean unstoppable 4K healing per second cleansing nonsense.

This game doesn’t work on a triangle Tank>Dmg>Heal setup and never will. Druid in a party/raid doesn’t mean a Healing Power, Healing Power and Healing Power build. It means a Support that helps the raid recover from mistakes and damage that can’t be mitigated. And that he does. Druid is a good specialization that fits into GW2.
If your party keeps making mistakes more often than once every 10 seconds – your party is cursed to fail any content you are in.

If you can’t understand that people are responsible for their own HP and “healers” are only meant to cover mistakes and damage that simply can’t be avoided (out of energy when people already dodged some of the attacks or pulsing dmg aura from raids) – than it implies that you just might have a wrong idea about this game.

Because your goal in party is not to heal. Your goal as a druid in party is the same as everybody’s else. To defeat the content. If your healing is not needed – don’t use healing traits from druid and go the full booster that is incredibly powerful.

Druid is supposed to be the burst healer and the best healer.

Yes they are making “roles” because raids will require them.

Your post is out of touch with what’s going on.

I suggest you read up about raids so you’re in the loop…

This is bullkitten, isn’t true, and shouldn’t be true. Ventari is literally 25% of revs entire class, and can dole out substantial healing. The druid shouldn’t be the only healer, nor the best.

Engis have a complete heal tree that needs reworking along with the medit.

Ele should also have a viable heal spec with water, but not to the tier of druid and Rev.

Druids have a single spec devoted entirely too healing. So do the above, especially rev

Where did I say they should be the “only healer”?

Don’t blame me, that’s essentially how Druid was advertised at twitchcon. I’m just the disappointed end user. Go look up the twitchcon transcripts or watch the video… You’ll also see our pets performing better too lol. Way to sell guys! GG

Here ya go pal…

http://dulfy.net/2015/09/25/gw2-druid-ranger-elite-specialization-livestream-reveal/

I guess I didnt mean to say “only” healer, but i do not like the communities “Druids the best healer, and should be” (Not just ranger forums)
As i think Ventari should be equally good at healing, more toward sustain, where both are needed/desired for different reasons.

I also believe Engineers and Eles should be under them, as servicable backup healers.

I also believe the Guardian, Warrior should have the capabilities to be a full blown tank, along with taunts and taking aggro, to allow the first part to happen. And for that matter, in the same stroke, Scrapper and Revenant being able to but far less efficient at it.

Swagger.1459:

The Druid experience…

-Must do damage to generate AF.

-Damage draws aggo and red circles from adds, mobs and bosses.

-Adds, mobs and bosses have different ranged, aoe, area… attacks or they chase you around.

-Everbody, including myself, needs to constantly dodge and “bob and weave” to stay alive because that’s how gw2 was designed.

-Among the dodging, red circle, graphics blur from powers… madness, I notice those barely noticeable health bars going down and proceed to enter CA form to save my team…

-Players then fall one by one because everyone body is running outside of my little heal circles and I can’t catch them because I’m all over the place too getting chewed up by mobs and red ground damage. Alternatively, I can jump in the fray and get chewed up there while some of these animations are taking forever…

Conclusions…

GW2 lacks all the proper design and support mechanics for team healing.

This Druid design is only efficient and helpful when the team is standing still, stacked up tightly and you do not have any aggro on you.

The design of this healer spec has limited viability and effectiveness in any “harder” content.

I find this to be the case with pugs. When I run wvw, fractals and dungeons with people that know how to play around the druid this is not the case.

What my group has adapted is two different methods to make the healer effective.

1. We move in a (counter)clockwise motion around an agro’d target with me behind them so its predictable for my healing. This way they are always in the way of solar beam and wisp. Additionally I can throw 5 ahead and then ancestral grace to them and they can additionally also blast the field. CF its pretty much the same thing, I can place seeds in advance and blast them for retal with lunar impact or move up and use 4 and place 1’s in front as we circle around. The only issue with this method is you can make your self dizzy in some of the higher scale fractals where things just take longer.
2. For the second tactic they have my druid take agro ( I have high toughness/medium damage) so its fairly easy. Then they place them selves behind the group of mobs while I tank and throw out heals on top of the mob so that my group behind it and my self gets the heals. This is really only done in CF.

I think a lot of people are still not used to having a healer in the mix and do not think about their positioning in relation to their healer. I still see many people shuffle back and forth or run erratically around with makes it hard(if not impossible) to land our healing skills where as if they were to move in a straight line it would be easier.

I do agree that some of our skills have small areas of effectiveness. However, I think landing them will become much easier with people getting used to the druid in group same goes with druids getting used to their skills. Cordinated healing is very viable. Druid/Ranger brings a lot to the table in support being it dps, dmg modifers for the group and heals.

A full clerics druid allowed us to stack for 80-100 fractals. We were able to finish runs quickly, using close range weapons for more damage. They also healed us through the agony instability of 91-100. It made 100 Mai Trin soooo much faster. But we also had a chronomancer assisting with blur wells to alleviate some damage.

healing in druid is a waste of time, CAF a disappointment because of the lack of actual skills, and staff is a joke.
even our sustain using healing got the axe so we cant even sustain ourselves when we are healing others… definitely something must change in Anet to get a working class.
i will not spend a dime in this game until i see this company addressing this problems my advise is for you to do the same.

and funny videos showing how anet does not care about their product also helps.

Eval.2371:

Swagger.1459:

The Druid experience…

-Must do damage to generate AF.

-Damage draws aggo and red circles from adds, mobs and bosses.

-Adds, mobs and bosses have different ranged, aoe, area… attacks or they chase you around.

-Everbody, including myself, needs to constantly dodge and “bob and weave” to stay alive because that’s how gw2 was designed.

-Among the dodging, red circle, graphics blur from powers… madness, I notice those barely noticeable health bars going down and proceed to enter CA form to save my team…

-Players then fall one by one because everyone body is running outside of my little heal circles and I can’t catch them because I’m all over the place too getting chewed up by mobs and red ground damage. Alternatively, I can jump in the fray and get chewed up there while some of these animations are taking forever…

Conclusions…

GW2 lacks all the proper design and support mechanics for team healing.

This Druid design is only efficient and helpful when the team is standing still, stacked up tightly and you do not have any aggro on you.

The design of this healer spec has limited viability and effectiveness in any “harder” content.

I find this to be the case with pugs. When I run wvw, fractals and dungeons with people that know how to play around the druid this is not the case.

What my group has adapted is two different methods to make the healer effective.

1. We move in a (counter)clockwise motion around an agro’d target with me behind them so its predictable for my healing. This way they are always in the way of solar beam and wisp. Additionally I can throw 5 ahead and then ancestral grace to them and they can additionally also blast the field. CF its pretty much the same thing, I can place seeds in advance and blast them for retal with lunar impact or move up and use 4 and place 1’s in front as we circle around. The only issue with this method is you can make your self dizzy in some of the higher scale fractals where things just take longer.
2. For the second tactic they have my druid take agro ( I have high toughness/medium damage) so its fairly easy. Then they place them selves behind the group of mobs while I tank and throw out heals on top of the mob so that my group behind it and my self gets the heals. This is really only done in CF.

I think a lot of people are still not used to having a healer in the mix and do not think about their positioning in relation to their healer. I still see many people shuffle back and forth or run erratically around with makes it hard(if not impossible) to land our healing skills where as if they were to move in a straight line it would be easier.

I do agree that some of our skills have small areas of effectiveness. However, I think landing them will become much easier with people getting used to the druid in group same goes with druids getting used to their skills. Cordinated healing is very viable. Druid/Ranger brings a lot to the table in support being it dps, dmg modifers for the group and heals.

With all due respect, people should not “get use to Druid” or have to move in tight-nit/ultra coordinated formations for a Druid to heal effectively. Very rarely, on the pvp and wvw battlefield, will such things occur. Druid should have the right tools to do THEIR job, not people follow the heal spam. It’s a bad bad design period.

Sure, as the poster below you stated, which I already stated, stacking up and standing still is the only viable way to play Druid. Honestly, Druid Staff and CA healing design is bad overall.

Listen guys, I played city of heroes for a long long time and my list of charaters for pve, raids, arena and pvp zone included…

-fire blast/pain domination corruptor- heal/buffer/support damage

-dark blast/kinetic corruptor- buffer/support damage

-earth control/force field controller- cc/disruption/buffer

-electric control/force field controller- cc/disruption/buffer

-fire control/force field controller- cc/disruption/buffer

-gravity control/force field controller- cc/disruption/buffer

-ice control/force field controller- cc/disruption/buffer

-illusion control/force field controller- cc/disruption/buffer

-fire control/kinetics- cc/buffer/support and farming tool

-kinetics/electric blast defender- buff/support

-empathy/psychic blast defender- heals/buff/support

-mind control/psionic assault dominator- cc/damage

-gravity control/fiery assault dominator- cc/damage

Any many many more different kinds of characters and combinations…

City of heroes was 10x more fast paced than gw2, yet, healing and buffing and support and cc and disruption and you name it… was far less frustrating. I was able to support teams of up to 8 players at a time effectively, even before the devs made a change to powers that made buffs aoe in nature so I didn’t have to click on each name plate. There were also built in aoe buffs/heals/support, and other cool functioning power designs too, that made doing your job/role while focusing on the action easier and, well, more fun.

Here everything is designed to just stack/buff/burn, stack/buff/burn, stack/buff/burn, stack/buff/burn… but guess what devs and players? That design mentality doesn’t translate will to the movement heavy/dodge heavy/red circle heavy meta… Druid reticle aim healing will work just fine standing at dragon toes and tight corners for now…, but we are not just in Orr anymore farming champs and stacking in each corner of every cave/dungeon/fractal anymore. The gameplay is changing and that is apparent with HoT. Druid (and Ventari) healing is barely effective and tolerable in the new zones and won’t really work for spvp or wvw in the long run because it’s not about stacking tightly in corners there.

If any of you played city of heroes you will know what I mean by this… Many aspects of that game were, and still, far superior to what we have to play with here, and in most other games, when you get down to the core of things. That game was overshadowed by wow because everybody loves dragons and swords, but city was a diamond in the rough when it came to “professions”, powers, movement, customization, overall gameplay, balance along with variety, roles, filling in roles as back up, play/counter play in pvp… I guarantee that any developer here who played city of heroes will agree that they got a crap ton right. They will also tell you that city was hands down the most fun to play game out there too, and that’s because those developers payed attention to, and implemented, “easy to play and difficult to master” designs. They also really asked themselves (as somebody here asked himself), “is it fun”, but their idea was really about fun gameplay for the end users. It’s not like the “let’s do everything frustratingly different” for professions and combat here kind of fun, where the devs are trying to backtrack on “things” like fitting in healing and tanking, along with all the systems and designs that need to be in place for those things to happen.

For everything the devs have gotten right with gw2, they have also gotten a lot wrong with the most vital parts of the game… And those are profession designs, power designs, condition designs, stealth designs, power counter play… Sure, they made a great dodge rolling, auto attack dps, and self healing/sufficiency game, but those designs are falling flat by what we see them trying to do with gameplay now vs what they are giving us to play. Essentially, what I’m saying is that it is very clear the pace of profession development is poor and slow compared to the content coming out. Subpar profession designs and combat mechanics have been clearly seen in wvw and spvp form the beginning, but HoT gives a taste of how lacking and one dimensional professions truly are as the dev team moves forward with new content.

Swagger.1459:

With all due respect, people should not “get use to Druid” or have to move in tight-nit/ultra coordinated formations for a Druid to heal effectively. Very rarely, on the pvp and wvw battlefield, will such things occur. Druid should have the right tools to do THEIR job, not people follow the heal spam. It’s a bad bad design period.

Sure, as the poster below you stated, which I already stated, stacking up and standing still is the only viable way to play Druid. Honestly, Druid Staff and CA healing design is bad overall.

Why shouldn’t they get used to druid(and ventari)? the concept of having a support that is healing focused is new to our previous gameplay. Before support was only boons, reflects and damage boosts. Many people are used to managing their own health; doing things like OC or strafing back and forth. Now there is two specs that can be healing focused. People have to unlearn certain habits and form new ones to make the party more effective with these new additions. Is it perfect? no. Is it viable? yes.

Swagger.1459:

Listen guys, I played city of heroes for a long long time […]

Any many many more different kinds of characters and combinations…

City of heroes was 10x more fast paced than gw2, yet, healing and buffing and support and cc and disruption and you name it… was far less frustrating. I was able to support teams of up to 8 players at a time effectively, even before the devs made a change to powers that made buffs aoe in nature so I didn’t have to click on each name plate. There were also built in aoe buffs/heals/support, and other cool functioning power designs too, that made doing your job/role while focusing on the action easier and, well, more fun.

I think part of the problem is your wanting gw2 to be this game here. Don’t get me wrong I am sure city of heroes is great and there is many things gw2 could take from it but its a completely different setting. CoH has a hard triangle, something this game doesn’t have and its a larger one too. CoH also as a much more flexible and broad class system where as were more simplified. I could go on about the differences but it would just be a waste of space. At the end of the day they are two different games. If you like their system so much why are you on this?

Swagger.1459:

Here everything is designed to just stack/buff/burn, stack/buff/burn, stack/buff/burn, stack/buff/burn… but guess what devs and players? That design mentality doesn’t translate will to the movement heavy/dodge heavy/red circle heavy meta… Druid reticle aim healing will work just fine standing at dragon toes and tight corners for now…, but we are not just in Orr anymore farming champs and stacking in each corner of every cave/dungeon/fractal anymore. The gameplay is changing and that is apparent with HoT. Druid (and Ventari) healing is barely effective and tolerable in the new zones and won’t really work for spvp or wvw in the long run because it’s not about stacking tightly in corners there.

I totally agree with you on how encounters are changing. It’s exciting that mobs are finally making people move around and breaking up stacking. This means that coordination skills will be even more valuable and set apart the bad players and the half decent players.

Druid is fine in spvp. You can bunker down, or easily +1 and tip the sides on a fight. Again here is somewhere I disagree with you, the healing is decent all around as long as your landing things. I think its balanced and arguably to strong for what it is.

WvW many people don’t realize how good druid is. I’ve seen small havok groups mow down entire zergs because of good druid support. You dont need to stack in corners you just need people to act predictable and its really easy to support them.

Swagger.1459:

For everything gw2 does right with the game, it has got a lot wrong with the most vital parts of gameplay… And those are profession designs, power designs, condition designs, stealth designs, counter play… Sure, they made a great dodge rolling, auto attack dps, and self healing/sufficiency game, but it is all falling flat by what we see them trying to do with gameplay now vs what they are giving us to play. Essentially, what I’m saying is that it is very clear the pace of profession development is poor and slow compared to the content coming out. Subpar profession designs and combat mechanics have been clearly seen in wvw and spvp form the beginning, but HoT gives a taste of how lacking and one dimensional professions truly are as the dev team moves forward with new content.

I do agree with you that many of the classes have huge glaring faults and that the majority of them(including druid) need work. Anet no doubt has work to do. However I disagree with you in your opinion that they are useless and helpless as you make them out to be.

First and foremost, classes need to be designed for the end user playing it. You should check my other posts explaining things.

No, it was a comparison of a much faster paced game that had a lot of qol play mechanics and did a much better job overall. The devs could learn some valuable lessons from that game.

Ahh yes, the ultimate bunker. I mentioned that in a previous thread somewhere. That’s exactly what the Druid will devolve into. And pvp meta teams will learn to just focus fire CA forms and toss a few aoes around so the Druid wastes 10 of their 15 seconds of potential healing needing to dodge and survive.

The Druid design shines while stacked up in corners and at stationary champs, but that’s it. Any form of pressure healing needing to be done is where this profession spec will fall apart. Why? Because of useless thin beams and needing to aim targeting reticles while you and all the lemmings are dodging around.

I didn’t say useless, I said subpar profession and combat mechanics.

Bad designs are bad. This reticle healing design was obviously put to the test on training dummies and it was called a day when they saw the healing numbers.

Made an update to the original post…

Swagger.1459:

First and foremost, classes need to be designed for the end user playing it. You should check my other posts explaining things.

I have. I agree with you, and tragic, and a few other there does need to be some QoL adjustments on a few skills. However your scope/vision is way to generous.

The classes are designed for the end user. GW2 has a dynamic combat system. Players are getting exactly what they expect for the most part(with the exception of delays). With gw2’s system you have to aim and land skills to get rewards. Yes there is built in margins for errors that is why there are certain skills that are arguably overturned.

Swagger.1459:

No, it was a comparison of a much faster paced game that had a lot of qol play mechanics and did a much better job overall. The devs could learn some valuable lessons from that game.

Yea, except the game your comparing it to has a completely different style of combat and progression. The pace does no matter.

Swagger.1459:

Ahh yes, the ultimate bunker. I mentioned that in a previous thread somewhere. That’s exactly what the Druid will devolve into. And pvp meta teams will learn to just focus fire CA forms and toss a few aoes around so the Druid wastes 10 of their 15 seconds of potential healing needing to dodge and survive.

Ok then. You assume the bunker. Heres the thing, just because your a druid, does not mean your dedicated to healing, or bunker for that matter. You can play a full berserker non bunker build and support with heals. Healing is not the be all end all of ranger its only 1/3 of it at most.

CA does not need last longer than 8 seconds honestly. You should be getting out what ever you need too and swapping out. CCing/tying someone in CA is counter play. Druid needs this in order to be balanced or we would just out sustain everything constantly.

Swagger.1459:

The Druid design shines while stacked up in corners and at stationary champs, but that’s it. Any form of pressure healing needing to be done is where this profession spec will fall apart. Why? Because of useless thin beams and needing to aim targeting reticles while you and all the lemmings are dodging around.

Druid can heal others on the move or at range. Something other classes cannot do, it seems like you miss this entirely because your so focused on stacking. Other classes have tones of healing potential but its almost exclusively while stacked in water fields or close proximity. Other healers are static. Druid is not. That said yes I do agree with you druid can heal very well statically but is not limited to it and as I stated before with coordination is very easy to do on the move.

Swagger.1459:

Bad designs are bad. This reticle healing design was obviously put to the test on training dummies and it was called a day when they saw the healing numbers.

Just because it requires skill and attention to detail does not make it bad. Actively having to aim and getting rewarded is not bad design. Thats the focus of druids mechanics and combos. There is a margin of error built into our ratios and bases. Which are only as high as they are because the design has a lot of thought behind missing skills.

Umm, having to reticle heal in this game is bad design.

You don’t get the point on the comparison… Point is tailoring certain things for a faster paced and movement oriented combat… You should read my edit. Obviously you never played city so there is no point in trying to explain systems to you, but the edit should explain enough for this particular thread.

No crud Druids don’t have to be healers… You missed the point again… That’s what Druid specs will devolve into because it will suck as a healer by the current design. If things stay as is, players will gravitate toward the “take care of myself” max dps with super self heals in team required content and zergs, not the “I’m your reliable and efficient” super happy fun healing guy/gal.

You don’t read, you just babble stuff. I’m fully aware Druids/CA can heal from range. Read before posting next time.

Yes it is a bad design and I clearly presented the problems and solutions.

You peeps post like anet has got it all figured out and are gods of design, but they are not. Currently they are backtracking to more clearer defined roles because the self sufficient dps and dodge roll zerker meta they created is unhealthy for the game. They know it and they have said it, so there will need to be some changes to accommodate this shift to roles and gameplay. My suggestions will make Druid healing/support much more enjoyable and much more viable with all things considered.

Again, please read before you reply again so I don’t have to waste words reexplaining the same things again.

Every time this topic gets bumped I see the “real talk” and picture the OP as a 45 year old dude sitting in a chair backwards as he talks to 9 year olds about the dangers of healing.

Eval.2371:

CA does not need last longer than 8 seconds honestly. You should be getting out what ever you need too and swapping out.

We’ll see about that when raids hit.

Fluffball.8307:

Every time this topic gets bumped I see the “real talk” and picture the OP as a 45 year old dude sitting in a chair backwards as he talks to tells 9 year olds about the dangers of healing.

Yup. God forbid if you don’t wear staff protection! You’ll end up with grubs!

Swagger.1459:

You should read my edit.

I have numerous times and I disagree with you aside from the small aoe radius increases. I’ve already posted that your biases and experiences have holes in them. Stop making me repeat the same points.

What you describe for changes in your edited OP has glaring issues.

First the skill element taken out of the druid kit. Changing almost everything to Pbaoe and widing all of our skills takes the risk and skill element out of our skills. Yes it will make them easy and more user friendly, but it also takes the skill cap and some of the mechanics out of druid.

Second, The aiming element that makes guild war 2, guild wars 2. Making these skills easy to land is fine, but largely removing the aiming element on such powerful skills is not healthy. Removing the aiming and delay portion of these skill makes them almost passive. Passive healing(or gameplay) is unintuitive to the opponent and is uninteresting to the player. Which is considered bad game design in an “action” based rpg.

Lastly, a lot of your ideas also completely remove any sort of counter play. Some examples are:

• on staff 3: root pbaoe 360 degrees how on earth do you expect someone to dodge a 360 pulsing skill? You can’t. You dodge it and then you get hit by the next pulse.
• natural convergence: making this skill mobile doing this would make it so that there is no way of getting out of this skill aside from blinking/jumping. That seems fair being forced to blow a 20+ sec cd for a 10sec cd skill.
• Lunar impact: chill incase the daze is cleansed. Really? Counter play for counter play?

I could go on but I think hope you get the point I am trying to make. What you want for these skills is not what guild wars 2 is about. The games combat system is about active play and rewards for succeeding at landing/avoiding skills. Not rewards for simply pressing buttons which is the direction your changes are.

Swagger.1459:

Obviously you never played city so there is no point in trying to explain systems to you, but the edit should explain enough for this particular thread.

No I didn’t play CoH. However, I do know that it closed down. A large number of its base left because the game was boring. It did have a completely different combat system with a hard triangle, convoluted classes and tab’aiming where projectiles home. Which is what guild wars 1 was. The whole point of the second game was to move away from the manual style of combat and offer something different(action combat).

Your mind is so focused on combat from another game and a different style of gaming (manual) you fail to see what GW2 route has to offer. Which yes it has messy elements to it but it also has built in margins for those cases. I’ve already tried to explain it to you. You don’t read. You’re set in your bias and you want what you want. I don’t see any point in trying to reason further about that here.

“Passive gameplay is unintuitive and uninteresting”… So we should take away the pbao passive nature of herald facets? How about we reduce their facet radius from 360 and 600 to between 120/180/240 up to max 360 like Druid? Also, nothing of what I said was about passive Druid gameplay either so I don’t know where you are getting that from. I never said the word passive in anything I wrote so pay attention please.

“The aiming element that makes gw2, gw2”… Then how about we make chronomamcers have to build up alarcrity force and have a 15 second window to use their wells until they build up alarcrity force again…

So if the current Druid design “is gw2” and is healthy for gameplay, then let’s take EVERY elite spec and model after the Druid. We could slap force bars on every elite that need to be built up by auto attacking with their special new weapon and put a 15 second window to use these powers…. Yeah, I’m sure players will love it…

“How can you have someone dodge a 360?”… I’ll ask you then, how are you doing it now with the plethora of red circles all over? There are lots of movement skills in this game right? So use them along with dodge rolls like you do now… And the 360 was mostly about healing with the 5 target cap anyway…. The low condition damage element to CA skills won’t break this condition heavy game anyway, and that was suggested so players can get some kill credit on the battle field if they are trying to run a heal oriented build that attempts to stay in CA form as much as possible given the nature of combat and timers.

Also, you talk as if a healing Druid is something godly, but it’s not. Damage sources and output by players and the new pve critters vastly outweighs any healing this game has to offer. Druids can’t even keep themselves alive in “tougher” combat without using their personal self heal unless they are allowed to freecast from safety. Sure, Druid heals great in Orr and stacked up in your memorized fractal runs where you know exactly where to stand and stack, but we are not in “Kansas” anymore Dorothy. Things are changing with combat and gameplay and that means systems, tools, mechanic and designs need to change to match.

I could go on and pick apart all your words and phrases but I won’t, because I don’t want to come off as insulting. To say that the current Druid design defines what gw2 is, is well, rather ignorant of the state of things.

You don’t need to explain anything to me. You are missing the points I was making between the two games and it is completely over your head. There was also a metric ton of build variety per “profession” and they could fill multiple roles. Most players like fantasy, dragons, wizards and swords so city had to compete with world of warcraft in its prime. And to date, no mmo of its design has as many players.

Manual style of combat? You could do everything imaginable to move except dodge roll. Each “profession” was given access to movement abilities, and positioning during combat was key. There were tons of different styles of powers (single target melee and ranged, melee and ranged aoe, pbaoe, cone, aoe drop skills…) just like we have here, but they designed powers to make sense and didn’t do something silly (using a nice word here) like design an important spec/role/build that required reticle aim healing. You obviously have zero clue about that game and how it was far superior in combat and character design.

And with all due respect to Irenio, the current Druid design is only good on paper and spreadsheets, but that’s it. I will challenge his decision making on this build until it it changed. I know he has good intentions, obviously, but he has completely missed the mark (pun intended) with this timed reticle healing design.

Players have been begging and begging and begging for more defined roles to play and more build options besides mostly zerker/dps setups, and we get handed this mess to play? The Ranger and Druid, and lots of other things, still need a lot of work. It’s time for the devs to get back to the drawing board with certain things, because core profession development and certain combat related designs have been the most neglected parts of this game. That’s been shame and dissapointment considering what this game could have to offer its players. Gw2 has some great elements to characters and combat, but it also has a long way to go.

Edit- And to make a comparison… Why should we bring Druids, and their inconsistent reticle aiming and timed heal design, when a team can just bring along a herald to zergs and raids that will passively buff a 600 radius area while doing great melee and ranged damage (to 5 targets with hammer mind you) AND switch to consistent heals with Ventari when needed?

I’m not even going to go down the skill sets and a list of all the things Revenant brings to the table, but Ranger/Druid pales in every aspect compared… At least we have our neeto pets that will be dead or stuck in animations or finding the path to chase moving targets and f2s that will miss most of the time. Or maybe our pets will be doing the damage while we are stuck in sword animations and trying to bleed something from behind or the side… Perhaps the immobile axe 5 and our dagger will see some use in the upcoming raids… Hey, maybe the devs will build in some sweet hide spots in raids and wvw just for Druid so we can stack up the team safely and really shine with our heals…

This is not a design issue, it is a player skill issue. Look to upping your game.

I’m coming back from healing in Wildstar where mobility is a constant mad dash for your entire raid, the map is full of crazy shifting red patterns, and your heal is a short beam aoe about as thin as the Druid 1 skill but as an instant, not channeled. And yet that class, the spellslinger, is a top choice healer. People there just learned to deal with healing I chaos because it is not easy like WoW or GW2.

Up your own skill. HoT is meant to be harder and more active.

Lol all you want, but self analyze before you blame the game. I too played City of Heroes for years and… Checkers is a harder game than CoH was… CoH was visually fun but had all the challenge of a 1st grade math exam, and player characters were obscenely overpowered.

L2P is not always meant as an insult. I mean it as a challenge. Learn to self reflect rather than blame, and take on the challenge of beer more difficult content.

I would love a Rez -mass- option on one of the skills in
Celestial i never use the last skill so … how about changing it to a mass rez 300 meters

Kichwas.7152:

This is not a design issue, it is a player skill issue. Look to upping your game.

I’m coming back from healing in Wildstar where mobility is a constant mad dash for your entire raid, the map is full of crazy shifting red patterns, and your heal is a short beam aoe about as thin as the Druid 1 skill but as an instant, not channeled. And yet that class, the spellslinger, is a top choice healer. People there just learned to deal with healing I chaos because it is not easy like WoW or GW2.

Up your own skill. HoT is meant to be harder and more active.

Ok I’ll up my skillz lol

Yeah, Druid needs to be changed like I have suggested.

Where did I say anything about making anything in Druid PASSIVE? Where? What, because I said pbaoe? You still have to click those and use them at correct times when needed. Passive means “it just happens on its own” like activating facets and letting them run…

At this point I’m not even going to bother reading or respond to the rest. I don’t care about running in circles with you while all sorts of stuff is just flying over your head.

Please start paying attention devs. It’s apparent that you guys are trying to fit in a healing role and not doing a great job at it. Start putting some trust in people like me who have played support roles for over a decade.

You peeps need help and there are many good voices here, so please step away from those spread sheets and training dummy numbers and spend time listening to us more.

Swagger.1459:

Please start paying attention devs. It’s apparent that you guys are trying to fit in a healing role and not doing a great job at it. Start putting some trust in people like me who have played support roles for over a decade.

You peeps need help and there are many good voices here, so please step away from those spread sheets and training dummy numbers and spend time listening to us more.

+1

I just want to see health bars for everyone around me without grouping. Not too mad about anything else.

Either health bars for everyone or a better way of seeing player characters. If I’m supposed to watch the combat and respond to big hits, supposed to be able to tell when players are damaged without health bars, then please give me a better way of tracking players.

Having a dozen or so ‘Longname McRunsallovertheplace the Entitled Titler of Titles’ jiggling everywhere really isn’t helpful but having player names turned on is the best way I’ve found to track people.

Maybe a little green circle under their feet or something? Y’know… like all the other games?

Transvestosaurus.2381:

I just want to see health bars for everyone around me without grouping. Not too mad about anything else.

Either health bars for everyone or a better way of seeing player characters. If I’m supposed to watch the combat and respond to big hits, supposed to be able to tell when players are damaged without health bars, then please give me a better way of tracking players.

Having a dozen or so ‘Longname McRunsallovertheplace the Entitled Titler of Titles’ jiggling everywhere really isn’t helpful but having player names turned on is the best way I’ve found to track people.

Maybe a little green circle under their feet or something? Y’know… like all the other games?

Yup, we need stuff like that. Sadly, though, things like it were not given the attention or resources before HoT.

Btw… It was fun being on my (well designed for raid and HoT content) Revenant and enjoying the gameplay, actually watching the gameplay not the ability and astral force bars, squad UI, aiming reticles… while the Druid was asking the team to stack up so (s)he could heal properly…

I both laughed and felt bad knowing that players need to move all around, jump constantly to green circles, are scattering to avoid orbs and being ported around while the “mostly useless staff healing and part-time reticle aim healer” was trying to do their job.

And yes, I ran it on Druid as well before and received a compliment on my healing… when stacked up lol. It’s unfortunate how poorly thought out Druid was considering the nature of movement in this game…

If you guys just want to keep niggling about and adjusting astral force then you are horribly failing this elite. Time to change how Druid functions to something more inline with my suggestions.

I wonder how long we are going to ride out the “squash the super bunker for esports” train until we get these changes in?

Omg, stop bumping up your own topic. Deal with it when nobody wants to discuss your thoughts any further. And in the end you dont want to discuss, you just want that we notice that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Denial of reality.

Code of Conduct

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Actually, I’ve brought up many valid concerns and solutions. More and more players are coming to find out what I’ve seen with this elite spec. Yes, these are the best suggestions this profession could benefit from.