Guild Wars 2

Not trying to generate even more hate for druid, I’m just wondering how many people are in the same boat as myself. Looking at my current ranger I feel using the druid spec would be a waste of my 3 trait lines, and as much fun as I am having with HoT I don’t feel like I have as much to work towards as other specs. As someone who has no interest in completing the “holy trinity” and being a healer it essentially means there is no ranger elite spec for myself (and others who think this way). It feels like the other elite specs aren’t as one-sided as druid, about how many of you out there are sticking to core ranger? I myself am loving pure melee ranger

core ranger is so awful

thats about it

staff = pew pew pew v2.0

for me its better then longbow as skill 3 allow me to RUN away from zergs easily, setup water field combo and entangle

I don’t feel robbed at all. What is wrong with new pets and full zerker MM, BM, SK for PvE?

For PvP we can run condi Druid with mercenary amulet or sage amulet and SW/T, healer with Meanders amulet, and direct damage with crusader’s and GS.

Edit: also isn’t Druid more of a support role than healer in PVE? Yeah it heals, but has some of the best group support in the game, as well.

EvilZombie.6801:

staff = pew pew pew v2.0

Can you explain this sentiment? I feel like the “pew pew” meme nonsense is based on people thinking LB is an OP damage weapon , but staff is one of the least damaging weapons in the entire game.

Fluffball.8307:

EvilZombie.6801:

staff = pew pew pew v2.0

Can you explain this sentiment? I feel like the “pew pew” meme nonsense is based on people thinking LB is an OP damage weapon , but staff is one of the least damaging weapons in the entire game.

i agree staff damage isn’t that high but i enjoy supporting teammates in WvW as backline using with Sigil of Incapacitation and sigil of water.

like i said skill 3,4,5 are amazing during WvW

its like torturing enemies killing them slowly

Oh ok, I mistakenly viewed your “pew pew” comment as a negative. I agree staff gets it done.

Man, all of these anti-Druid posts, makes me wonder if someone may have multiple accounts….

im a complete and utter immense super mega ultra fantastic Ranger hater since day 1. I have about 1k hours on Ranger and ive hated every second of it, this is the ONLY game I strongly dislike the ranger/archer type class and I forced myself to use it.

Fast forward to Druid and its ABSOLUTELY wonderful for pve/pvp/wvw. A class that can maintain decent/good dps both by burst and sustain, aoe heal and buff? Druid is what the Guardian was supposed to be, and DH is what the Ranger was supposed to be

I don’t play much rangers but those flying wyverns look bad-kitten .

I hate the druid spec it is the worst designed elite out of them all, as the celestial form has nothing to do with the core class mechanic (notice how every other class gets something that ties in to their mechanic.
I don’t hate supporting or anything but It feels like they wanted druid to have something else but scraped it last minute for this life shroud, making it have nothing to do with the rangers core mechanic and making it disconnect the flow of gameplay (the rushing is also evident by the god awful wyvern pets that cannot land a hit on moving foes).

the end result is you look like playing a bipolar character: I AM DEALING DAMAGE AND I AM CC’ING DIEEE, i am healing and curing nasty conditions from friends, I AM BUMPING OUT DAMAGE BUFFS SO THAT I CAN BURST WITH MY PETS, i am rezing my ally and regenerating his health.

This spec should have been given to guardian, and DH to ranger. I’m not bothering to hunt for H points as I refuse to use this thing, it sucks. The normal ranger is still fun for me, though.

No, not at all.
You don’t need to play with an elite spec. Personally whenever I solo stuff or play things on my own I play as a regular Ranger. When I step into group content I slot in Druid at a minor cost of my own personal DPS to give my entire team a big DPS boost. I don’t see the issue.

Don’t forget taking Druid doesn’t force you into healing either. Even in raids I generally play full offensive. Glyph of Empowerment and Grace of the Land are huge direct damage boosts.

Druid is not necessity for casual or daily content.

It’s been a spec we’ve been asking for for years and I believe people should realize this already. It makes me nauseous seeing how people keep hating stuff they themselves asked for.

We needed AoE CC, We needed team support, we needed damage modifiers, we needed sustain, we needed reliable pets and they gave them to us with 1 specialization!. (I don’t even know how did they manage this, frankly, seemed impossible to me)
The only thing I want now is get my stuff fixed. I don’t really need more stuff since we already received tools to compete in current meta. Top guilds already use 2 druids for a 10-men raid. Not to mention we are are useful even in PvP and even in current meta.

I feel disgusted by lies and developers’ attitude towards Ranger in general. Not the druid. Druid is all I could dream of.

Core range is terrible, so sadly in raids you are forced into the druid healbot role.

Funny thing is a berzerker Tempest can put out similar healing as a berzerker druid and yet the Tempest does SOOOOOOO much more DPS.

Zenith.7301:

Core range is terrible, so sadly in raids you are forced into the druid healbot role.

Funny thing is a berzerker Tempest can put out similar healing as a berzerker druid and yet the Tempest does SOOOOOOO much more DPS.

Ever heard of Berserker Healer?
Tempest doesn’t beat this role. It’s an illusion because you see more personal DPS rather than 30% party-wide DPS boost. Tempest is just more comfortable. Not more powerful.

Actually Druid is what we were asking for before HoT. An elite that actually can sustain itself.

The only bad thing about the druid is that CAF is mostly healing and is kinda clunky to use. Some changes to the least used skills from CAF and the glyphs would make everyone happy.

@Tragic Positive.9356 Dude, it is true that a Druid with only 500-700 healing (still zerker) can occasionally burst heal a lot more than a tempest. However our lack of any other group utility makes the druid a little bit more than a healbot and that is not needed in this game, were everyone can sustain themselves more or less.
A good druid with very good luck can be the difference between group wipe or not. But it is also true the druid needs more QoL improvements to make the Astral Form less clunky and more useful. And more “on demand” thing.

Right now i don’t see the point of using any other skills than Rejuvenating tides and Lunar impact. Occasionally natural convergence when i end up in the middle of the enemy zerg and my commander is shouting to drop the bomb, although we all know it’s a suicidal move.

Still healing tempest bring more usefulness to the group plus a constant healing and that at the end is what matters.

@anduriell.6280

Yea, I can’ deny that.
CAF is way too clunky and is of a bad design. It feels wrong to tickle people with as least heals as possible in order to heal them for real.
And mostly – not being able to heal them when you need to. That’s why Tempest is more comfortable.

I actually think that Druid brings quite enough of stuff for the party. If we drop the idea of Berserker healer, you can also bring 80% of protection by yourself, water field, boosting everyone’s healing by 25% which is unique to our class and works amazing in concept of “every man for himself”.

It’s just that a lot of stuff the druid does – you do not see on the screen. Druid helps people survive – he helps people deal damage with modifiers – in PvP the druid helps people land their stuff thanks to a lot of CC he offers, unmatched AoE cleanse, now we even got quite enough of mobility.

I dunno, I can’t really complain. I have everything I needed. I feel useful.
If I want to see numbers, I’ll go SotW + Sick’Em and kill people in 1 hit.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenith.7301:

Core range is terrible, so sadly in raids you are forced into the druid healbot role.

Funny thing is a berzerker Tempest can put out similar healing as a berzerker druid and yet the Tempest does SOOOOOOO much more DPS.

Ever heard of Berserker Healer?
Tempest doesn’t beat this role. It’s an illusion because you see more personal DPS rather than 30% party-wide DPS boost. Tempest is just more comfortable. Not more powerful.

You’re just a buffbot, much like a Chronomancer. On an individual level, solo scenario or roaming PvP this makes no difference.

It’s also 15% more damage (3% for 5 stacks), not 30% DPS boost how the hell do you even get that math?

Zenith.7301:

You’re just a buffbot, much like a Chronomancer. On an individual level, solo scenario or roaming PvP this makes no difference.

Sorry, how is this a bad thing?
Chronomancer and Druid are the two classes/builds I see running around the most so clearly people are enjoying it. They are also the two classes that will likely maintain a pretty significant role in in difficult group content. Being a ’’buffbot’’ as you call it is rather positive. People want you around instead of the previous meta where Rangers were generally somewhat unwelcome in group content.

On the topic of buffing and PvP, last time I checked Druids were playing skirmishing-type builds with a focus on staying alive and winning 1v1s on your own.

Zenith.7301:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenith.7301:

Core range is terrible, so sadly in raids you are forced into the druid healbot role.

Funny thing is a berzerker Tempest can put out similar healing as a berzerker druid and yet the Tempest does SOOOOOOO much more DPS.

Ever heard of Berserker Healer?
Tempest doesn’t beat this role. It’s an illusion because you see more personal DPS rather than 30% party-wide DPS boost. Tempest is just more comfortable. Not more powerful.

You’re just a buffbot, much like a Chronomancer. On an individual level, solo scenario or roaming PvP this makes no difference.

It’s also 15% more damage (3% for 5 stacks), not 30% DPS boost how the hell do you even get that math?

PvE.
It was not specified. So in PvE you get pretty much that. For PvP you bring much more CC than any elementalist and you can keep your damage nukes from pets while being more tanky than elementalist.

You can’t compare classes on equal levels. Some bring X, some bring more of Y.

EDIT: For Berserker-type builds in PvP you get something that no other class can do. You can call out a downed ally out of cleave range which (again) an ele can’t do. For the 1st time in history of GW2 I’ve never found being ranged so useful as it became.

Yes, it is by far the worst and most poorly designed elite spec and one of the biggest dissapointments in this game. Watching all the cool and fun looking new specs of the other classes then finally getting to Ranger and seeing this pile of kitten was awful.

Poorly designed.
Trash Utilities that somehow managed to be worse then spirits and the old shouts.
Doesn’t synergise with what we already have.
Boring.
No thought put in how fun it will actually be or if it will add anything to the class outside of raids.
By far the worse weapon in the game with only 1 good skill.
Basically no beta testing, other elites got massive changes over the betas they were in that changed them from trash to actually useful and fun. Druid got 1 weekend with the only changes was kittening up how you get into astral form.
All the skills and traits added with it can be summed up with the description ‘and this also heals’.
Every other classes elite can be added to various different kind of builds, either to make them better, create them or just a variation to be more fun. Druid is just go healing and ‘if you don’t like it kitten off’, paraphrasing the devs there.
The astral form is all over the place in how its built and the skills are useless. Skill 1 needs to be some sort of high damage aoe, skill 2 needs buffing like they said they were going to do in beta but never did, skill 5 needs to let you move while using it and speed the channel up. Just some more utility and damage to the form so thats its actually useful.

Most important of all of them, THEY HAVE ALREADY NERFED BASE RANGER BECAUSE OF DRUID and they will probably do it again.

You can tell the lack of thought they put into the spec with how they announced it. Going on stream and saying ‘Druid is a heavy heling focused spec, Yep Rangers met now. Meta Ranger. I did it mum Rangers meta now META META META META META I say so’. They didn’t care about what would help Rangers in various modes, they didn’t care about giving them new fun tools to use. They needed a healer to sell the raids to WoW kids and they slapped it on Ranger because they couldn’t be bothered to put any thought into it.

Whats really funny of course is they actually failed to make it Meta so had to slap some bland thoughtless %damge buff to team mates if you spam your skills trait onto it.

Just everything about it is a massive slap in the face to Rangers who stuck with the class for 3 years.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Not trying to generate even more hate for druid, I’m just wondering how many people are in the same boat as myself. Looking at my current ranger I feel using the druid spec would be a waste of my 3 trait lines, and as much fun as I am having with HoT I don’t feel like I have as much to work towards as other specs. As someone who has no interest in completing the “holy trinity” and being a healer it essentially means there is no ranger elite spec for myself (and others who think this way). It feels like the other elite specs aren’t as one-sided as druid, about how many of you out there are sticking to core ranger? I myself am loving pure melee ranger

Ok so you like homogenized classes, you don’t like roles, you don’t like diversity and you don’t like long term retention and playability for classes.

All things Druid are awful btw, and to call it the healing elite is a sad. The only things good about it are astral grace movement and my extra bar of self heals and self support…

All core classes and specializations are not good at all, but I stick to ranger/Druid the most because I have all map unlocks and is the most tolerable class for me. Earned probably 700 ranks in wvw until the end of last tournament. Did some eotm after with that and thief to around 850… Leveled all professions to 80 except for engineer…

Professions and profession development are poor, but let’s at least be thankful for them trying to do something other than just dps focus for classes.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Looking at my current ranger I feel using the druid spec would be a waste of my 3 trait lines

Druid isnt just healing though, its good condi removal, it brings a lot of group cc and peel that compliments our sb, lb and staff. Staff is an excellent on hit weapon, great for condi application and sigil procs. Then on top of everything mentioned druid has the healing and buffing focused parts.

As Tragic said, druid gave ranger everything that it was missing from ranger, we have traits for damage condi etc, but they are bad. Druid gives us good sustain, cc and team buffing. If they could do something about our weapons low damages, and a lot of our bad/boring traits in core ranger, we’d be a solid class.

Zenith.7301:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenith.7301:

Core range is terrible, so sadly in raids you are forced into the druid healbot role.

Funny thing is a berzerker Tempest can put out similar healing as a berzerker druid and yet the Tempest does SOOOOOOO much more DPS.

Ever heard of Berserker Healer?
Tempest doesn’t beat this role. It’s an illusion because you see more personal DPS rather than 30% party-wide DPS boost. Tempest is just more comfortable. Not more powerful.

You’re just a buffbot, much like a Chronomancer. On an individual level, solo scenario or roaming PvP this makes no difference.

It’s also 15% more damage (3% for 5 stacks), not 30% DPS boost how the hell do you even get that math?

Glyph of empowerment, frost spirit, spotter, and grace of the land is a 30% damage increase. Its more of a burn phase for the group. When done just before a breakbar it is insane damage for the whole party.

While it may be true that support ele might do 5k more personal dps than us, we may raise an entires parties dps by 8-12k, that combined with our own would be more damage than the ele. It is common for a buffer to sacrifice personal dps, for increased group, its why we have warriors and crono’s in our parties to begin with. Being a buff bot isnt bad it makes us actually useful in the meta because frankly outside of our buffing abilities we suck across the board and are a very inflexible class.

I know it has been said a million times but I still would have much rather had the Dragon Hunter spec over Druid. It makes so much more sense and it would give me a reason to use the long bow I otherwise ignore. I love my reaper and thematically it fits so well, Druid doesn’t feel as “right” to me.

Some of the comments here really makes me cringe. Druid is actually amazing on a zerker/marauders set up with longbow too. Some people just don’t know how to build or think for themselves other than what’s listed on metabattle. Seriously, take a look at the trait lines and the utilities and think about how they can synergize the best. Druid has multiple synergies.

Lettuce.2945:

Some of the comments here really makes me cringe. Druid is actually amazing on a zerker/marauders set up with longbow too. Some people just don’t know how to build or think for themselves other than what’s listed on metabattle. Seriously, take a look at the trait lines and the utilities and think about how they can synergize the best. Druid has multiple synergies.

Except for Druid is whats listed on Metabattle….

I felt robbed when they made Solar Beam require a target AND building up Astral Force only through healing allies not at full health.

Rest of the Druid is all good to me.

Robbed? Not at all. It made Ranger strong in PvP like people had been asking for, it provides a unique enough role in WvW that Druids aren’t being blocked from joining guilds and are actually requested by skill groups, and they have a competitive team slot value for PvE content.

Personally, I’ve just moved on to Blade and Soul for now, but not because I have an issue that’s druid exclusive, but because there isn’t anything left to do in GW2 except wait for disappointing balance patches (removing the tank amulets that made PvP horrible just to replace them with more tank amulets that make PvP horrible and rob classes of their functional identity by making everything a damage dealing tank).

Really, that’s the only advice I can give to people right now. Nothing is going to change about this game in the foreseeable future. Find something else to enjoy. ANet will either lose their concurrent playerbase just like Bungie did by not being transparent and by not keeping the community up to date, or they will get around to announcing something while you’re busy enjoying a different game instead of complaining about this one; and honestly, for a lot of the names I recognize on the forum, this game will never experience the drastic (by ANet dev standards and not realistic standards, because realistically, dev teams can usually accomplish more with their time) change that people demand or seek.

So ultimately, you either enjoy this game right now or you don’t. If you don’t, you probably won’t enjoy it again for a minimum of 6 months. So find something else to make you happy in your gameplaying time. I know I have

Can’t agree, I think despite the clunky design the druid itself is amazing.

The versatility of ranger/druid is insane and the sacrifices small compared to what other classes have to give up for similar levels of group support & utility (Revenant, Ele).

I am far from top notch but the fact that we can span the bridge between decent dps to breakbar shredderer to carrying fail teams through challenging content is pretty amazing.

Also, we are in a good spot because we have a distinct area of the game where we are really strong (group support/buffing) and I’d rather have this than short-lived DPS hypes like Burnzerker or Revenant had for some time. If you stick with this class, you know you’ll be relevant for more than just one update.

Nonetheless, I agree on that it would have made more sense to give Guardian a healing spec and traps to us. But I guess they wanted to give us a new weapon badly.

I really love the Staff. Except that it does really low damage. I really hate that I don’t want or need the minor traits for PvE or for non-healing builds in WvW. GoTT is only good for raids, Ancient Seeds is near useless against players unless they have multiple forms of CC already on them and Lingering Light is only good for WvW raiding. But I don’t feel robbed. Except of my minor traits.

Eval.2371:

Matt Stacey.7415:

Looking at my current ranger I feel using the druid spec would be a waste of my 3 trait lines

Druid isnt just healing though, its good condi removal, it brings a lot of group cc and peel that compliments our sb, lb and staff. Staff is an excellent on hit weapon, great for condi application and sigil procs. Then on top of everything mentioned druid has the healing and buffing focused parts.

As Tragic said, druid gave ranger everything that it was missing from ranger, we have traits for damage condi etc, but they are bad. Druid gives us good sustain, cc and team buffing. If they could do something about our weapons low damages, and a lot of our bad/boring traits in core ranger, we’d be a solid class.

Zenith.7301:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenith.7301:

Core range is terrible, so sadly in raids you are forced into the druid healbot role.

Funny thing is a berzerker Tempest can put out similar healing as a berzerker druid and yet the Tempest does SOOOOOOO much more DPS.

Ever heard of Berserker Healer?
Tempest doesn’t beat this role. It’s an illusion because you see more personal DPS rather than 30% party-wide DPS boost. Tempest is just more comfortable. Not more powerful.

You’re just a buffbot, much like a Chronomancer. On an individual level, solo scenario or roaming PvP this makes no difference.

It’s also 15% more damage (3% for 5 stacks), not 30% DPS boost how the hell do you even get that math?

Glyph of empowerment, frost spirit, spotter, and grace of the land is a 30% damage increase. Its more of a burn phase for the group. When done just before a breakbar it is insane damage for the whole party.

While it may be true that support ele might do 5k more personal dps than us, we may raise an entires parties dps by 8-12k, that combined without our own would be more damage than the ele. It is common for a buffer to sacrifice personal dps, for increased group, its why we have warriors and crono’s in our parties to begin with. Being a buff bot isnt bad it makes us actually useful in the meta because frankly outside of our buffing abilities we suck across the board and are a very inflexible class.

A berzerker druid is doing nowhere near 25k DPS, and Tempests are breaking 29-30k DPS. I don’t know where you’re pulling those numbers.

How can you feel robbed by something that takes absolutely nothing away from the core ranger?

Everything that makes a ranger a ranger is still there even if you spec as a druid and the whole thing is as simple as changing trait lines around in the hero menu.

Nothing gets taken away from the ranger for the sake of the druid spec. Rather, it adds to the rangers repertoire.

Getting a new thing to play with isn’t robbery. I’d think that’s quite the opposite of being robbed?

From my PvE perspective, Druid is quite possibly the best thing that has happened to the Ranger class since launch. We now have two entirely new unique buffs in the form of GoE and GotL, alongside the existing spotter and frost/sun spirit combination. Buffs which single-handedly have pushed Druid into the limelight when it comes to desirability for raiding.

If anything I feel the class is being held back by this notion of being a “dedicated healer” as I see countless Druids (Myself included) opting to create a pure healing set specifically for those players that just don’t seem to want to avoid damage on their own. If healing and babysitting players isn’t your thing (I very much understand if that’s the case) then I strongly recommend grabbing either a full Berserker DPS set, or a Viper’s condition set and advertising yourself as a DPS/Support class rather than a healer.

Both Berserker’s and Viper’s Druids will have around 8-15k DPS while entering CA form on cooldown to spread GotL. Comparatively a Berserker’s Auramancer Elementalist can achieve around 15-25k given that they lose the fire traitline and Signet of Fire. By spreading your unique buffs around the group you can easily make up that difference.

TL;DR, try looking at Druid from a Support perspective rather than that of a dedicated healer, you might find that that play style appeals to you more.

The only problem why Rangers are not competitive as personal DPS assets is because pets do not scale with buffs and boons.
And trying to use pets as “trait activators” on pet swap didn’t work. People are still punished by DPS loss by doing that.

So rather than balancing or at least addressing this issue they decided to make us buff-bots (both best offensive and recuperative) on a competitive level. Which is not bad, actually, but it’s extremely community-unfriendly.

CETheLucid.3964:

How can you feel robbed by something that takes absolutely nothing away from the core ranger?

Everything that makes a ranger a ranger is still there even if you spec as a druid and the whole thing is as simple as changing trait lines around in the hero menu.

Nothing gets taken away from the ranger for the sake of the druid spec. Rather, it adds to the rangers repertoire.

Getting a new thing to play with isn’t robbery. I’d think that’s quite the opposite of being robbed?

You’re not familiar to opportunity cost, are you?

What they felt robbed was of an elite spec that enhanced the mediocre offensive capabilities of the ranger and gave them a weapon with powerful aoe (which rangers don’t have).

Druid as an elite spec is a DPS neutral utility sidegrade to the ranger that comes with a mechanic that’s all about healing, which many players didn’t roll ranger for.

I still have divided feeling about Druid.
It made ranger meta for raid and really good in PvP and that is great, but … just like other players, I made my ranger to be an offensive class and I expected druid to be an offensive support, kinda like herald is, but we ended as a full healer.

Belzebu.3912:

I still have divided feeling about Druid.
It made ranger meta for raid and really good in PvP and that is great, but … just like other players, I made my ranger to be an offensive class and I expected druid to be an offensive support, kinda like herald is, but we ended as a full healer.

And this is where people constantly get wrong…
…
Druid has become a serious DPS boost even in personal DPS compared to previous meta builds we had.

I enter CAF in daily fractals … maybe once per fractal. If you are grouping with inexperienced people who cannot break the content without heals (raids included) – then you might as well wonder if the reason behind it is not that people play what they like and how they like it rather than what they should.
Am I wrong?

Not to mention that both DPS boosting Ranger and Healing ranger have a place in meta. Just pick one and play it. If people now kick a ranger from group – it’s because of a person. Not the class anymore.

I think I feel much more robbed in the way that other Elites had multiple beta weekends for testing while the Druid elite is still imo at the Anet throws kitten at the wall and sees what sticks phase. It also doesn’t help that virtually nothing was fixed with the Rangers core abilities.

TL:DR I do’t feel robbed in the sense that we got Druid, it’s more in the way how they did it, kitten.

Haven’t deviated away from the bow in fantasy RPGs since I can remember, I’m drawn to it with every MMO I encounter. Got bored of the trinity system and couldn’t believe my luck when I found GW2 and started the beta.

Now everything I despise and have actively avoided in games and my choice of class has landed slap bang on my doorstep. Didn’t even bother buying the expansion, going to try elsewhere now (unless something happens months down the line).

This class suffers from serious image issues…

Zenith.7301:

CETheLucid.3964:

How can you feel robbed by something that takes absolutely nothing away from the core ranger?

Everything that makes a ranger a ranger is still there even if you spec as a druid and the whole thing is as simple as changing trait lines around in the hero menu.

Nothing gets taken away from the ranger for the sake of the druid spec. Rather, it adds to the rangers repertoire.

Getting a new thing to play with isn’t robbery. I’d think that’s quite the opposite of being robbed?

You’re not familiar to opportunity cost, are you?

What they felt robbed was of an elite spec that enhanced the mediocre offensive capabilities of the ranger and gave them a weapon with powerful aoe (which rangers don’t have).

Druid as an elite spec is a DPS neutral utility sidegrade to the ranger that comes with a mechanic that’s all about healing, which many players didn’t roll ranger for.

This is very accurate of my thoughts. The druid traitline gives me very little in my playstyle, in fact it caters to just a few playstyles. It is undeniable that the druid is aimed towards healers, and though it can be used offensively it means you still sacrifice heavily for it. For a non-healer, the minor traits are worthless. The major traits themselves are again clearly catered towards support/healing. Yes, there are some combinations that are somewhat offensive, but the opportunity cost of taking druid over a different traitline is too high to be worthwhile. I did not choose ranger to be a healing buffbot/afk healing fairy. The feeling of being “robbed” comes from the fact that druid is such a one-sided elite spec that it means that for all intents and purposes, there is no ranger spec for me to work for. I absolutely expected something offensive like Dragon Hunter, and Druid is the complete opposite. An elite spec with powerful long ranged abilities and deadly traps? YES! I would love that…but oh wait, I’d have to give up on ranger and roll a guardian to get it.

Sicarius.4639:

Haven’t deviated away from the bow in fantasy RPGs since I can remember, I’m drawn to it with every MMO I encounter. Got bored of the trinity system and couldn’t believe my luck when I found GW2 and started the beta.

Now everything I despise and have actively avoided in games and my choice of class has landed slap bang on my doorstep. Didn’t even bother buying the expansion, going to try elsewhere now (unless something happens months down the line).

While I haven’t moved away from GW2 I share the same sentiment. I love the bow and arrow archetype and am usually drawn to it in RPGs. One of my favorite things about GW2 was that party slots weren’t dedicated to healers. Some classes/builds healed more than others, but there wasn’t even the remote thought of saving spots exclusively for healers because it wasn’t truly an option. Now the trinity has been completed and it is incredibly disappointing.

Matt Stacey.7415:

It is undeniable that the druid is aimed towards healers, and though it can be used offensively it means you still sacrifice heavily for it. For a non-healer, the minor traits are worthless. The major traits themselves are again clearly catered towards support/healing. Yes, there are some combinations that are somewhat offensive, but the opportunity cost of taking druid over a different traitline is too high to be worthwhile.

Druid is aimed at “supporting”. Both offensive and defensive. Personal included.
What exactly do you heavily sacrifice for it? Bountiful hunter which is like 5% damage increase in PvP and roughly 8% in PvE? Beast Mastery that increases your overall DPS by roughly 6% and is only taken as a Swiftness/Regen bot for druid into PvP?

Am I mistaking anything? Or are you probably talking about Wilderness Survival ? I don’t know. For this whole time I didn’t have to sacrifice anything.
I could become a dedicated Beast Master. I was granted reposition tool and CC for Marksman Zerk game-play. I gained new options of being an extreme utility support for PvP. I was able to gain a lot more sustain for Condi Builds.

You sound like a spoiled Gamer to me. Because you didn’t get a sniper elite specialization. Even though your beloved marksman got buffed by druid in every aspect.
If you don’t like it – don’t play one. It’s not a class you have to play.

What bothers me is it’s absurd and horrible design, bugs, clunky mechanics and core mechanic without a single second of thought or logic put into it.
It made us competitive and better in every single game mode but it’s not really enjoyable – is what my concern is.

Gotl is only a dps boost because ranger have fallen behind in dps. How does increasing dps by 15% come out as a dps boost when to obtain it your pretty much dealing no damage. In a 5 man group that’s not a gain.

Yes, Druid has a little more dps but, that is only partly do to 3 of the new pets.

Gw2 is about damage mitigation and dps so a spec that central theme is healing rather weak.

9 times out of 10 a well timed heal isn’t going to save. Even when it does; It’s only happen because you missed so many queues to avoid damage that someone has to try to save your kitten . Which doesn’t lead you to becoming a better player.

Looking at what the Druid has actually brought to the Ranger I can understand why some feel cheated, robbed, and unhappy with the Druid as a whole.

That is not to say that Rangers are not better post-expansion. However when weighted against what the druid has actually brought to the class and what is core ranger its not that much.

The Glyphs, staff and CA are what Druid comes in with. Many of us have issue with all 3 in varying degrees.

Yes, a lot of Druids are running around that doesn’t mean its Great. I run Druid in open world for Natural Stride, Ancient Seed and Glyph of the tide. Natural stride so I can free up a utility slot for Tide and Tide an Ancient Seed to help with most breakbars.

In Pvp I have to be able to survive DH traps. Of course I send my pet in first but when they have been sitting on a point their traps are already off cd. Then there are Rev.

Peppering with RF and Finishing them off with sword and quickness isn’t going to happen. Vipers but had problem against Diamond skinned eles (haven’t try since change). Forcing me to play a more sustain build.

The thing is as bad as people say warriors are they offer no challenge at all to my warrior.

Gw2 was once like a second job a put many hours into my ranger and since hot I am down to about an hr a day. Ranger were shunned before Hot, Which meant we could do whatever we felt like. HOT has given us a role, its a role and a direction that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The Druid is so spammy while ele can pop in to water for like 2 seconds and give like 900 healing per second for like 10 second plus whatever auras.

Some say Guardian should of gotten healing I disagree with that. They would feel like we do. Rev elite spec should of been the healing that why everyone picking the class knew exactly what they were getting. I suspect there would be a lot less Revenants around.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Matt Stacey.7415:

It is undeniable that the druid is aimed towards healers, and though it can be used offensively it means you still sacrifice heavily for it. For a non-healer, the minor traits are worthless. The major traits themselves are again clearly catered towards support/healing. Yes, there are some combinations that are somewhat offensive, but the opportunity cost of taking druid over a different traitline is too high to be worthwhile.

Druid is aimed at “supporting”. Both offensive and defensive. Personal included.
What exactly do you heavily sacrifice for it? Bountiful hunter which is like 5% damage increase in PvP and roughly 8% in PvE? Beast Mastery that increases your overall DPS by roughly 6% and is only taken as a Swiftness/Regen bot for druid into PvP?

Am I mistaking anything? Or are you probably talking about Wilderness Survival ? I don’t know. For this whole time I didn’t have to sacrifice anything.
I could become a dedicated Beast Master. I was granted reposition tool and CC for Marksman Zerk game-play. I gained new options of being an extreme utility support for PvP. I was able to gain a lot more sustain for Condi Builds.

You sound like a spoiled Gamer to me. Because you didn’t get a sniper elite specialization. Even though your beloved marksman got buffed by druid in every aspect.
If you don’t like it – don’t play one. It’s not a class you have to play.

What bothers me is it’s absurd and horrible design, bugs, clunky mechanics and core mechanic without a single second of thought or logic put into it.
It made us competitive and better in every single game mode but it’s not really enjoyable – is what my concern is.

This thread isn’t to argue every aspect of druid – it is about the fact that I felt cheated, and was wondering if others agree. We can both that agree you disagree with my thread. It is time for you to move on.

Feels to me like ranger didn’t get an elite spec. Rangers always have the option to not use druid, and so many don’t, but for them, ranger went backward when every other class got cool stuff. In fact ranger lost a lot with changes to spirits and traps and the reworking/removing of traits. Ranger really needs a new elite spec.

Sandpit.3467:

Feels to me like ranger didn’t get an elite spec. Rangers always have the option to not use druid, and so many don’t, but for them, ranger went backward when every other class got cool stuff. In fact ranger lost a lot with changes to spirits and traps and the reworking/removing of traits. Ranger really needs a new elite spec.

Ranger needs a class mechanic that is not broken, instead of two borken class mechanics. After 3 years, I come to the conclusion, that the game is only based on “who spam the most skills in the most time without waiting for reload” and “who can put the most firefields/explosion finishers”

I wish we had the variety of pkaystyles of a gw1, which was more restricted in designing skills than gw2. But you had to think more about what you’re doing and it was focused on counter and teamplay, instead just damage, damage, damage, Dodge, godmode

Zenith.7301:

You’re not familiar to opportunity cost, are you?

One of the reasons I like the spec. Sometimes it is quite beneficial to be a druid. Other times you’re better served staying with the core trait lines.

Working that out is what determines your performance.

Zenith.7301:

What they felt robbed was of an elite spec that enhanced the mediocre offensive capabilities of the ranger and gave them a weapon with powerful aoe (which rangers don’t have).

OK.

So you/they don’t like the druid spec and wanted something else. It didn’t rob you of anything though.

That’s a stupid way to say “I don’t like it and wanted something other than what we got”. But I get the gist of it now, thanks.

Have fun arguing.

CETheLucid.3964:

Zenith.7301:

You’re not familiar to opportunity cost, are you?

One of the reasons I like the spec. Sometimes it is quite beneficial to be a druid. Other times you’re better served staying with the core trait lines.

Working that out is what determines your performance.

Zenith.7301:

What they felt robbed was of an elite spec that enhanced the mediocre offensive capabilities of the ranger and gave them a weapon with powerful aoe (which rangers don’t have).

OK.

So you/they don’t like the druid spec and wanted something else. It didn’t rob you of anything though.

That’s a stupid way to say “I don’t like it and wanted something other than what we got”. But I get the gist of it now, thanks.

Have fun arguing.

Of course we were robbed relative to others.

What single other elite spec is so one dimensional to the point where its main weapon, the elite mechanic, and most of the traits are tied to a healer role?

Any other elite spec has a variety of compatible playstyles. Druid is JUST a support spec, period. So rangers who rolled the class not wanting to play support got screwed, as EVERYONE got a power spike from elite specs except ranger, who was shoved into being a heal/buffbot.

You’re acting like I can just choose core ranger and be brought to a raid for just DPS. Don’t be dumb about it, core ranger is horrible, never has been a desirable DPS spec.

So in terms of the meta, as a ranger you are a druid and play a support class, or you don’t get brought to endgame PvE at all.

Zenith.7301:

So rangers who rolled the class not wanting to play support got screwed, as EVERYONE got a power spike from elite specs except ranger, who was shoved into being a heal/buffbot.

…

Ranger had nothing but selfish stuff so we received support.
Do you understand that CC is the most valuable support for PvP one can get? And how much of it the druid has? How can you claim Mad Seeds with LB#4 is not an improvement? A single trait changes the whole life of Berserker Ranger for PvP.

It’s not like you can’t play druid offensively. It’s just that you chose to hate it because it isn’t Dragon Hunter. And that’s not a problem of the game, the spec or anyone else. That’s you.

Druid has flaws of design and QoL.
You keep talking about “no other option but to be a buffbot”. This is where you are miserably wrong. It’s about efficiency. Your Personal DPS is higher in comparison to core Ranger thanks to buffing which you hate so much. Do you understand this?

For christ’s sake! Ranger currently has the highest burst in the whole game if you trait for it. Ranger currently has the best support in the whole game if you trait for it.

But why in the world would anyone sacrifice 4K party DPS for personal DPS loss? That’s an illogical way of thinking and the roots are that you wanted something you didn’t get. There’s no connection to reality.