Guild Wars 2

I guess a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is why I do not feel robbed.

Archon.6480:

I guess a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is why I do not feel robbed.

I don’t see Druid in the list.

Heibi.4251:

Archon.6480:

I guess a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is why I do not feel robbed.

I don’t see Druid in the list.

PvP doesn’t show the elite specialization icon. They’re using the druid spec.

wolfyrik.2017:

As for druid, you’re both right, there was excitment and trepidation. Not least because Anet have utterly failed ranger so many times in the past. The only class, I think, that had a spec which was so divisive had to be Engi/Scrapper. Anet chose to ignore everybody’s pleas, chose to ignore every engineer experience of the last few years and demonstrated a total failure to learn from their mistakes, by presenting Engineer, a class with already lousy Ai’s taking up an entire utility type; another set of utility Ai’s. The forums were on fire with people eager for hammer but begging Anet to reconsider the gyros. They didn’t and the gyros were exactly what the players expected. Badly, designed, badly implemented, buggy and with no sight of fixes. Just like Turrets.

Ranger suffered the same problem. Anet had an opportunity to fix things. They didn’t listen. They just steamrolled ahead, ignoring the problems that have been demonstrated over the last three years.

That’s why many players feel robbed.

I’ll just point out Druid and Scrapper are made by the same person.

bearshaman.3421:

I agree that there was excitement and trepidation. However, if people thought an elite spec was going to fix an entire class, I would have to say that that was a failed hope from the start. It’s another spec, a line of traits, a weapon, a new set of skills, and in some cases, a new mechanic. What’s missing from that list?

Any fixes to the preexisting structures of the class.

Throwing a supercharger into a old, wornout car isn’t gonna win you the Indy500. The whole thing has to be worked on.

Chronomancer definitely did to the poor base Mesmer before it was gutted. Reaper also did to the iffy base Necro.

I’m a druid hater tbh. And not just because the class is insanely OP everywhere. It’s because I want to see a beastmaster. Jeez, Anet, why won’t you give us a spec that can actually kill stuff besides players? xD

I personally feel I got kitten’d with the druid spec. When I heard “Druid” I thought was sustain and condition application.

What I got was sustain, sustain, sustain, more sustain, and a single condi trait. Sure the single condi trait is good, but condi ranger has been completely overshadowed by nearly every class where condi is concerned (at least no where near the same level as condi survival pre summer patch).

I even went out of my way to make Bifrost to go with my Dreamer so I could have the ultimate rainbow spamming character. Instead we got a lazybeam AA, a 1,200 range #2 that requires you to be in melee range to get the healing benefit, and #4 that is simply useless due to the cast time and time it takes for the vines to travel (3 and 5 are actually done well). Also to point out I’m not saying AA is bad, I just wish it wasn’t a Mesmer gs AA reskin copy/paste…

The only saving grace of Druid is the sustain (via healing and condi removal) and ancient seeds (not counting pets as you can use them in core ranger). I just find it depressing that classes like Necromancer got a new shroud, LOADS more condition application, new condition damage, more sustain, condition reduction, and MOSTLY viable and useful utilities (Druid glyphs are a joke).

But hey, we all know by now ranger gets the least amount of developer time compared to any other class, what can you really expect? I know I expect to crapped all over every time my game says “new build available”.

Edit: Anet proved my point, starting the match with zero AF with today patch.

Levetty.1279:

wolfyrik.2017:

As for druid, you’re both right, there was excitment and trepidation. Not least because Anet have utterly failed ranger so many times in the past. The only class, I think, that had a spec which was so divisive had to be Engi/Scrapper. Anet chose to ignore everybody’s pleas, chose to ignore every engineer experience of the last few years and demonstrated a total failure to learn from their mistakes, by presenting Engineer, a class with already lousy Ai’s taking up an entire utility type; another set of utility Ai’s. The forums were on fire with people eager for hammer but begging Anet to reconsider the gyros. They didn’t and the gyros were exactly what the players expected. Badly, designed, badly implemented, buggy and with no sight of fixes. Just like Turrets.

Ranger suffered the same problem. Anet had an opportunity to fix things. They didn’t listen. They just steamrolled ahead, ignoring the problems that have been demonstrated over the last three years.

That’s why many players feel robbed.

I’ll just point out Druid and Scrapper are made by the same person.

bearshaman.3421:

I agree that there was excitement and trepidation. However, if people thought an elite spec was going to fix an entire class, I would have to say that that was a failed hope from the start. It’s another spec, a line of traits, a weapon, a new set of skills, and in some cases, a new mechanic. What’s missing from that list?

Any fixes to the preexisting structures of the class.

Throwing a supercharger into a old, wornout car isn’t gonna win you the Indy500. The whole thing has to be worked on.

Chronomancer definitely did to the poor base Mesmer before it was gutted. Reaper also did to the iffy base Necro.

I would disagree. It gave them another spec line to use, so people replaced whatever was the weakest line with the elite spec one, and in most cases, picked up the elite spec weapon. That didn’t fix the old weapons, or the old skills, or the old trait lines. It just added one solid point to build around. Because by not fixing the rest of the profession, the elite spec has become the profession (referring to reaper and chrono specifically).

Allison The Strange.4519:

What I got was sustain, sustain, sustain, more sustain, and a single condi trait. Sure the single condi trait is good, but condi ranger has been completely overshadowed by nearly every class where condi is concerned (at least no where near the same level as condi survival pre summer patch).

I’m curious to know why you think this, considering when I have asked about which professions do condi the best, ranger always makes the list (along with engi, necro, and one or two others).

Edit: that said, I’m not a fan of how ranger does condi (a lot of fields), but it is effective when you can place them right.

Drop trap/field, hopefully land you imob and prey they don’t just walk out it like they just swatted an annoying fly.

For starters, lets look at our only 2 handed condi weapon, shortbow. It has a conditional bleed that does pitiful damage when compared to other classes, its power damage is in the trash, only has 900 range, and to top it off our #2 is only actually useful at about 180 range or closer. Our GM trait for shortbow is in the trash (compared to Quickdraw it is absolute garbage), and to top it off there is never ending projectile hate since HoT.

Lets look at our two condi one handers: ax and sword. Neither offer a damaging condition on AA, neither offers hard CC, and both are HYBRID weapons. Now lets look at ax specifically; once again we have a 900 range #2 skill that requires you to be in about 180 range for full effect, and a #3 that is linked to our pet (so if it happens to be downed you lose half the skill effect).

For sword I’m not sure where to begin, the AA is both good and bad (keeps you close but non responsive dodging if mid leap), a #2 that isn’t good for much but mobility (and you have to untarget to even do that), and a #3 with a huge animation with little pay off (but at least its an evade).

We have no good condi pets (so once again your forced into a hybrid role), all of our traps (minus spring) have no bonus effects for boons, stun break, etc like dragon hunters. The utility Sharpening Stone is on a kitten CD for only 5 bleed of 10 seconds each (compared to engis incendiary ammo of 6 burn stacks on 50s CD), and lastly sun spirit which glues you to a range to have its effect due to it no longer following you.

Now for the Skirmishing trait line; Sharpened Edges is forced to compete with Trappers Expertise which means you lose huge CD reductions or bleed on critical. Spotter is forced to compete Hidden Barbs (most bleeds from ranger come from crits so this is just a stupid design). Lastly ‘Light on your Feet’ which is another conditional effect that requires you to dodge roll (not evade) in order to get a pathetic 10% duration increase to your condition damage and 10% direct damage bonus on shortbow (which is almost nothing). When compared to quickdraw, LoyF is complete trash and not worth taking in any game mode.

On the other hand, atleast we have some of the better offhand condi weapons…

Edited for rewording
Also anet thinks forty-five second abrivation needs to be censored, gj

Also just because I COMPLETELY forget to mention it, we only have access to 2 viable damaging conditions (bleed and poison) which can be cleared rather easily. We have some burn on trap, spirit, and torch but trap/torch is just a small field and spirit is meh. The only way ranger has access to confusion or torment is via pet/sigils/runes.

Half of rangers condition application comes from being forced into hybrid precision/condition stats so in PvP we have to typically run YOLO builds like sinister/viper with very little payoff compared to other classes.

Also please note I’m not trying to compare Ranger to ANY class and I only compared to ranger to engi once with a single skill. I just want ranger to be able to play condi and not be forced into a build where you have to play perfectly, dodge every big hit, running YOLO stats just do be as good as any other condi class running far more defense than you but putting out as much/more damage.

Allison The Strange.4519:

Also just because I COMPLETELY forget to mention it, we only have access to 2 viable damaging conditions (bleed and poison) which can be cleared rather easily. We have some burn on trap, spirit, and torch but trap/torch is just a small field and spirit is meh. The only way ranger has access to confusion or torment is via pet/sigils/runes.

Half of rangers condition application comes from being forced into hybrid precision/condition stats so in PvP we have to typically run YOLO builds like sinister/viper with very little payoff compared to other classes.

Also please note I’m not trying to compare Ranger to ANY class and I only compared to ranger to engi once with a single skill. I just want ranger to be able to play condi and not be forced into a build where you have to play perfectly, dodge every big hit, running YOLO stats just do be as good as any other condi class running far more defense than you but putting out as much/more damage.

Check out these builds. The first two are PVE, the third is PVP.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJA3fjUqQ7KWuCOrAVLGMEKOAG9Go7ggtq/D4Zz5SceKA-TxhAQBQU9no9AAAoOBLpEEkK/gx+DA4gAQKgFVWB-e

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV3fjUqQ5KWzCOrAVLWMEsmOQwqqxEAGdNA4t6YNteBzpOB-ThSAQBU4BAEgDCAAuAAXSJo0OCAhU5XP2fIfaGio6PBUHApAWUZF-e

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8fjEqQ5KWyCusAVLWMEsm31JoFAnVHrpVmAworBUizrA-TZRFABMcRAS4IAAwDA48yAps/AA

As I said, I’m not a fan of depending on zero range AOE for alot of it, but if you are good with it, you can run condi with ranger very effectively. And there are some really interesting combinations you can pull too.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, when I talk about balance or skills or anything really I’m referring to PvP. When it comes to PvE you can basically run anything anywhere (except raid & high lvl fractals) and have no issues.

For the pvp build it is not the worst thing ever but it is almost a all or nothing amulet with nothing offense that I hate being forced to run if I want to play condi ranger. The 560 toughness with only 16k hp just makes me feel far too squish, especially when fighting a necro who has a passive that just sends all 20+ bleed stacks and imob back to me >.>

Also don’t get me started on how slow you build AF in this build… If it wasn’t for ancient seeds I think I might drop the whole druid line all together >.<

I don’t pvp, so I won’t speak to how that build would or would not work.

It works decently well but you have very little defense (honestly I droped torch for dagger and it helped tons). The upside is 40+ bleed stacks and 10+ seconds of imob. The downside is condi necro transfering 40+ bleed stacks back to you on top of them dropping 10 other condis on you.

Also the whole celestial avatar bit is just useless due to the fact you will almost never fill your bar due to bad mechanics (thanks anet!).

Allison The Strange.4519:

It works decently well but you have very little defense (honestly I droped torch for dagger and it helped tons). The upside is 40+ bleed stacks and 10+ seconds of imob. The downside is condi necro transfering 40+ bleed stacks back to you on top of them dropping 10 other condis on you.

Also the whole celestial avatar bit is just useless due to the fact you will almost never fill your bar due to bad mechanics (thanks anet!)

This is how I know you aren’t a good ranger. There are a few builds that can pretty much have cele state nearly full every time it’s off cooldown while in combat. Don’t talk about things if you don’t have a good understanding of the class. Thanks.

Lettuce.2945:

Allison The Strange.4519:

It works decently well but you have very little defense (honestly I droped torch for dagger and it helped tons). The upside is 40+ bleed stacks and 10+ seconds of imob. The downside is condi necro transfering 40+ bleed stacks back to you on top of them dropping 10 other condis on you.

Also the whole celestial avatar bit is just useless due to the fact you will almost never fill your bar due to bad mechanics (thanks anet!)

This is how I know you aren’t a good ranger. There are a few builds that can pretty much have cele state nearly full every time it’s off cooldown while in combat. Don’t talk about things if you don’t have a good understanding of the class. Thanks.

Even Staff is enough.

I know things have definitely gotten off topic…but I absolutely find solace in the fact that a lot of people share the same discomfort. I should have made a poll :P

Matt Stacey.7415:

I know things have definitely gotten off topic…but I absolutely find solace in the fact that a lot of people share the same discomfort. I should have made a poll :P

Do it!
I’d love to see how will it go.

Doughnuthole.2403:

Matt Stacey.7415:

I know things have definitely gotten off topic…but I absolutely find solace in the fact that a lot of people share the same discomfort. I should have made a poll :P

Do it!
I’d love to see how will it go.

If I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably gonna be 50/50, depending on how you word it. Even people who like druid as an elite spec will say that it can be improved and made to work better. So if you are asking can it be improved, the response will be an overwhelming yes, cuz I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. If you are asking should they have given us a completely different elite spec, I think that will be close to an even split.

Lettuce.2945:

Allison The Strange.4519:

It works decently well but you have very little defense (honestly I droped torch for dagger and it helped tons). The upside is 40+ bleed stacks and 10+ seconds of imob. The downside is condi necro transfering 40+ bleed stacks back to you on top of them dropping 10 other condis on you.

Also the whole celestial avatar bit is just useless due to the fact you will almost never fill your bar due to bad mechanics (thanks anet!)

This is how I know you aren’t a good ranger. There are a few builds that can pretty much have cele state nearly full every time it’s off cooldown while in combat. Don’t talk about things if you don’t have a good understanding of the class. Thanks.

Thanks captain akitten, I was referring to a build setup that does not use staff, nor does it have AoE regen. How about reading what I’m posting about before throwing insults like a 10yr old.

mcjolliboy.1769:

Hate my Druid… I deal damage, heal, cleanse, AoE CC, boost my team’s damage, survive onehelluvamassiveattackfromcrazyasszerg, stealth, water field, break stun every 10 secs… (whew!)

Effin hate my Druid right now… too much things to do, so anti-casual….

It seems strange to me that you could feel ROBBED because you weren’t given the toy you were hoping for. It’s an extremely selfish, narrow minded point of view.

Druid gave rangers something we’ve needed for a very, very long time. Support. This was HEAVILY asked for on the forums because the core ranger design, while quite good in 1v1 or small scale skirmishes, brought nothing to the table that benefited team fights or large scale content like WvWvW. Our lack of support options was stifling, and was one of the biggest hindrances when running this profession in any game mode.

Druid brought us support. A LOT of support. Both offensive and defensive. We have a ton of healing that can make a big impact in team fights while also improving our natural sustain, which makes us even better at 1v1 than we were before. It also brought us even more control skills, allowing us to support our allies by hindering our enemies, while again improving our 1v1 options.

Ranger’s biggest design flaw, the lack of impact in group combat, was addressed with the druid. Is there still more that can be done? Certainly. But it was a huge step in the right direction.

Meanwhile core ranger was given four new pets, two of which being extremely good in comparison to our other pets. So even core ranger is in a much better place now than it was before HoT. Even if you don’t like druid and want to stick to core ranger you got something new to play with.

I’m sorry you didn’t like what you got, but you have to understand that not everyone was going to be made happy regardless. If we had been given an elite sniper specialization I would have been very disappointed because that isn’t what I made my ranger for. I rolled ranger to be a nature loving survivalist with an animal companion, not a straight up archer that kills people like a ranged thief. And of course, we’d be back in the same boat we’ve been in for years. Lack of group support with no way to contribute to the group beyond single target damage.

Maybe we’ll get that for our next elite specialization, but for now I’m glad we got one that actually addressed some of our biggest, most glaring weaknesses first. Now we’re viable in all game modes and I’m loving it.

Druid bored me to tears so much that i stopped playing the game, after the fact was clear that rangers cannot get nice things, aka getting nerfed 5-6 times after HoT release.

I think druid was the most successful elite in delivering on actually offering a different style of play for the profession. In that it is different from base ranger not everyone will enjoy the new style which is fine they can still play base ranger problems arise when every other professions elites where merely strait upgrades on the base profession . In my opinion druid is what an elite spec should be and the problem lays with other elites .

foxcat.4096:

I think druid was the most successful elite in delivering on actually offering a different style of play for the profession. In that it is different from base ranger not everyone will enjoy the new style which is fine they can still play base ranger problems arise when every other professions elites where merely strait upgrades on the base profession . In my opinion druid is what an elite spec should be and the problem lays with other elites .

I completely disagree. I think reaper and chronomancer were the true standard of what elite specs should be. And of course, they were among the first specs released, with the most time spent on them. The reception to both those elite specs was unequivocally better, and the player feedback and development time were clearly a result. Feedback lead to huge gameplay changes which allowed people who play the spec to be a part of the development. Ranger was the last released spec and of course got the least feedback, so the lack of development is clear.

Matt Stacey.7415:

foxcat.4096:

I think druid was the most successful elite in delivering on actually offering a different style of play for the profession. In that it is different from base ranger not everyone will enjoy the new style which is fine they can still play base ranger problems arise when every other professions elites where merely strait upgrades on the base profession . In my opinion druid is what an elite spec should be and the problem lays with other elites .

I completely disagree. I think reaper and chronomancer were the true standard of what elite specs should be. And of course, they were among the first specs released, with the most time spent on them. The reception to both those elite specs was unequivocally better, and the player feedback and development time were clearly a result. Feedback lead to huge gameplay changes which allowed people who play the spec to be a part of the development. Ranger was the last released spec and of course got the least feedback, so the lack of development is clear.

If your idea of what an elite spec should be is a straight upgrade then yeah you would think reaper fits the bill . As a necro main no matter what play style i am going for condi , power , minions etc i have to take reaper there is no reason to ever not take reaper. This to me is flawed design and implementation elites where advertised as giving you a new way to play your profession when in reality reaper is the only way to play.

I was originally hoping for some long range AOE’s with our staves. It seems like that is something Ranger is missing since Barrage is really our only option in that area.

Chrono Scout.3950:

I was originally hoping for some long range AOE’s with our staves. It seems like that is something Ranger is missing since Barrage is really our only option in that area.

I fell in love with ranger from the GW2 barrage skill video (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/) but unfortunately it doesn’t feel as satisfying in game :\ I wish we had more skills like that

Druid is the best thing that EVER happened to rangers.

Some Glyph utilities are incredibly good.

It’s a DPS and support increase in PvE.

From a PvP perspective: On demand 10s CD stealth+super speed, that cleanses ALL conditions AND breaks stuns which also allows you to reset a fight with incredible selfhealing potential with 0 healing power.

Or a 12s CD ranged Entangle with a Longbow.

Or ridicoulously broken mobility with Greatsword+Staff.

All of this made rangers the undiputable gods of 1v1.

Get real people.

/signed. Ranger player.

runeblade.7514:

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.

It is the weapon that gets me a lot of kills. It is far far superior than Longbow.

• It tracks players. You can not side step away from staff attack.
• It is instant. The moment you press the button is the moment the player gets damaged.
• Staff 3 is one of the best mobility skill in the game. Combine with GS, enemies can never escape you or chase you.

It is impossible to escape Staff pewpewpew. At least with longbow, I can see the arrow coming and dodge it when I see it near me. I can get out of range because Longbow doesn’t have a mobility skill.

I win more fight with staff than I ever did with Longbow or any other weapon.

Now, if I can just figure out how to survive when I switch to any other weapon – but it isn’t happening.

atheria.2837:

runeblade.7514:

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.

It is the weapon that gets me a lot of kills. It is far far superior than Longbow.

• It tracks players. You can not side step away from staff attack.
• It is instant. The moment you press the button is the moment the player gets damaged.
• Staff 3 is one of the best mobility skill in the game. Combine with GS, enemies can never escape you or chase you.

It is impossible to escape Staff pewpewpew. At least with longbow, I can see the arrow coming and dodge it when I see it near me. I can get out of range because Longbow doesn’t have a mobility skill.

I win more fight with staff than I ever did with Longbow or any other weapon.

Now, if I can just figure out how to survive when I switch to any other weapon – but it isn’t happening.

Funny thing is while playing WvW as of late, running an 80% or so zerker Druid (while solo roaming) wiht Longbow+Greatsword, my longbow proved 10 times more affective at killing people, I pulled 2v1s and 3v1s much more often than with the staff and I could disengage just as well if not better.
Point Blank Shot+Ancient Seeds proved to be stupidly strong, you also have like twice the pressure and burst, while with a staff, your enemy actually has to engage in a long drowned out fight of attrition becouse you don’t have any burst whatsoever, if you fight an even slightly tanky foe, you’re not going to kill it in a reasonable amount of time, if at all. The staff’s mobility is great, but stealth just proved to me again that it’s the strongest disengage tool in the game, by far. And with Hunter’s Shot and Celestial shadow, you have tons of it.
With Point Blank Shot+Ancient Seeds you can even land a full Barrage on someone, so not even that skill is wasted in 1v1s.
The Staff also has two wasted skills (which the Longbow doesn’t): Astral Wisp, which is not worth casting, like, ever; and Vine Surge, with its long cast time which makes it a stupidly unreliable skill.

I say this as someone who tested countless hours (in PvP and WvW) all the different combos. In WvW, Longbow+Greatsword zerker Druid with Defender Runes was by far the most effective combo while roaming that I could find.

Khenzy.9348:

Druid is the best thing that EVER happened to rangers.

No, druid is the most viable thing that ever happened to rangers.
It is the worst designed specialization in the whole gaming industry as far as I can tell.

Which other game has a healer that has to avoid healing people to full HP, could you tell?

Tragic Positive.9356:

Khenzy.9348:

Druid is the best thing that EVER happened to rangers.

No, druid is the most viable thing that ever happened to rangers.
It is the worst designed specialization in the whole gaming industry as far as I can tell.

Which other game has a healer that has to avoid healing people to full HP, could you tell?

Well, that’s just a different choise of words. Maybe it’s the content you play that does not encourage such a playstyle, but the side heals I can toss out from time to time are just fine with the way (and where) I play.

runeblade.7514:

• It tracks players. You can not side step away from staff attack.
• It is instant. The moment you press the button is the moment the player gets damaged.

It is impossible to escape Staff pewpewpew. At least with longbow, I can see the arrow coming and dodge it when I see it near me. I can get out of range because Longbow doesn’t have a mobility skill.

I just saw this quoted in a later post. LB is and has been instant-hit for some years now. It’s not possible to avoid the arrows with sidesteps or movement skills, they hit the same as a rifle.

Khenzy.9348:

Well, that’s just a different choise of words. Maybe it’s the content you play that does not encourage such a playstyle, but the side heals I can toss out from time to time are just fine with the way (and where) I play.

I play every content except WvW and none encourages the playstyle.
The side heals are never really gonna make a difference. Period.
The green numbers you see from Staff or Regen have no lasting value besides making you feel good about yourself. However, it doesn’t work on analytical type of people who always check results before making a statement.

Plus you missed the point. You still can’t heal when it is needed. You can heal people when you finished the silly mini-game of running behind peoples’ backs long enough.
And you’re gonna miss the heal if the target isn’t stationary anyway.

Druid gave us a lot of nice things.
But what I keep repeating all over and over again is that those nice things have horrible QoL issues as well as awful unfriendly design.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Khenzy.9348:

Well, that’s just a different choise of words. Maybe it’s the content you play that does not encourage such a playstyle, but the side heals I can toss out from time to time are just fine with the way (and where) I play.

I play every content except WvW and none encourages the playstyle.
The side heals are never really gonna make a difference. Period.
The green numbers you see from Staff or Regen have no lasting value besides making you feel good about yourself. However, it doesn’t work on analytical type of people who always check results before making a statement.

Plus you missed the point. You still can’t heal when it is needed. You can heal people when you finished the silly mini-game of running behind peoples’ backs long enough.
And you’re gonna miss the heal if the target isn’t stationary anyway.

Druid gave us a lot of nice things.
But what I keep repeating all over and over again is that those nice things have horrible QoL issues as well as awful unfriendly design.

First, they make a difference, they really do. PvP and WvW is all I do, and they definetly make a difference there. Saying the side-heals never make a difference ‘period’ is a blunt and meaningless statement if you don’t specify in what situation are these heals lacking.

Second, I never talked about the staff in terms of healing, which, by the way, proved to be a great selfsustain weapon: with Live Vicarously you secure yourself 200hps alone with the AA, that plus high regen uptime with shouts you’re at around 330hps, you then can have things such as Sigil of blood, SIgnet of the Wild and so on which puts you above 400hps, that’s higher than Warrior’s Healing Signet, then you have your staff 3+staff 5, which puts you waaaay beyond that. The AA does pretty decent damage with Air+fire sigils while retaining all that sustain. Staff 3+5 can also do some decent burst healing to allies, which is all what the druid is about.

Third, I didn’t miss any point because I didn’t state one in the first place. The only bad CA skill is the nº 1, which is a sustained heal in a CA form designed to do burst healing, so you heal more with CA 3 and 4. But that’s it.

Druid is nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. It’s NOT your classic MMORPG WoW copy cat healer, this game’s desing doesn’t have that and does not support it.

Khenzy.9348:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Khenzy.9348:

Well, that’s just a different choise of words. Maybe it’s the content you play that does not encourage such a playstyle, but the side heals I can toss out from time to time are just fine with the way (and where) I play.

I play every content except WvW and none encourages the playstyle.
The side heals are never really gonna make a difference. Period.
The green numbers you see from Staff or Regen have no lasting value besides making you feel good about yourself. However, it doesn’t work on analytical type of people who always check results before making a statement.

Plus you missed the point. You still can’t heal when it is needed. You can heal people when you finished the silly mini-game of running behind peoples’ backs long enough.
And you’re gonna miss the heal if the target isn’t stationary anyway.

Druid gave us a lot of nice things.
But what I keep repeating all over and over again is that those nice things have horrible QoL issues as well as awful unfriendly design.

First, they make a difference, they really do. PvP and WvW is all I do, and they definetly make a difference there. Saying the side-heals never make a difference ‘period’ is a blunt and meaningless statement if you don’t specify in what situation are these heals lacking.

Second, I never talked about the staff in terms of healing, which, by the way, proved to be a great selfsustain weapon: with Live Vicarously you secure yourself 200hps alone with the AA, that plus high regen uptime with shouts you’re at around 330hps, you then can have things such as Sigil of blood, SIgnet of the Wild and so on which puts you above 400hps, that’s higher than Warrior’s Healing Signet, then you have your staff 3+staff 5, which puts you waaaay beyond that. The AA does pretty decent damage with Air+fire sigils while retaining all that sustain. Staff 3+5 can also do some decent burst healing to allies, which is all what the druid is about.

Third, I didn’t miss any point because I didn’t state one in the first place. The only bad CA skill is the nº 1, which is a sustained heal in a CA form designed to do burst healing, so you heal more with CA 3 and 4. But that’s it.

Druid is nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. It’s NOT your classic MMORPG WoW copy cat healer, this game’s desing doesn’t have that and does not support it.

From twitchcon stream…

“Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.”

Nobody is disputing the improved self sustaining build of Ranger/Druid. Most of them are all the same builds running in wvw now.

We are talking about the healing role. Go spec for healer and go “sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW” with that “heavy healing unlike anything you have seen before in GW2”… You could take that healing build and go to spvp too.

Stream and record how good the healing side of Druid is and get back to us so we can have a discussion of healing design mechanics and roles and viability and build diversity.

Swagger.1459:

Khenzy.9348:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Khenzy.9348:

Well, that’s just a different choise of words. Maybe it’s the content you play that does not encourage such a playstyle, but the side heals I can toss out from time to time are just fine with the way (and where) I play.

I play every content except WvW and none encourages the playstyle.
The side heals are never really gonna make a difference. Period.
The green numbers you see from Staff or Regen have no lasting value besides making you feel good about yourself. However, it doesn’t work on analytical type of people who always check results before making a statement.

Plus you missed the point. You still can’t heal when it is needed. You can heal people when you finished the silly mini-game of running behind peoples’ backs long enough.
And you’re gonna miss the heal if the target isn’t stationary anyway.

Druid gave us a lot of nice things.
But what I keep repeating all over and over again is that those nice things have horrible QoL issues as well as awful unfriendly design.

First, they make a difference, they really do. PvP and WvW is all I do, and they definetly make a difference there. Saying the side-heals never make a difference ‘period’ is a blunt and meaningless statement if you don’t specify in what situation are these heals lacking.

Second, I never talked about the staff in terms of healing, which, by the way, proved to be a great selfsustain weapon: with Live Vicarously you secure yourself 200hps alone with the AA, that plus high regen uptime with shouts you’re at around 330hps, you then can have things such as Sigil of blood, SIgnet of the Wild and so on which puts you above 400hps, that’s higher than Warrior’s Healing Signet, then you have your staff 3+staff 5, which puts you waaaay beyond that. The AA does pretty decent damage with Air+fire sigils while retaining all that sustain. Staff 3+5 can also do some decent burst healing to allies, which is all what the druid is about.

Third, I didn’t miss any point because I didn’t state one in the first place. The only bad CA skill is the nº 1, which is a sustained heal in a CA form designed to do burst healing, so you heal more with CA 3 and 4. But that’s it.

Druid is nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. It’s NOT your classic MMORPG WoW copy cat healer, this game’s desing doesn’t have that and does not support it.

From twitchcon stream…

“Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.”

Nobody is disputing the improved self sustaining build of Ranger/Druid. Most of them are all the same builds running in wvw now.

We are talking about the healing role. Go spec for healer and go “sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW” with that “heavy healing unlike anything you have seen before in GW2”… You could take that healing build and go to spvp too.

Stream and record how good the healing side of Druid is and get back to us so we can have a discussion of healing design mechanics and roles and viability and build diversity.

That’s just marketing fluff. Read and interpret the mechanics to make a more informed opinion. The spec is obviously not what that description says but it has its niche.

Note: I could care less about PvE and Raids. Those places are not the ones you should be having a discussion with me. Well, I’m not even playing this game anymore to be honest, I’ve got tired of terrible balance, false promises, empty and shallow ideas, and lack of content.

Khenzy.9348:

Swagger.1459:

Khenzy.9348:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Khenzy.9348:

Well, that’s just a different choise of words. Maybe it’s the content you play that does not encourage such a playstyle, but the side heals I can toss out from time to time are just fine with the way (and where) I play.

I play every content except WvW and none encourages the playstyle.
The side heals are never really gonna make a difference. Period.
The green numbers you see from Staff or Regen have no lasting value besides making you feel good about yourself. However, it doesn’t work on analytical type of people who always check results before making a statement.

Plus you missed the point. You still can’t heal when it is needed. You can heal people when you finished the silly mini-game of running behind peoples’ backs long enough.
And you’re gonna miss the heal if the target isn’t stationary anyway.

Druid gave us a lot of nice things.
But what I keep repeating all over and over again is that those nice things have horrible QoL issues as well as awful unfriendly design.

First, they make a difference, they really do. PvP and WvW is all I do, and they definetly make a difference there. Saying the side-heals never make a difference ‘period’ is a blunt and meaningless statement if you don’t specify in what situation are these heals lacking.

Second, I never talked about the staff in terms of healing, which, by the way, proved to be a great selfsustain weapon: with Live Vicarously you secure yourself 200hps alone with the AA, that plus high regen uptime with shouts you’re at around 330hps, you then can have things such as Sigil of blood, SIgnet of the Wild and so on which puts you above 400hps, that’s higher than Warrior’s Healing Signet, then you have your staff 3+staff 5, which puts you waaaay beyond that. The AA does pretty decent damage with Air+fire sigils while retaining all that sustain. Staff 3+5 can also do some decent burst healing to allies, which is all what the druid is about.

Third, I didn’t miss any point because I didn’t state one in the first place. The only bad CA skill is the nº 1, which is a sustained heal in a CA form designed to do burst healing, so you heal more with CA 3 and 4. But that’s it.

Druid is nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. It’s NOT your classic MMORPG WoW copy cat healer, this game’s desing doesn’t have that and does not support it.

From twitchcon stream…

“Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.”

Nobody is disputing the improved self sustaining build of Ranger/Druid. Most of them are all the same builds running in wvw now.

We are talking about the healing role. Go spec for healer and go “sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW” with that “heavy healing unlike anything you have seen before in GW2”… You could take that healing build and go to spvp too.

Stream and record how good the healing side of Druid is and get back to us so we can have a discussion of healing design mechanics and roles and viability and build diversity.

That’s just marketing fluff. Read and interpret the mechanics to make a more informed opinion. The spec is obviously not what that description says but it has its niche.

Note: I could care less about PvE and Raids. Those places are not the ones you should be having a discussion with me. Well, I’m not even playing this game anymore to be honest, I’ve got tired of terrible balance, false promises, empty and shallow ideas, and lack of content.

I’m talking abut wvw and spvp… I made zero mention of pve or raids personally. That was just in the full quote from the dev.

Then don’t defend poor designs just because they made an improved self sustaining bunker that can move better in wvw…

Swagger.1459:

Khenzy.9348:

Swagger.1459:

Khenzy.9348:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Khenzy.9348:

Well, that’s just a different choise of words. Maybe it’s the content you play that does not encourage such a playstyle, but the side heals I can toss out from time to time are just fine with the way (and where) I play.

I play every content except WvW and none encourages the playstyle.
The side heals are never really gonna make a difference. Period.
The green numbers you see from Staff or Regen have no lasting value besides making you feel good about yourself. However, it doesn’t work on analytical type of people who always check results before making a statement.

Plus you missed the point. You still can’t heal when it is needed. You can heal people when you finished the silly mini-game of running behind peoples’ backs long enough.
And you’re gonna miss the heal if the target isn’t stationary anyway.

Druid gave us a lot of nice things.
But what I keep repeating all over and over again is that those nice things have horrible QoL issues as well as awful unfriendly design.

First, they make a difference, they really do. PvP and WvW is all I do, and they definetly make a difference there. Saying the side-heals never make a difference ‘period’ is a blunt and meaningless statement if you don’t specify in what situation are these heals lacking.

Second, I never talked about the staff in terms of healing, which, by the way, proved to be a great selfsustain weapon: with Live Vicarously you secure yourself 200hps alone with the AA, that plus high regen uptime with shouts you’re at around 330hps, you then can have things such as Sigil of blood, SIgnet of the Wild and so on which puts you above 400hps, that’s higher than Warrior’s Healing Signet, then you have your staff 3+staff 5, which puts you waaaay beyond that. The AA does pretty decent damage with Air+fire sigils while retaining all that sustain. Staff 3+5 can also do some decent burst healing to allies, which is all what the druid is about.

Third, I didn’t miss any point because I didn’t state one in the first place. The only bad CA skill is the nº 1, which is a sustained heal in a CA form designed to do burst healing, so you heal more with CA 3 and 4. But that’s it.

Druid is nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. It’s NOT your classic MMORPG WoW copy cat healer, this game’s desing doesn’t have that and does not support it.

From twitchcon stream…

“Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.”

Nobody is disputing the improved self sustaining build of Ranger/Druid. Most of them are all the same builds running in wvw now.

We are talking about the healing role. Go spec for healer and go “sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW” with that “heavy healing unlike anything you have seen before in GW2”… You could take that healing build and go to spvp too.

Stream and record how good the healing side of Druid is and get back to us so we can have a discussion of healing design mechanics and roles and viability and build diversity.

That’s just marketing fluff. Read and interpret the mechanics to make a more informed opinion. The spec is obviously not what that description says but it has its niche.

Note: I could care less about PvE and Raids. Those places are not the ones you should be having a discussion with me. Well, I’m not even playing this game anymore to be honest, I’ve got tired of terrible balance, false promises, empty and shallow ideas, and lack of content.

I’m talking abut wvw and spvp… I made zero mention of pve or raids personally. That was just in the full quote from the dev.

Then don’t defend poor designs just because they made an improved self sustaining bunker that can move better in wvw…

“They made an improved self sustaining bunker that can move better in wvw.” That’s quite the narrow definition you have there but I take it.
The devs made a poor job at selling the spec with a predetermined descriptive vision of what it is(was) according to them, got it. Besides that, and with what we currently have right now, what’s wrong with giving (zerker) Rangers ridiculous selfsustain, amazing condi cleansing, stupid strong CC, and situational AoE burst healing in WvW? Or a completely viable bunkery/bruiser supportive role, while being undisputable kings in 1v1 with lots of good (meta) match ups in sPvP?

Khenzy.9348:

First, they make a difference, they really do. PvP and WvW is all I do, and they definetly make a difference there. Saying the side-heals never make a difference ‘period’ is a blunt and meaningless statement if you don’t specify in what situation are these heals lacking.

Seeing numbers does not equal being useful.
How many times have you saved a person by auto-attacking with a staff?

Because you still don’t understand that you have to heal the same person for 10 seconds to give him 3000 HP back.
In a zerg where 40 different people run one through another making it impossible to focus on healing 1 person this is even less possible.

Are you gonna shout “Stand still for 10 seconds! I’m gonna heal you!”? Well I don’t think so. The healing you are so proud of is useless because in order to be noticeable – a person has to be away from damage for a looooong time. In which he can literally just step out of combat and get back again being healed to full.
And by talking about Zerg, I wonder how noticeable is healing random people for 400 HP in a 30 second interval where people die in 5 seconds if they step their foot in a wrong place.

You said I didn’t specify the situation? I’ll correct myself, then.
The side-heals from staff are useless in every situation and environment. Better now?
I’m sorry, but there hasn’t been a single input about Auto-Attack saving anyone from dying. PvE,PvP or WvW. I know you feel good about seeing lots of green numbers – but they have no real value.

I feel robbed , no shape shifting – ok . A lot of pets are meh , staff

Dps is no good and healing is not that affective . Cele form ain’t that good in my opinion as we’ll, druid in General is fine but compare to outer espec I feel robbed.

I love you, Tragic

I agree with you Tragic that the healing is relatively useless in a zerg because of the sheer numbers involved, but then any amount of healing is going to be relatively useless. CA is relatively useless in a zerg.

But I still disagree entirely that 500/second or so is useless in PvP. I think you’re drastically overestimating how much of the time someone is taking big damage. Most of a PvP fight is spent using utilities, using long-casting damage skills, kiting, dodging, LoSing, taking small packets of damage like autoattacks and condis, and so on. Ideally you ally dodges the big attacks, and you clean up the damage taken from the unavoidable minion herd ad autoattacks or whatever.

Let me give you a concrete example. Back before the trait changes, I ran a WvW build that used natural healing (on the ranger still at that time) SotW, and regen to stay alive. I could fight in extended, minute + long duels or versus multiple opponents without ever touching my heal skill. 0 big heals. That’s how powerful these tiny heals are. The 1.5 seconds or whatever that someone dodges you might heal them for 700 health.

This health needs to be regained sooner or later, and you can’t easily get out of combat in a PvP team fight. If someone uses their own heal to get them up to 7k health, wouldn’t it be better if they were at 10k health instead? Yes. More health is always better.

No, I don’t feel cheated. But my druid playstyle is pretty much what I wanted from ranger in the first place. So there’s that.

@Fluffball

The thing is that you always have to compare healing to damage income. If the healing income is lower than damage income – then the only thing it matters is “how much time did I gain by the heal and how much time did I have to sacrifice in order to heal”.

If you enter CAF – you gain access to healing that might be sufficient (depends on healing power and modifiers) to overpower the damage income – improving your survival by a huge margin.
If you, however, get tickled by 340 per second while taking damage equal to 2K or more, then it’s literally useless. Simply because you do not put out any significant pressure, CC, damage mitigation or anything of that matter during this time. A thief would literally blow the head off of anyone who was dealing damage by the time your stuff heals the numbers that might be useful.

So what’s the deal? You could buy even more time for your allies by pressing LB #4. By using staff you dropped any and all damage pressure (that allows enemies to go all-out), utility and damage mitigation (LB or SB into SmokeScale’s field is a lot of blinds that could be taken as 500-6000 damage prevention while damage prevention is always more beneficial than healing).
With all due respect – staff side heals are not going to be relevant for real combat.

Do you know what actually do the side-heals on staff do? They increase the amount of healing that goes to overheal while in CAF. And yes – this is what happens to me most of the time. In raids and in PvP. I keep building up CAF with staff and when I press #4, most of my allies are back at full health. Which makes any and all of the healing with staff useless.
If I cannot take my allies back to full HP during CAF – I can guarantee you that those guyz will be dead by the time you gain access to next CAF because the side-heals on staff would never be able to save them.
Am I wrong, by any chance?

That’s the thing about staff and shout regen though, it heals whether you want it to or not. In the build I use, quick draw means I have to keep swapping weapons to play optimally. So ya, when I need to I LB 4 to protect my ally, and then moments later I’m back on staff topping off the auotattack damage with staff healing, which helpfully also maximizes my damage.

The second part is the meta we’re currently in. Despite the amulet changes, everyone is running either sustain or flat-out bunker builds. If me and a scrapper are fighting and ele and a revenant, not only is no one going to die, I can actually outheal the damage the opponents do as long as my competent scrapper buddy walks away from precision strike and etc. Hell, just using a shout alone puts out like 300/s on the scrapper due to RR (edit for clarity, scrapper trait rapid regeneration). Astral wisp bumps it to ~700/s on the melee scrapper and staff auto takes it close to 800/s. (I’m estimating these numbers obviously but whatever). Healing turret only heals for like 4k or something, so the scrapper is actually better off doing damage and using non-healing skills while I keep him going. If something goes terribly we both heal to full via CA and blast combos and nothing dies.

Big damage classes like DH or DD just really stop making appearances after a certain point. I see 0-1 per match.

@ Fluffball

I’ll say it differently.
Once you get to full HP and overheal at least a small amount of HP – all the healing from staff (except #3 which is a burst heal aka high Heal per Second) was all for nothing.
That’s what is the issue. And you will get into overheal by using CAF and we both are aware of that. If you are working on a healing power, that is.

I try to avoid using CA as much as possible for several reasons. 1) It’s a giant sky beacon that says “come kill the druid.” 2) I need the stun breaker and condi clear for if the other team decides to kill the druid anyway. 3) I need it for emergencies if one of my teammates get spiked or falls asleep during the 10 minute mid fight. Basically 1-3= I find it wasteful to use CA if we can get by without it.

Us disagreeing is probably two things. 1) A play style difference; if you’re using CA as much as possible then “topping people off” isn’t going to matter to you and might even be inefficient. 2) It doesn’t matter because you literally have no choice but to heal people if you’re using staff and shouts. You’re following my viewpoint even if it’s for a different goal than me.

@ Fluffball

Now you’re getting me really interested.
Just for the Lulz of it – I’ll try a full Regen build tomorrow. Like with Dolyak rune, SotW, Staff and Regen. If I’ll feel any difference in survival, I’ll come back and give you a nice smooch (I always wanted to try a build like that but somehow forgot about it)