Guild Wars 2

I guess it’s no secret that many of us are dissatisfied with our Druids. I feel Druid is too isolated from the rest of the class, which was inevitable since until now Rangers had very little party support or healing at all. Much of Druid’s design budget is spent on a bunch of spells that just make your health higher in different ways. Staff has a few damage abilities but none of them are great. The little damage offered by Druid is also sort of all over the place, with Staff 2 being sort of a damage over time spell that is affected by… power, but then there’s also a gylph that places a bunch of conditions on your opponent. I don’t think any of it scales especially well, and if they did there wouldn’t really be a point in building that way anyway because Rangers already have so many ways to do damage.

I think the introduction of a “pure healer” to the game is flawed, as I’m sure many of you do as well. I don’t read the forums much but my guess is that this has been discussed ad nausium. It’s the only trait line added in the expansion that seems to only be of use in a single part of the game (namely raids). The Druid trait line does not support non-healing builds especially well, so using it as a supplement to other playstyles doesn’t feel great.

There aren’t really trait lines in the game that are so focused on turning your character into a single thing. Druid is unique because the act of using that line locks you into a single playstyle (where healing is at the forefront of everything you do). A Guardian or Elementalist can support while also being something of a threat in other ways, but Druids and by extension Rangers lack the tools to make that sort of playstyle work. It’s a balance issue, sure (our healing builds being so one-dimensional compared to other classes with pre-existing support tools) but more importantly it feels unfair and not fun. Playing a celestial Elementalist feels better enough at dealing damage, staying alive, and synergizing with groups (particularly in WvW or PvP) that the loss in healing power doesn’t really feel like that big of a deal.

So the subject of my post comes back: Druids need damage, or at least the option to build and deal meaningful damage. I don’t know how that should happen, but it really ought to.

some damage would be nice, but for me would be a priority to increase de scalimg of the healing. i cant be like it is now, a healer class that not heal that much.

I agree with the damage request. If not, add debuffs to every CAF ability. Fix CAF #1 and #2.

I really think they should merge CA 1 and 2 into a single skill, and turn CA 1 into something offensive. Maybe an attack that inflicts Weakness to your target (and maybe nearby enemies) while dealing damage

Aside from that…maybe Black Hole can be made into a ground targeting skill so that you dont have to pin yourself in place to drop the gravity well.

druid shouldn’t have damage at all but staff needs a dps increase, better healing on the auto attack and it needs to apply conditions as well. the entire purpose of druid isn’t dps, it’s healing, they should probably move the base healing back to what it was before the scaling changes because now without a heavy investment in healing gear you don’t get much from it. Those are the things that would solve the problem with druid.

putting dps on a healer makes it too strong, especially with some of the bunker sets in pvp, you have to understand that this game revolves a lot around pvp for better or worse.

edit: fixing spirits would be a big help as well….3 years later but who’s counting….

Well i can not actually agree to that, somehow i found out that druid has crazy DPS on staff’s 1 and when you using druid’s pair LB /staff with correct traits it gives you extra high moving ability and crazy damage. All you need for that is at least 55% critical and zerker stats. With correct food you will get for example in WvW around 2.8k damage / 1.1k ferocity. It allows you to drain your enemy with 18-25 k crit.damage in 5 sec with staff’s 1, if you switch weapon and use LB’s 4 (knockback) with trait that apply entangle on knockbacking enemy and rapid fire after that it will be crazy damage. Low Vitality (around 16k) and Armor points around 2k is compensated with permanent 33% speed increase and staff’s 3 + LB’s 3 with stealth are giving you nice maneur . Also the healing skills of staff and celectial avatar still heals your allies with 1.7/2.3k, trust me its not bad at all.
Overall you can burst the most hated Pew Pew Ranger build to the God of hated rank ;D

CAF#1 already has damage attached to it.

More mentality that,
Druid = ranger upgrade

I can’t wait for the the next set of elite specializations so this mindset will stop targeting druid.

Justine.6351:

More mentality that,
Druid = ranger upgrade

I can’t wait for the the next set of elite specializations so this mindset will stop targeting druid.

I agree with you. Somehow i made my mind about the druid being a support class, focused in healing and CC.

But also i understand that due to the current state of the ranger most people though the druid as the so much needed ranger upgrade. I was like that at the beginning.

Guys a druid healer/DPS reaper style would be amazing, something to rival the herald.
But let’s be honest or at least realistic: that will never happen.

Irenio’s team stated very clearly druid is focused in only healing. let’s at least focus in that so we can have something that works instead this disastrous mess we are playing with now.

Radagast.6271:

Well i can not actually agree to that, somehow i found out that druid has crazy DPS on staff’s 1 and when you using druid’s pair LB /staff with correct traits it gives you extra high moving ability and crazy damage. All you need for that is at least 55% critical and zerker stats. With correct food you will get for example in WvW around 2.8k damage / 1.1k ferocity. It allows you to drain your enemy with 18-25 k crit.damage in 5 sec with staff’s 1, if you switch weapon and use LB’s 4 (knockback) with trait that apply entangle on knockbacking enemy and rapid fire after that it will be crazy damage. Low Vitality (around 16k) and Armor points around 2k is compensated with permanent 33% speed increase and staff’s 3 + LB’s 3 with stealth are giving you nice maneur . Also the healing skills of staff and celectial avatar still heals your allies with 1.7/2.3k, trust me its not bad at all.
Overall you can burst the most hated Pew Pew Ranger build to the God of hated rank ;D

try fighting a hammer revenant or a dual pistol Theif theyre burst is even more insane they can pretty much down you on theyre pew pew while rangers LB2 dmg got nerfed by about 50%

anduriell.6280:

Justine.6351:

More mentality that,
Druid = ranger upgrade

I can’t wait for the the next set of elite specializations so this mindset will stop targeting druid.

I agree with you. Somehow i made my mind about the druid being a support class, focused in healing and CC.

But also i understand that due to the current state of the ranger most people though the druid as the so much needed ranger upgrade. I was like that at the beginning.

Guys a druid healer/DPS reaper style would be amazing, something to rival the herald.
But let’s be honest or at least realistic: that will never happen.

Irenio’s team stated very clearly druid is focused in only healing. let’s at least focus in that so we can have something that works instead this disastrous mess we are playing with now.

Yeah the mindset isn’t completely unfounded when we see dragon hunter herald scrapper chronomancer reaper lineup. For those its almost as if the base class are training wheels.

Justine.6351:

More mentality that,
Druid = ranger upgrade

I can’t wait for the the next set of elite specializations so this mindset will stop targeting druid.

funny thing is most ppl have gotten it quite wrong since the elite specs were supose to give you more versatility while sacrificing some of your old strengths druid=less dmg more healing somthing like that

also they did say they would buff core ranger so guys chill I know how this works in like 2-3 years when the next expantion hits we will get 3% dmg increase its only like 2-3 years left we have already waited for 3 whats 3 more

I would smile really big if we got a damage boost or damage component of some type. My current Sinister/Seed Druid does EXTREMELY well in WvW. I’ve won many more fights than I’ve lost and even some outnumbered ones.

I’ll be switching my armor to Viper’s to crank out even more conditions (Poison on weapon swap, Krait runes for mega condi’s on Elite activation, Ancient Seed bleeding procs, dazes galore, immobilize/root galore) And soon to be 30-40% longer durations!

In reality though, I would love to have a damage focused Avatar form instead of only using CAF to hit 3, 5, and then cancel it 90% of the time.