Guild Wars 2

So there will be countless threads about all sorts of specific things, but I figured we should start a thread for overall impressions and evaluation of the Druid class.

I’ll go ahead and start off by saying, while I feel the Druid is well designed and functions well, I’m still left feeling underwhelmed. Yes, Ranger has a new way to play and a new bar choc’d full of heals to basically just faceroll through at our leisure, but the issue is a bit more fundamental than that. It’s like, every other class received an upgrade, for example, as Helseth so aptly put it, Chronmancer can be played kittenter Mesmer 2.0.

Druid on the other hand is more like, Ranger…. About a 1.5 maybe? It just isn’t really sewn together as well as some other elite specializations. Like, it’s ranger, with some of the quality traits every other class but Ranger has had, and a new skillbar that tacs on another combat role.

Now, that’s totally fine, but Druid barely works to bring anything to boost the base ranger class to a new functionality platform in an environment of 2.0 specializations. Where every other classes elite specialization works to bring significant improvements to the base of the class they are built on, Druid is kind of just built on top of a class without trying to synergize or improve the class is was built upon in any way, and kind of just exists outside of the ranger class, desynchronized from the core spec.

The short version is that my experience with Druid leaves me feeling like every so often, I’ve relogged onto something else instead of playing my main in a version 2.0 environment, and I’m left wishing the elite spec had done something to bring ranger to the ranger 2.0 platform it deserves, and not leave the core spec behind while adding features that lack synergy with the class and leave ranger players feeling like they are playing their way through purgatory.

This is just my impression though, I’d love to see what other people think.

jcbroe.4329:

I’ll go ahead and start off by saying, while I feel the Druid is well designed and functions well, I’m still left feeling underwhelmed.

I disagree with this. The specialization is poorly designed and they’ve made it unplayable since the one beta we got to use it in. I don’t like building force I hate watching it vanish out of combat, and I don’t see the point of locking the form behind resource generation in the first place.

Aidenwolf.5964:

jcbroe.4329:

I’ll go ahead and start off by saying, while I feel the Druid is well designed and functions well, I’m still left feeling underwhelmed.

I disagree with this. The specialization is poorly designed and they’ve made it unplayable since the one beta we got to use it in. I don’t like building force I hate watching it vanish out of combat, and I don’t see the point of locking the form behind resource generation in the first place.

I completely agree in the context of this new fiasco with losing Astral Force out of combat. We’re already gated by resource management and have an added cooldown management factor on top of it, so by furter limiting us through limiting how we can manage the resource combined with the slow generation of the resource kills all of the potential the Elite Spec has

I should’ve distinguished between designed well and implemented well haha.

The astral force thing is a perfect example of unsufficient opportunity to test stuff (only one BWE). Imagine we would only be at BWE 2 now.

This “solution” feels rushed. It feels like a joke how you still start with full force in spvp matches (guess they forgot to remove that) but it depletes to zero before the gates open.

I gave extensive feedback on what should be done to AF but I guess it went unseen so far or there was not enough time to implement it. Although I think the required fixes are really rather small changes of formulas/parameters.

Until I get it maxed out and into an instance, I’m gonna say I don’t like it. The ressource management is awful. The depletion makes no sense considering how hard it is to generate in the first place, and this is all added to a cooldown on the form. Just make it either a cooldown, or a pseudo death shroud, but don’t make it a bad version of Death shroud with a cooldown!

The staff isn’t fun to play with either. Wether it be trying to heal people with it, or just dps in general. Up till now, there has never been an instance of a weapon that was terrible damage because it had healing on it. The worst we have like that is the Guardian staff which has more utility than this one, and allowed the player to heal himself. Because yes, the Druid staff only has one skill that does that, and it’s a leap that does little healing. All the other heals it has are for people between the mob and the druid.
I haven’t unlocked all the glyphs yet, but I can already see how little use they’ll be of considering that I’ll never be able to use them in CA mode since I can’t get into it in a PvE environment and getting into it in a PvP environment only allows me to stay alive a few seconds longer.
Also, there is no incentive to weapon swap to something other than the staff while playing as a druid since doing so takes away the CA ressource generation from the Staffs 1st ability that heals in addition to doing damage which means it generates several times as much CA ressource. I actually tried playing the spec without the staff, and with something else than troll onguent, and I never got even close to entering CA.

Needless to say: I am very disappointed.
I’d happily say I’ll do my Daredevil elite spec while waiting for this to be fixed, but they messed up Daredevil too since what makes that spec what it is are the Grand master talents which will take a long time to get.

I don’t think they should’ve gated elite specs like this. We already have the masteries to grind without having to get threw these too.

the staff, the pets, the new runes, lingering light…are all amazing. everything but the avatar itself lol. I flash in and out of my avatar for its offensive capability, and celestial shadow. otherwise it’s useless.

Druid got gutted with the unannounced change to AF decaying out of combat.

Until/unless they revert/tweak this, I’ll just stick to core ranger.

And hope Roy doesn’t do any more damage.

I agree with above. Enjoyed it a lot more in BWE3. It feels very clunky now with AF decaying out of combat. Also, as far as I can tell regen still does not charge AF.

Honestly I am very disappointed and may not play my ranger at all in HoT.

Anyone use Staff 3 for mobility outside of combat? Apparently when you land, it puts you in combat.

Ughh I was going to make druid my main but after reading this I am thinking maybe not. I will give it a go, hoping it will workout, but if not might switch to another character.

Gave up my ranger as main, thats my initial impression.

I’m sure down the road when anet releases more elite specs, we might get something different.

But honestly, this spec is RIDICULOUSLY healing focused. way more one -dimensional than other elite specs. It feels more like a new class than an addition to ranger….since it does nothing for our original class mechanic/core design, gives a totally new one mechanic and design(that again, is healing focused)

I didn’t create a ranger 2.5 years ago to become a mini-healbot.
Y’all can spin it how you want, but druid is healing focused and its best spec involves healing or hybrid heal/party support but taking the hybrid role is not worth it since other classes do party support better and they don’t have the awful DPS that druid has.

I have happily switched over to rev / ele and have not looked back.
Its absolutely refreshing playing classes that aren’t hilariously kitten..(not just by our core class mechanic/design.. but by devs like Roy)

SkiTz.4590:

But honestly, this spec is RIDICULOUSLY healing focused.

not really, not in pvp. with the right build.

mistsim.2748:

SkiTz.4590:

But honestly, this spec is RIDICULOUSLY healing focused.

not really, not in pvp. with the right build.

With PvP , druid is in a solid spot (like with most other builds and professions….EVERY class/spec has a decent/good build in PvP…. its about individual player skill thou, not specs).
Its quite diverse imo outside of PvE but my goodness I do not enjoy it one bit in PvE, but thats just me… I know others enjoy healing/support spec based roles but its not for me….

I have liked it in PvP/solo roaming WvW.. has a lot of diverse builds in those 2 modes but its just not my cup of tea in pve at all…. I

mistsim.2748:

the staff, the pets, the new runes, lingering light…are all amazing. everything but the avatar itself lol. I flash in and out of my avatar for its offensive capability, and celestial shadow. otherwise it’s useless.

I’m more worried that Lingering Light will get nerfed before the Druid ever sees the changes it needs as an elite spec (you know, the changes that had 3 BWEs and long intensive feedback periods to redesign and bugfix before official expac launch for nearly everything else currently sitting on peoples “that’s top tier” radar).

I have a feeling that LL will may get a slight nerf to maybe 4-6s ICD or something like that because it’s just broken right now. It would still be amazing.

the one and only thing that will get nerfed fo sho is dat smokescale lol. but man, it feels so good to actually have some burst for once.

mistsim.2748:

I have a feeling that LL will may get a slight nerf to maybe 4-6s ICD or something like that because it’s just broken right now. It would still be amazing.

the one and only thing that will get nerfed fo sho is dat smokescale lol. but man, it feels so good to actually have some burst for once.

I haven’t tried it, but is the ICD per ally or as a whole?

mistsim.2748:

SkiTz.4590:

But honestly, this spec is RIDICULOUSLY healing focused.

not really, not in pvp. with the right build.

Celestial Avatar may as well not exist in PvP. The other aspects of Druid can be useful, but CAF is almost never available.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

mistsim.2748:

SkiTz.4590:

But honestly, this spec is RIDICULOUSLY healing focused.

not really, not in pvp. with the right build.

Celestial Avatar may as well not exist in PvP. The other aspects of Druid can be useful, but CAF is almost never available.

I agree that it’s probably not available for builds that don’t use staff. staff builds AF more than quickly enough.

mistsim.2748:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

mistsim.2748:

SkiTz.4590:

But honestly, this spec is RIDICULOUSLY healing focused.

not really, not in pvp. with the right build.

Celestial Avatar may as well not exist in PvP. The other aspects of Druid can be useful, but CAF is almost never available.

I agree that it’s probably not available for builds that don’t use staff. should be fine otherwise.

…which is abominably terrible design. Is the Reaper required to take greatsword?

The AF changes are bad. Rather than ranting I’ll give anet the benefit of the doubt they will do something about this.

jcbroe.4329:

Druid on the other hand is more like, Ranger…. About a 1.5 maybe? It just isn’t really sewn together as well as some other elite specializations.

This. All the other specializations enhance the current base class providing it with new tools. Cronomancer as you stated is a perfect example of this. Druid does give us new tools, but does not line up at all with base ranger. Druid does not enhance core ranger. The current iteration of druid adds to ranger in the same way ketchup adds to a burnt hamburger. It goes on, but things still taste awful.

Thats the issue tho. Base ranger for the most part is awful. Ranger has all these little bits of other classes at lower ratios and cool downs making it subpar in every area of group support (be it dps, utilities, etc). Mind you there are a few gems (Longbow and signets, survival skils), the rest is really lacking. Having all these low impact tools that have low cool downs screams: mash buttons! The only thing druid is in-line with ranger is that it is conveniently set up the same way (mash heals!). Aside from that the rest of our class has no healing/enhancing for groups outside of spotter, resounding timber and frost spirit.

The more I look at druid the more it makes me ask the question:

What is anet expectation of ranger?

As a player now, I honestly can say I don’t know anymore. We were a support class(which got gutted), then long range dps( which is now in the dust comparatively to other classes), now were a healer(which I imagine reverant will outshine once the #’s are done). So really, where does anet want ranger in the meta?

All that said, I do have one positive thing to say about druid. I really like the work done on animations.

I don’t think the Druid is a good specialization, not because the Druid itself is bad (or was in BWE3), but because I really can’t see the Ranger benefitting from it. The Ranger and the Druid are just two completely different playstyles for me. The only build I could see working is a beastmaster/druid/tank combination. Everything else the Ranger can do does not benefit from the Druid.

While Mesmers, Thieves, Revenants and Engineers get upgrades to their base profession, the Warrior and Elementalist geting different playstyles that do have synergy with their base profession and the Guardian being weird, the Ranger on the other hand even gets a completely new mechanic, which doesn’t interact with the old one at all.

My initial impression: Druid is absolutely awful. I was hoping to run some condi variant but now that CA doesn’t recharge with condi damage and TU has a 40% reduction in AF generation, Druid is dead to me. Time to find a new class.

Wuselknusel.4082:

I don’t think the Druid is a good specialization, not because the Druid itself is bad (or was in BWE3), but because I really can’t see the Ranger benefitting from it. The Ranger and the Druid are just two completely different playstyles for me. The only build I could see working is a beastmaster/druid/tank combination. Everything else the Ranger can do does not benefit from the Druid.

While Mesmers, Thieves, Revenants and Engineers get upgrades to their base profession, the Warrior and Elementalist geting different playstyles that do have synergy with the base profession and the Guardian being weird, the Ranger even gets a completely new mechanic, which doesn’t interact with the old one at all.

While this is somewhat accurate, it’s worth noting that Druid itself is bad (or at least, Avatar Form gating is). Irenio put all of his eggs into CAF, then made it nearly impossible to access in any realistic situation.

Well, I found the base zerker Ranger to be fairly effective with the good old Longbow in the new maps. I wasn’t killing stuff particulary fast (compared to zerker staff eles that is), but I wasn’t dying either. That said, the mobs defenitely have been nerfed since BWE2.

Druid isn’t very good. I spend way too much time auto-attacking with the staff doing no DPS. The heal spam is pretty ineffective in keeping people up.

I have played primary healer in every big MMORPG this one is the worst.

FYI if you are going to have a primary healer you have to make it good so people will actually play it. The good games all have healers as the strongest class.

What I would like to be able to do as a Druid would be do rez downed allies with my heals. He already have skills that stomb people, so why don’t we have skills that heal downed people? (And yes, I know that the Warrior elite banner is healing downed bodies, and no, I wont reroll Warrior)

I ran a couple of builds, and my impressions are mostly positive. i wasn’t expecting AF decay this morning, but i found it ok because i ran staff in all the builds.

staff is a really cool weapon. it synergizes beautifully with Lingering Light in offensive and defensive builds. #2 is a really big heal (~800/tick) with some healing power, AG is our best skill, #5 is always good for blasting, and i noticed they slightly increased #4’s immob duration so i found it slightly more effective compared to BWE3. if timed well, it can get you some kills.

my favourite amulets were marauder with my might stacking build, minstrel for bunking/supporting, and carrion for condi builds. i think celestial will work as well, just haven’t had the time to test it. i still cant make the low HP ammies work for me (rabid, settler, cleric, etc.)…there is just too much burst + condis. with carrion, i could at least withstand the stray burns.

the support build WILL work very nicely with good teams. it provides a ton of CC, debuffs, and heals. it’s hardcountered by lots of focused CC, especially chronos. in pubs, it’s only as effective as the randoms youre stuck with. like any other bunker/support build, you need something to work with. it’s not as resilient as the staff ele, but it does a lot more for your team if the team is competent.

with the additions of stun break into druidic clarity and equality glyph, you can now forget about Wilderness, signets, survival, healing spring, etc. a much needed change. it really opens up the build variety. i haven’t even scratched the surface of experimenting with runes, but i ran with Hoelbrak, Trapper and Grove sets.

i think druid is gonna be super interesting and while it’s too soon to tell, i just know that it’s strong enough to compete. my marauder build felt very strong (especially with smokescale the way it is now =P). the next priorities for the devs should be:

- decreasing rate of AF decay
- improving core weapons to generate AF faster (staff is fine as is)
- continuing to improve our core weapons and pets; for example, while i enjoy warhorn now, it still has a subpar ability, Hunter’s Call; shortbow needs more work, offhand axe, etc.

i finally wanna say thanks for the new pets. theyre responsive, effective, and interesting. I’ve only used the smokescale and electric wyvern for the cc and damage. i feel all of our pets should be viable in this way.

anyway, that’s been my experience.

The AF should not drain by itself… it takes focus off combat while trying to maintain AF.. all for celestial form that doesn’t last that long.

no drain, easy fix.

Druid is a complete joke. Whoever is responsible for it should be ashamed. Rangers were already not that great, and this is the final insult.

MashMash.1645:

Druid is a complete joke. Whoever is responsible for it should be ashamed. Rangers were already not that great, and this is the final insult.

Strong words … but I have to say in this instance, I very much agree. I had high hopes for my Ranger in HoT and I love the Druid aspect of it, but it just ain’t there yet and I suspect it’s not going to be for some time.

At the very least, they should just stop AF from draining. It’s honestly a really poor decision to do that and feels like a very rushed work-around … whatever they were trying to work around … kitten knows. :/

The AF generation/degeneration is a complete joke. A healer needs to be able to heal in a pinch and not jump through hoops just to have a small window of healing which is, as it stands, usually when healing might not be necessary.

The staff is a good weapon. The trait line is excellent. The celestial form might as well not exist.

The AF dissipating out of combat ruined the class for me. Not even gonna bother playing it until that is addressed.

This is the first time I’ve played Druid,
the only thing I’ll comment on right now is Astral Force, in part because that’s what I feel I’ve got the best grasp on, and in part because it’s colored all my other impressions of the spec.

Astral Force feels more promising as a Strategic resource, but decay tries to make it a Tactical one.

Unlike Damage, the usefulness of Healing is very situational in this game. With decay the game is basically stepping in and deciding for me which battles need CF Healing, when I’d argue there’s real value in letting that choice be mine.

For smaller strings of battles or defend events I’ve resorted to pushing the existence of AF out of my mind. It’s reasonable to assume those moments might not need healing, but, that doesn’t mean I should never think of my profession mechanic except in Boss Fights. "Do I use my CF for utility on an easy fight, or should I save it in case we have trouble soon? If I keep saving it, will I have passed up opportunities to use it? ". These are thoughts worth having, and I’m currently nowhere near having a second thought about when I press that button because fights are rarely long and damage varied enough to evoke these deeper considerations on the tactical level.

CF usage in a fight seems to always be “As soon as it’s ready” or “Never”.
And that’s just not interesting.

Making AF Strategic may not alter my actual physical use of CF in practice much; but it makes sure it’s on my mind even in situations where healing might not be useful because I’m still thinking of it’s cadence in the overall travel, and it gives me a sense of empowerment in that using it perfectly as it’s needed or blowing it at the wrong time is my call.