Guild Wars 2

Yesterday a could play a bit witht he recent changes to the druid, mostly toying with the healing power and how it affects the avatar.
We got effectively nerfed, the druid with 600 HP heals for about a 20% less than pre-balance patch.

Obviously Anet decided to nerf the sustain of the class, which i find find.
Also nerfed the hability to spam stealth with the Celestial Shadow. That’s the only reason why they increased the CD from avatar.

I couldn’t test out much the wvw side of the changes (CotW or the Shortbow) but mostly for my tests:

• CotW is a much needed change for all those blocks in game, thus is getting ridiculous. Because the buff goes to the pet instead to the ranger i would increase the buff i 2 seconds so the pet has time to do it’s thing.
• Shortbow needs more utility in the weapon set. The condition damage increased is a right call, and the inmmobilize in the hunters shot makes that skill to fulfill it’s purpouse of a catch-up skill.
  Still is a solo sustained dps weapon but because the lack of burst it needs some utility to evade/mobility. Add the leap (i would go as far as 600) option to Quick Shot so it can be used to combo fields which could bring so much needed disengage / utility slot.

What about make the hunter’s shot also to shadowstep to the enemy if it hits?

Now about other weapons:

• Sword needs a means to cleave/follow enemies. That could be simply achieved with giving the hability to choose the direction of the leaps in Sword#2 with the direction you can choose to go, and remove/reduce the cast time on the skill.

• The changes in WhaO or GS aren’t uncalled for and not needed. GS needs more than just a buff in DPS of 10% in maul, and WhaO is not the main reason why some Druids are so good. Maybe is just because they are simply that good

anduriell.6280:

Yesterday a could play a bit witht he recent changes to the druid, mostly toying with the healing power and how it affects the avatar.
We got effectively nerfed, the druid with 600 HP heals for about a 20% less than pre-balance patch.

Obviously Anet decided to nerf the sustain of the class, which i find find.
Also nerfed the hability to spam stealth with the Celestial Shadow. That’s the only reason why they increased the CD from avatar.

I couldn’t test out much the wvw side of the changes (CotW or the Shortbow) but mostly for my tests:

• CotW is a much needed change for all those blocks in game, thus is getting ridiculous. Because the buff goes to the pet instead to the ranger i would increase the buff i 2 seconds so the pet has time to do it’s thing.
• Shortbow needs more utility in the weapon set. The condition damage increased is a right call, and the inmmobilize in the hunters shot makes that skill to fulfill it’s purpouse of a catch-up skill.
  Still is a solo sustained dps weapon but because the lack of burst it needs some utility to evade/mobility. Add the leap (i would go as far as 600) option to Quick Shot so it can be used to combo fields which could bring so much needed disengage / utility slot.

What about make the hunter’s shot also to shadowstep to the enemy if it hits?

Now about other weapons:

• Sword needs a means to cleave/follow enemies. That could be simply achieved with giving the hability to choose the direction of the leaps in Sword#2 with the direction you can choose to go, and remove/reduce the cast time on the skill.

• The changes in WhaO or GS aren’t uncalled for and not needed. GS needs more than just a buff in DPS of 10% in maul, and WhaO is not the main reason why some Druids are so good. Maybe is just because they are simply that good

Only thing that wasn’t there for SB was the Confusion change on Concussion shot. If that was implemented then SB will be golden.

Mine after reading the patch not :

“Wut! They already gave up on the pets change?!”

Core pets still need tons of change to be usefull and the impact of the real needed change (looking at the god d*mn utilities skill of the pet) should hardly have a real impact on balance while giving tremendous QoL to the ranger. The changes on this patch note were obviously directed at the PvP complain, I hope that next patch they will be directed at the general profession issue.

Dadnir.5038:

Mine after reading the patch not :

“Wut! They already gave up on the pets change?!”

Core pets still need tons of change to be usefull and the impact of the real needed change (looking at the god d*mn utilities skill of the pet) should hardly have a real impact on balance while giving tremendous QoL to the ranger. The changes on this patch note were obviously directed at the PvP complain, I hope that next patch they will be directed at the general profession issue.

It could be possible that they screwed up some pets in the first place that they had to rework them conpletely or just need more time.
I hope for next update to have a spirit update and improvements in porcine, devourer, birds and general pet tracking improvements and cast times.

I like the nerf now if they just add a cleanse to either the utility slot or core traits. Deeps boon kitten ranger shall be a thing

For me there is only the full heal druid left for raids, my viper-ranger-heal-hybrid there is now quite worthless…
I really would like a ranger elite-spec as a “Beastmaster”. Maybe with more pets or elite-pets, mabe stampede-skills, more boons by the pets, more effective f2 skills and so on. Maybe this can’t be calculated and implemented but I really like the idea of finally having something that is unique to the ranger-profession and has a good impact in a group, too. I play ranger because I like the gameplay of having a pet as a companion but not because the profession per se is so highly effective. (Before druid-spec: “Kick the ranger, we don’t need him! Invite XYZ instead….”) ^^

PvP wise:

With the healing power scaling they basically killed all druid builds, which are not using healing power. I hoped that this patch would bring some build diversity but instead players are even more forced to play with menders amulet. Druid needed some nerfs no doubt about that, but again they proved that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing, just throwing some random stuff and see what happens.

They also talking about making short bow more viable. Well, it’s maybe too early to say, but I doubt it will ever be viable, cause there are no good amulets which would fit the short bow playstyle.

SotP was nerfed. Anyone ever complained about this being op? With such an easy access to stability other classes got, they really needed to nerf this? I would like to hear what is behind this specific nerf.

Miyu.8137:

PvP wise:

With the healing power scaling they basically killed all druid builds, which are not using healing power. I hoped that this patch would bring some build diversity but instead players are even more forced to play with menders amulet. Druid needed some nerfs no doubt about that, but again they proved that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing, just throwing some random stuff and see what happens.

Agree. They invented the druid because anet saw that rangers are often not welcome in groups. Now there stays only the full heal druid and again…how many full heal druids are needed in a group? ^^

They also talking about making short bow more viable. Well, it’s maybe too early to say, but I doubt it will ever be viable, cause there are no good amulets which would fit the short bow playstyle.

I played shortbow as second weapon set with my condi-viper-druid. But now this build is nerfed. So no need right now for a better shortbow.
My necro does more condi-damage for example – with that little heal left there is no need for the condi-viper-druid in groups anymore. Other classes are more effective in my opinion.

Shortbow would be a good power option if you had 1200 range , but you don’t , so you can’t effectively kite properly with it.

I used to play old trapper back in the day and it synergized well with this playstyle. Of course, a lot has changed in metas since then of course.

There should be a 1200 range added onto the master shortbow trait or just make it baseline but I’m sure this has already been suggested 1000 times over.

I want shortbow back to 1200 range now that the recent buff has made it a much better condition pressure weapon (assuming no reflects, which vary by encounter).

Right now, we have axe and shortbow at 900, while staff is a decent 1200 range support weapon that deals primarily through direct damage. If they extend the shortbow range, it will definitely have more people consider slotting it.

Other than that, I really wish they would address the sword issues. I know the animators worked to create an all new set for all the races, but just give us the regular sword animations and give everyone that uses a main-hand sword the Thief cast times, reduced aftercasts, and lowered contact points.

I want stuff to be efficient now, I do not care much for looks.