Guild Wars 2

Hey Fellow Rangers,
Not sure if I have posted in our forum before so “Hello!!!!”. I have mained Ranger since early access and love it. I need advice on Druid and Core. My current core build is LB/GS with heavy reliance on pet and weapon swapping (Marksman, Skirmish, Beastmaster trait lines).

Short version:
Are any of you going to use your same ranger for both a core build and druid build? If so, any suggestions on how to maintain both? For example, maintaining two sets of armor, tracking your different build loadouts? I am struggling with how to keep up with and easily swap out between these distinct playstyles/builds.

Long Version With Background:
I finally have a core build/playstyle that I love. Have spent months perfecting it. Have taken it into Verdant and it is working for me. So I originally thought, I will not do an elite spec on this character. But I loved healing/support in other games, so I was going to create a whole new character for Druid.

Now that I have seen what it takes to unlock Elite Spec, I have decided not to do that for Ranger. I had a ton of hero points left over and have unlocked many Druid skills. But I am struggling with how I can easily switch out between the two. I already have decided that I need to document the current build (I will forget my specs – getting a bit old lol). I wish they had build templates and if they do, please tell me where they are. I just need a way to easily manage this so that it does not become “the game” for me.

use gw2skills.net and save the link for your build, i’ve done it for a few of mine and I can tweak them as i see fit. During BWE3 I was really excited for druid and saw a lot of potential there but after these last few changes I think I may main a different class. That being said, I’ll be keeping my ranger in his standard spec. The healing on druid, tbh, is terrible now. the multiple gates behind Astral form, the difficulty gaining AF when using any weapon but staff, and the out of combat decay make it all but worthless. the real shame is that Grace of the Land, Glyph of Empowerment and Frost Spirit are likely the best buffs available in the entire game and they most likely won’t see much use at all being trapped on an extremely poorly tuned profession like druid.

this is my opinion mainly based on pve and pve, i haven’t run druid much in wvw.

I like the addition/variety I pickup using druid with staff and ancient seeds. While it can heal with CF in multiple foe/ally moments its not what I call a core function of my build.

A real healing druid will play unlike any ranger that’s ever been played. I have a second ranger that I never play. If HoT becomes exceedingly hard I may gear it up as a healer. So far the only HoT content that was “hard” was clamming the guild hall. And that was a DPS race, not the place for a healer druid.

Prophet.1584:

use gw2skills.net and save the link for your build, i’ve done it for a few of mine and I can tweak them as i see fit. During BWE3 I was really excited for druid and saw a lot of potential there but after these last few changes I think I may main a different class.

Thanks for the tip Prophet. Never heard of that site. That will help me a lot.
On the nerfs, I have been reading the posts here. Will have to do more research to undersand the changes they made since Beta. See if the Druid will still be fun for me and a contributor. If not, I will just ignore it completely and keep playing more core build.