Guild Wars 2

I don’t main ranger but the idea of a druid healer intrigues me that I’m going to give it a try next BWE/ maybe at HoT. Glancing at the pet list though, only the moa’s and fern hounds have any access to healing (and the former isn’t an f2 skill so is kinda random).

Looking at the new pets, wyverns are dps (fire = condi), smokescreen = evasion tank/ dps, brissle back = condi dps and I guess tigers will be felines so again dps.

Just wondering if fern hounds are the only option for healer speced druids or will there be other pets or have I missed something?

Personally I’d love a healing based wyvern… what? one can dream

Major Adept Druid trait:

Cultivated Synergy:

Using a healing skill also heals allies around you and your pet

Major Grandmaster Nature Magic Trait:

Invigorating bond:

Your pet heals allies in an area when executing an F2 ability

Combine these with the Regen F2 of the Fern Hound and what more do you want?

Druids heavily reminded me of FFXIV’s Scholar.

They are healers with pets, and this create a very interesting dynamic: FFXIV is a game with a hard trinity, but Scholars can still contribute to the party DPS thanks to their pets. But it’s a reversed to what we’ll have here, because the pets are the ones doing the healing while the Scholar is the one doing the damage.

It would be interesting to have a Healer pet here too, maybe.

Ellye.9123:

Druids heavily reminded me of FFXIV’s Scholar.

They are healers with pets, and this create a very interesting dynamic: FFXIV is a game with a hard trinity, but Scholars can still contribute to the party DPS thanks to their pets. But it’s a reversed to what we’ll have here, because the pets are the ones doing the healing while the Scholar is the one doing the damage.

It would be interesting to have a Healer pet here too, maybe.

I get the feeling a lot of us will be experimenting with pet damage output (particularly the new pets) in the beastmastery line (which hopefully will be seeing some improvements in the upcoming balance reveal) while we trait personally into the Druid healing category.

i.e. Stand back and heal from Range while your pet tanks/DPSes

Bryzy.2719:

Major Adept Druid trait:

Cultivated Synergy:

Using a healing skill also heals allies around you and your pet

That’s actually irrelevant, healing your pet isn’t the same as the pet providing support.

Bryzy.2719:

Major Grandmaster Nature Magic Trait:

Invigorating bond:

Your pet heals allies in an area when executing an F2 ability

Combine these with the Regen F2 of the Fern Hound and what more do you want?

This is a useful trait, but I note it’s only a 2.5k heal and uses pet’s healing power (which unless they change like condition damage is kinda annoying). A 3.5k heal on a 25s cd (this is with reference to the fern hound’s f2) is decent though I guess. However, my main issues were:

1. Only 1 pet that has an f2 heal seems kinda disproportionate to the number of pets they have.

2. There are no pets based primarily around support/ defence i.e. they almost all have 2-3 damaging attacks with 1 different skill. It would be nice to have a pet with say 3 or even all it’s skill based around buffing the ranger and his/her allies.

3. Gw2 has changed since release, with additions like ferocity, making boon duration harder to get etc. Now healing seems to be a bigger thing and the fern hound’s 1k f2 heal on a 25s cd seems kinda weak to me I guess. Especially when a celestial druid can heal the same amount with their 1 skill.

So I was just curious if there would be any more pets specifically based on support. It’s looking like there won’t be which is a shame.

Terra.8571:

Bryzy.2719:

Major Adept Druid trait:

Cultivated Synergy:

Using a healing skill also heals allies around you and your pet

That’s actually irrelevant, healing your pet isn’t the same as the pet providing support.

What?

It’s ENTIRELY relevant to your thread title. Read it again.

Whenever you use your healing skill, it will heal allies in an area around your pet, as well as healing allies in an area around yourself.

In my opinion, which may or may not be dirt to you, pets (at least with the Druid) will not need support-heavy focus. This is mostly due to their poor AI and the fact that the Druid itself has been given a lot of support mostly in the form of condi cleanse and healing.

In the mean time, you’re not completely without. Take those 2 traits I mentioned, pop your personal heal, pop your fern hound’s F2 then -bam- two AoE ally heals from your pet and some regen for good measure, providing your pet’s in the right place of course :P

Bryzy.2719:

Terra.8571:

Bryzy.2719:

Major Adept Druid trait:

Cultivated Synergy:

Using a healing skill also heals allies around you and your pet

That’s actually irrelevant, healing your pet isn’t the same as the pet providing support.

What?

It’s ENTIRELY relevant to your thread title. Read it again.

Whenever you use your healing skill, it will heal allies in an area around your pet, as well as healing allies in an area around yourself.

In my opinion, which may or may not be dirt to you, pets (at least with the Druid) will not need support-heavy focus. This is mostly due to their poor AI and the fact that the Druid itself has been given a lot of support mostly in the form of condi cleanse and healing.

In the mean time, you’re not completely without. Take those 2 traits I mentioned, pop your personal heal, pop your fern hound’s F2 then -bam- two AoE ally heals from your pet and some regen for good measure, providing your pet’s in the right place of course :P

Fair enough, like I said, I don’t play ranger (have a level 80 just play it a bit in wvw) but if you read the wording of your post “Using a healing skill also heals allies around you and your pet” could be interpreted as it heals allies around the player but also heals the pet as oppose to heals around the pet, so I stand corrected.

I do understand where you’re going with pet AI but I still think it would have been nice to have the option of a full support pet. Like I said, the fern hound f2 can be decent when paired with that GM trait but it would have been nice to have had some of the new pets supplement the druid role. You said it yourself, druids excel in healing and condi cleanse but they fail in virtually all other aspects of support e.g. boons, damage mitigation etc

Right now, when you look at meta’s, they’re based around maximising the role e.g. dps so even the ranger meta takes pets to emphasise that. If druids are about support, it would have been nice to have a pet which could provide resistance or aegis etc. Things that complement the Druid. Also, having just the one pet that has the heal ability, a pet which has pretty low dps, could’ve been looked at with the new pets. Those are just my thoughts and just for the record, I don’t think your opinion is worthless, lol, and apologise if I offended you in any way.

Terra.8571:

Bryzy.2719:

Terra.8571:

Bryzy.2719:

Major Adept Druid trait:

Cultivated Synergy:

Using a healing skill also heals allies around you and your pet

That’s actually irrelevant, healing your pet isn’t the same as the pet providing support.

What?

It’s ENTIRELY relevant to your thread title. Read it again.

Whenever you use your healing skill, it will heal allies in an area around your pet, as well as healing allies in an area around yourself.

In my opinion, which may or may not be dirt to you, pets (at least with the Druid) will not need support-heavy focus. This is mostly due to their poor AI and the fact that the Druid itself has been given a lot of support mostly in the form of condi cleanse and healing.

In the mean time, you’re not completely without. Take those 2 traits I mentioned, pop your personal heal, pop your fern hound’s F2 then -bam- two AoE ally heals from your pet and some regen for good measure, providing your pet’s in the right place of course :P

Fair enough, like I said, I don’t play ranger (have a level 80 just play it a bit in wvw) but if you read the wording of your post “Using a healing skill also heals allies around you and your pet” could be interpreted as it heals allies around the player but also heals the pet as oppose to heals around the pet, so I stand corrected.

I do understand where you’re going with pet AI but I still think it would have been nice to have the option of a full support pet. Like I said, the fern hound f2 can be decent when paired with that GM trait but it would have been nice to have had some of the new pets supplement the druid role. You said it yourself, druids excel in healing and condi cleanse but they fail in virtually all other aspects of support e.g. boons, damage mitigation etc

Right now, when you look at meta’s, they’re based around maximising the role e.g. dps so even the ranger meta takes pets to emphasise that. If druids are about support, it would have been nice to have a pet which could provide resistance or aegis etc. Things that complement the Druid. Also, having just the one pet that has the heal ability, a pet which has pretty low dps, could’ve been looked at with the new pets. Those are just my thoughts and just for the record, I don’t think your opinion is worthless, lol, and apologise if I offended you in any way.

I agree, metas are about maximising the role of DPS. But this is current meta gameplay- irenio mentioned to rubi at the end of the druid stream that they are completely changing the PvE and Raids environments to make support healing a lot more necessary and therefore desirable, which is why I think they chose to focus Druid so heavily on basic healing and condi cleanse over buffs and boon support. We’ll see if that pans out or not on release I guess, but that at least seems to be the reasoning behind it. Also, no apology necessary it takes a lot more than that to offend me LOL – you have the right to reject my opinion, as that’s all it is. I also live by the Ricky Gervais quote: “You have the right to be offended; I have the right not to care”.

I already love mosshounds. Druid loves them even more .

While it’s not a heal, I would point to the Brown Bear’s “Shake It Off” skill. 2 conditions removed from up to 5 targets at a 600 range, and 25 recharge. Adding a heal to that is nice.

Nike.2631:

I already love mosshounds. Druid loves them even more .

what is a mosshound? not being sacrcastic just curious.

DUDE, Do we get a healing power stat for pets????

Ellye.9123:

Druids heavily reminded me of FFXIV’s Scholar.

They are healers with pets, and this create a very interesting dynamic: FFXIV is a game with a hard trinity, but Scholars can still contribute to the party DPS thanks to their pets. But it’s a reversed to what we’ll have here, because the pets are the ones doing the healing while the Scholar is the one doing the damage.

It would be interesting to have a Healer pet here too, maybe.

This! I mained a Scholar in FFXIV and its my favorite JOB in the Final Fantasy UNiverse! Which is why I’ve been drawn to DRUID! Id love to heal while my pet can heal too, or even tank while I heal it.

Purecura.1795:

Ellye.9123:

Druids heavily reminded me of FFXIV’s Scholar.

They are healers with pets, and this create a very interesting dynamic: FFXIV is a game with a hard trinity, but Scholars can still contribute to the party DPS thanks to their pets. But it’s a reversed to what we’ll have here, because the pets are the ones doing the healing while the Scholar is the one doing the damage.

It would be interesting to have a Healer pet here too, maybe.

This! I mained a Scholar in FFXIV and its my favorite JOB in the Final Fantasy UNiverse! Which is why I’ve been drawn to DRUID! Id love to heal while my pet can heal too, or even tank while I heal it.

Same here, that’s why I’m starting a Ranger today on GW2.

I’m fine even if I need to heal while the pet deals damage (different from what happens in FFXIV, but still interesting).

Healing Wyvern baby of course

StickerHappy.8052:

Nike.2631:

I already love mosshounds. Druid loves them even more .

what is a mosshound? not being sacrcastic just curious.

Sorry, as Ranger pets they’re called “fern hounds” (same model is called a moss hound out in the world in several places).

Fern hound f2 is AoE regen, which should proc a number of Druid traits.

On the front page it describes tiger as:
“Tiger: This former ruler of the wilds inspires allies with its graceful pounce.”

Inspire allies makes me believe the Tiger is the support pet. —shrug--

Terra.8571:

I don’t main ranger but the idea of a druid healer intrigues me that I’m going to give it a try next BWE/ maybe at HoT. Glancing at the pet list though, only the moa’s and fern hounds have any access to healing (and the former isn’t an f2 skill so is kinda random).

Looking at the new pets, wyverns are dps (fire = condi), smokescreen = evasion tank/ dps, brissle back = condi dps and I guess tigers will be felines so again dps.

Just wondering if fern hounds are the only option for healer speced druids or will there be other pets or have I missed something?

Personally I’d love a healing based wyvern… what? one can dream

In one word : Moa.

Dadnir.5038:

Terra.8571:

I don’t main ranger but the idea of a druid healer intrigues me that I’m going to give it a try next BWE/ maybe at HoT. Glancing at the pet list though, only the moa’s and fern hounds have any access to healing (and the former isn’t an f2 skill so is kinda random).

Looking at the new pets, wyverns are dps (fire = condi), smokescreen = evasion tank/ dps, brissle back = condi dps and I guess tigers will be felines so again dps.

Just wondering if fern hounds are the only option for healer speced druids or will there be other pets or have I missed something?

Personally I’d love a healing based wyvern… what? one can dream

In one word : Moa.

Problem with moas are the heals are controlled by AI which isn’t the best and are on a 40s cd. Compared to the Fern Hound which heals for 300 more, when traited, on half the cd and can be controlled (because it’s an f2 skill), moa’s don’t look that great.

Bryzy.2719:

Combine these with the Regen F2 of the Fern Hound and what more do you want?

The pet to heal all the raid with no problems while I go afk and do stuff, then everyone to say “wow gz! nice healing there!”

It will be like sending a super cute dog to those hot girls sitting next to you in a coffee shop, and while they are all like “oooh- its so fluffy and cute”, you go there and say " Oh god, bad puppy, I’m sorry ladies he just ran away". The rest is so easy it gets boring after a while….

LOL

Fern Hound, Black bear, any moa (especially red), Stalker, jellyfish would all be what I consider support based pets. Remember, support isn’t just healing, so it really doesn’t matter if they have multiple attack skills or not. Personally I would carry a fern hound and either a brown bear or red moa. Definitely would combine Nature Magic/Beastmastery/Druid.

Terra.8571:

I don’t main ranger but the idea of a druid healer intrigues me that I’m going to give it a try next BWE/ maybe at HoT. Glancing at the pet list though, only the moa’s and fern hounds have any access to healing (and the former isn’t an f2 skill so is kinda random).

Looking at the new pets, wyverns are dps (fire = condi), smokescreen = evasion tank/ dps, brissle back = condi dps and I guess tigers will be felines so again dps.

Just wondering if fern hounds are the only option for healer speced druids or will there be other pets or have I missed something?

Personally I’d love a healing based wyvern… what? one can dream

Actually expect Bears to be prominent… With the traits that heal allies around you and your pet, combined with Shake It Off from bear… Condi removal and heals??? Lol. Honestly never used bear, but I may just try it… Bear will be able to tank while Druid heals / dps’ at same time. I have SOOOO many ideas I want to try.