Guild Wars 2

What are your thoughts on the Druid specialization? Do you like it? Do you dislike it? Do you love it? Do you hate it?

Should the Druid be improved? Is it just fine the way it is?

http://strawpoll.me/5640469

I feel like playing staff druid with a classic pure healing mindset is not going to work. The specialization traitline is incredible for supplementary the current non-druid builds though.

Druid the healer is garbage where only possibility of being wanted is minimal and players who rolled for DPS never really want to play as a support. there are skills that looks fun but after hours of playing, you will realize that its all just a joke. Berserkers are OP and Herald comes next, then Scrapper, Reaper, Tempest, Dragon hunter, Dare devil and then Ranger. we are once again worthless. best build can be done with Druid as dps is condi and build up 25 bleeds. but if they have cleanse which is 90% of the time then you will end up running around like a clown not being able to do anything and your Astral form is the biggest garbage in pvp history. those who are saying healing full support in pvp are good? lol those are nubs who have no idea that they only needed to be cc’ed twice and players will be killing them in an instant specially Herald that can drop em but not as fast as Berserkers.

Hate it. Honestly, I’m convinced that Anet is simply trolling us.

kiwituatara.6053:

I feel like playing staff druid with a classic pure healing mindset is not going to work. The specialization traitline is incredible for supplementary the current non-druid builds though.

what? You people have lost your mind! only you people with the DPS DPS DPS mindset are not good with Druid.

i been playing it with healer first mindset and been successful in PvP. I go into every fight with main priority to protect my allies. and I’ve been major successful at it.

your going to get a lot of bias in this poll from people who just don’t want to play a healer type at all. then you’re going to get a lot of positive bias from us old time rangers who really want a space in the meta regardless of what that space might be. Druids decent, celestial form needs some damage on skill so your not losing credit. reworking the way credits given would be a way huger undertaking than just throwing some numbers on skills.

kiwituatara.6053:

I feel like playing staff druid with a classic pure healing mindset is not going to work. The specialization traitline is incredible for supplementary the current non-druid builds though.

same.
i like the dazing skills&traits w/ celestial form as needed.

works with quickdraw power or condi builds (although they need to fix bug where staff doesn’t work w/ quick draw). probably works well w/ trapper builds.

that said, i’m not sure where they fit in pve, unless healing becomes necessary in raids.

i think its pretty solid in wvw, though…and would be much better if glyghs became ranges GT.

Prophet.1584:

your going to get a lot of bias in this poll from people who just don’t want to play a healer type at all. then you’re going to get a lot of positive bias from us old time rangers who really want a space in the meta regardless of what that space might be. Druids decent, celestial form needs some damage on skill so your not losing credit. reworking the way credits given would be a way huger undertaking than just throwing some numbers on skills.

Druid damage is good as is. If it gets a large damage increase to staff and Celestial form, that would mean a counter nerf to Healing to balance. And Druid is meant to be played as Healer. Why nerf what its good at for what it was never meant for.

people that want DPS simply dont equip Druid or Staff.

there are other options for that. Dont get Druid nerfed simply because in some people mind, healing isnt a Role in GW2 and everything is about 1v1 DPS.

i like Druid being all about CC and Heals. Best Elite Specialization in the game.

Knighthonor.4061:

Prophet.1584:

your going to get a lot of bias in this poll from people who just don’t want to play a healer type at all. then you’re going to get a lot of positive bias from us old time rangers who really want a space in the meta regardless of what that space might be. Druids decent, celestial form needs some damage on skill so your not losing credit. reworking the way credits given would be a way huger undertaking than just throwing some numbers on skills.

Druid damage is good as is. If it gets a large damage increase to staff and Celestial form, that would mean a counter nerf to Healing to balance. And Druid is meant to be played as Healer. Why nerf what its good at for what it was never meant for.

people that want DPS simply dont equip Druid or Staff.

there are other options for that. Dont get Druid nerfed simply because in some people mind, healing isnt a Role in GW2 and everything is about 1v1 DPS.

i like Druid being all about CC and Heals. Best Elite Specialization in the game.

giving the celestial form 1 & 3/ staff 3 a small amount of aoe damage will not require a nerf to healing……but it will help druids playing the healer role in pve get better event credit.

It’s kinda broken on Stronghold. Unless enemy team has some good Necromancer specced into Reaper, you’ll be going back to back to Celestial, sustaining whole room and Boss.

In general…TU, Water Spirit and Staff build Astral Force extremaly quickly if positioned right. I expected Celestial Form to have some ICD, but it doesn’t have any. And once you enter it and not get trained really, really hard – nobody dies. It doesn’t require nearly as much effort as Revenant specced into healing and competes with it. I guess it’s somewhat balanced by fact Rev has more varied toolset with all the boons and way more damage as support, but worth noting.

Healing done from some random game: http://imgur.com/rUAMaID

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmYD7kQFolFskVwWQgrFskJYwz0d6P9pGkqecNJrAwBA-TZxHAB1+EAQqMgBHEAAuAAYs/AA

Knighthonor.4061:

kiwituatara.6053:

I feel like playing staff druid with a classic pure healing mindset is not going to work. The specialization traitline is incredible for supplementary the current non-druid builds though.

what? You people have lost your mind! only you people with the DPS DPS DPS mindset are not good with Druid.

i been playing it with healer first mindset and been successful in PvP. I go into every fight with main priority to protect my allies. and I’ve been major successful at it.

Its just that pure healing isn’t really needed in the current content. The “zerk will not cut it” raids seems like it can be done by unorganized pugs.

For PvP and WvW, the moment you’re chain CC-d, you’ve lost your momentum for healing and you’re done for. Druids have no/little access to stabilities to keep up.

Knighthonor.4061:

kiwituatara.6053:

I feel like playing staff druid with a classic pure healing mindset is not going to work. The specialization traitline is incredible for supplementary the current non-druid builds though.

what? You people have lost your mind! only you people with the DPS DPS DPS mindset are not good with Druid.

i been playing it with healer first mindset and been successful in PvP. I go into every fight with main priority to protect my allies. and I’ve been major successful at it.

Agree with you 1000% the people who say low DPS shouldn’t touch Druid as it isn’t designed for it. Love this specialization. and I played druid for many hours now and not grown bored with it at all and druid specialization you can do a nice heal gs melee ranger (which i tried and works great for sustain healing) so best for both types of player when built right. Only thing that needs work is astral whip and vine surge just needs a 2 sec imob like ele’s shockwave.. and perhaps a 2 sec cripple when a foe crosses the vine when it is down.

@ Kiwi… 1 word.. positioning.. you should not be in a CC train as a healer just like any caster.

I’ve never played Ranger much (only leveled to 80 and that is about it) but do really like Druid. It’s pretty good so far. I’m going to play it in HoT after my Reaper and Revenant.

As a healer, I would prefer to see two things. Better tagging for players in WvW with our staff, and better scaling on the healing power.

Add a small amount of AoE damage on the staff auto-attack. It doesn’t have to be much, kind of like the Ele fire auto-attack has a splash on it. That way we are not punished for healing our group instead of tab-targeting and spamming bow attacks.

There should be a noticeable different between celestial armor and something like clerics. The fact that the numbers are almost indistinguishable makes me sad. As it stands now, I will probably make a celestial armor set and be done with it for HoT.

LinhZeri.6412:

Knighthonor.4061:

kiwituatara.6053:

I feel like playing staff druid with a classic pure healing mindset is not going to work. The specialization traitline is incredible for supplementary the current non-druid builds though.

what? You people have lost your mind! only you people with the DPS DPS DPS mindset are not good with Druid.

i been playing it with healer first mindset and been successful in PvP. I go into every fight with main priority to protect my allies. and I’ve been major successful at it.

Agree with you 1000% the people who say low DPS shouldn’t touch Druid as it isn’t designed for it. Love this specialization. and I played druid for many hours now and not grown bored with it at all and druid specialization you can do a nice heal gs melee ranger (which i tried and works great for sustain healing) so best for both types of player when built right. Only thing that needs work is astral whip and vine surge just needs a 2 sec imob like ele’s shockwave.. and perhaps a 2 sec cripple when a foe crosses the vine when it is down.

@ Kiwi… 1 word.. positioning.. you should not be in a CC train as a healer just like any caster.

The aoe of celestial form #4 isn’t big enough to stand at the back, which is why I have stealth and superspeed traited for coming out of celestial form, but sometimes you still get caught. Changing staff #3 into a teleport skill would be awesome.

So, judging from the poll, the overall consensus seems to be that the Druid needs more work and doesn’t really function in its current form.

The rushed idea of a healing ranger specialization is simply not viable. Ventari Revenants out-heal the Druid, Water Elementalists out-heal the Druid, even a lazy guardian out-heals the Druid. We do not need another healer, least of all a sub-par healer (even when specced fully into healing, with the entire specialization being almost nothing but healing with virtually no damage potential).

The Druid needs a new form. I think the turnout for Druid means that a lot of people were looking forward to this overall concept, so for it to fall flat on its face would be a huge disaster.

ArenaNet, please put the Druid back in the oven – it’s not quite done yet.

What follows are my personal suggestions for a very broad theme that can incorporate some of what the Druid currently is, with aspects that I think the Druid should have had from the start (and, I think, some aspects we were all expecting).

1.) Condition Cleanse

2.) Crowd-Control

3.) Damage Potential

And finally,

4.) Lose the Celestial Mechanic

In closing, I want to re-state that these suggestions are entirely my opinion and nothing more. However, I’ve been a huge Guild Wars fan ever since participating in GW1’s beta-testing and being summarily fried to a crisp by Gwen. I love this game and I want to see it succeed as a long-term goal and not just a short-term one. Maintaining narrative consistency is important to that end.

I actually quite enjoy the Celestial theme, and would love to see it make a return some time in the future, just not for the Druid.

I’m a casual player and I’m loving the Druid so far.

octagon.6504:

I’m a casual player and I’m loving the Druid so far.

I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.

I’ve been trying druid with a full valkyrie set, and being a self healing tank is probably the most fun I’ve had ever since I found out the ranger axe is basically a tomahawk

this poll is a good idea

Had hopes for Druid but its too unpolished at the moment for me to want to play it in HoT; just look at the amount of feedback given already. Adjustments to astral force generation, staff/avatar skills, traits/glyphs, base healing and healing coefficients, pets, ui/animation visuals, etc. will need to go through several iterations before the Druid feels polished and not so gimmicky as it does to me at the moment.

That is a long list of things that need to be worked on and Anet already probably knows it judging from their silent treatment on these core issues. The easiest thing for Anet to do at this point is to say, “Sorry, we tried our best to making a viable healer spec but now that HoT is live, we’ll be making small changes to Druid as with all the other classes but will need to focus our attention on other aspects of the game such as bugs, raids, and other new features in HoT.”

This means that one of the more challenging elites to balance/refine is going to suffer from core issues that will plague the class for months/years to come.

I have nothing to back this up but my speculation is that Anet released Druid last during twitchcon because 1) it wasn’t ready before then 2) would help with marketing for twitchcon/HoT 3) they could sweep Druid under the rug upon HoT release since it proved too difficult for them to properly address a healing elite spec with balance in mind. A win for Anet but a loss for Rangers.

Leodon.1564:

Had hopes for Druid but its too unpolished at the moment for me to want to play it in HoT; just look at the amount of feedback given already. Adjustments to astral force generation, staff/avatar skills, traits/glyphs, base healing and healing coefficients, pets, ui/animation visuals, etc. will need to go through several iterations before the Druid feels polished and not so gimmicky as it does to me at the moment.

That is a long list of things that need to be worked on and Anet already probably knows it judging from their silent treatment on these core issues. The easiest thing for Anet to do at this point is to say, “Sorry, we tried our best to making a viable healer spec but now that HoT is live, we’ll be making small changes to Druid as with all the other classes but will need to focus our attention on other aspects of the game such as bugs, raids, and other new features in HoT.”

This means that one of the more challenging elites to balance/refine is going to suffer from core issues that will plague the class for months/years to come.

I have nothing to back this up but my speculation is that Anet released Druid last during twitchcon because 1) it wasn’t ready before then 2) would help with marketing for twitchcon/HoT 3) they could sweep Druid under the rug upon HoT release since it proved too difficult for them to properly address a healing elite spec with balance in mind. A win for Anet but a loss for Rangers.

kitten well spoken sadly.. Was optimistic before BWE3 but now it really looks like you are right

Leodon.1564:

Had hopes for Druid but its too unpolished at the moment for me to want to play it in HoT; just look at the amount of feedback given already. Adjustments to astral force generation, staff/avatar skills, traits/glyphs, base healing and healing coefficients, pets, ui/animation visuals, etc. will need to go through several iterations before the Druid feels polished and not so gimmicky as it does to me at the moment.

That is a long list of things that need to be worked on and Anet already probably knows it judging from their silent treatment on these core issues. The easiest thing for Anet to do at this point is to say, “Sorry, we tried our best to making a viable healer spec but now that HoT is live, we’ll be making small changes to Druid as with all the other classes but will need to focus our attention on other aspects of the game such as bugs, raids, and other new features in HoT.”

This means that one of the more challenging elites to balance/refine is going to suffer from core issues that will plague the class for months/years to come.

I have nothing to back this up but my speculation is that Anet released Druid last during twitchcon because 1) it wasn’t ready before then 2) would help with marketing for twitchcon/HoT 3) they could sweep Druid under the rug upon HoT release since it proved too difficult for them to properly address a healing elite spec with balance in mind. A win for Anet but a loss for Rangers.

Sadly a loss for Rangers, among a very long list of losses for Rangers.

I feel as though the dev team was largely playing musical chairs with the Elite Specializations, creating a confusing fustercluck whereby a player wanting to play a certain playstyle at the higher tier will initially create the character most sensibly tied to that playstyle, only to find out that the class is turned completely around at the higher tiers.

Revenant → Guardian (Elite Spec) – Thief
Guardian → Ranger
Thief → Dodge Mechanic
Ranger → Water Ele
Elementalist → Mesmer w/ Warrior shouts
Mesmer → Wells Necromancer
Necromancer → Warrior
Warrior → Fire Ele/Guardian
Engineer → Hammer Warrior/Spirits Guardian

I’m a straight PvP player / WvW roamer. Druid is precisely what we needed in our profession toolset.

We always lacked meaningful team support/utility, and now we have it.

Druid has some bugs, and some skills that aren’t perfect (vine surge, unity glyph) but this is a step forward for our profession, and I think that it is a very well thought out elite spec.

I see alot of people complaining that druid is too support-ey and lacks damage. I understand where those people are coming from, but as Irenio said, if you’re looking for heavy offense, you probably shouldn’t be running the Druid spec.

Elite specs are supposed to open up new combat options and playstyles for that class (see druid, scrapper and dragonhunter) not be flat out upgrades to the class (see reaper and herald)

Vendetta.1958:

I’m a straight PvP player / WvW roamer. Druid is precisely what we needed in our profession toolset.

We always lacked meaningful team support/utility, and now we have it.

Druid has some bugs, and some skills that aren’t perfect (vine surge, unity glyph) but this is a step forward for our profession, and I think that it is a very well thought out elite spec.

I see alot of people complaining that druid is too support-ey and lacks damage. I understand where those people are coming from, but as Irenio said, if you’re looking for heavy offense, you probably shouldn’t be running the Druid spec.

Elite specs are supposed to open up new combat options and playstyles for that class (see druid, scrapper and dragonhunter) not be flat out upgrades to the class (see reaper and herald)

This is constantly re-hashed on the forums, however, take a look at turnout for the Elite Specs. Player favorites are Revenant, Reaper, Daredevil, and Tempest.

Of these, Revenant is its own class, and therefore irrelevant in the Elite Spec “purpose” discussion. Reaper is not a new combat option/playstyle for the Necromancer. Thematically, Necromancers have always been aggressive and already have two weapon sets designed for up-close combat. Even since GW1, Necromancer was a favorite for dual-classing with melee classes and other damage-dealers for it’s dark magic damage and life-stealing ability. Reaper is not a new playstyle, it is an expansion on the class and it’s already existing capabilities. Daredevil is almost entirely dodge-mechanic focused, again expanding on the pre-existing playstyle of the Thief class. Tempest is a PBAoE Elementalist with animation flair, but more-or-less the same in regards to overall playstyle.

The rest of the Elite specializations are either largely marginalized and considered relatively mediocre, or polarizing in nature, such as the Druid – which ham-handedly forces an entirely new playstyle on the Ranger that has virtually zero synergy with the other trait lines. With a small minority loving it, a small (but larger than the first) crowd that absolutely hates it, and a majority that are ambivalent but agree the class needs re-working.

At it’s announcement, Anet made it a point to mention Druid early alongside HoT, making it clear that the Druid would be plant-based, not Celestial with only one plant-based skill, the vine attack from the trailer, a re-skinned Earth Ele Eruption, and a terrible pustule plant proc.

Returning the Druid to what it had been announced as, and turning it into a truly plant-based spec that enhances and expands the class as a whole (like the other specs) is what Rangers desperately need.

Save the Celestial mechanics for a future class, because I am genuinely a fan of the Celestial theme and skills. Just not for use on a Ranger Spec – they do not fit.

mostly positive, but quite a few improvements are needed.

secondly, we are in DIRE need of core profession adjustments (old weapons, traits, utilities and pets that will never see any use), perhaps moreso than needing any druid improvements.

mistsim.2748:

mostly positive, but quite a few improvements are needed.

secondly, we are in DIRE need of core profession adjustments (old weapons, traits, utilities and pets), perhaps moreso than needing any druid improvements.

I wholeheartedly agree. I think the Ranger could simultaneously receive core adjustments whilst bringing the Druid in line with synergy with the other trait lines and expanding the class’s horizons.

Win-win.

Love the concept, just needs to be improved and perhaps find better synergy with the base Ranger Profession. Can’t wait to play amd enjoy the final version… imagine all the build possibilities with different weapons paired with Staff. Finally better heals for everybody, and a welcome change of direction for the game.

Very thematic, and a big thumbs-up. I was just surprised that the healing theme wasn’t given to the Guardian, Druids perhaps being second in healing to that. Instead we got Dragon Hunter… which is fine, I suppose, but not what I expected, given the Guardian’s lore background (Paragon, GW Monk.)

ShadowKain.9410:

Vendetta.1958:

I’m a straight PvP player / WvW roamer. Druid is precisely what we needed in our profession toolset.

We always lacked meaningful team support/utility, and now we have it.

Druid has some bugs, and some skills that aren’t perfect (vine surge, unity glyph) but this is a step forward for our profession, and I think that it is a very well thought out elite spec.

I see alot of people complaining that druid is too support-ey and lacks damage. I understand where those people are coming from, but as Irenio said, if you’re looking for heavy offense, you probably shouldn’t be running the Druid spec.

Elite specs are supposed to open up new combat options and playstyles for that class (see druid, scrapper and dragonhunter) not be flat out upgrades to the class (see reaper and herald)

This is constantly re-hashed on the forums, however, take a look at turnout for the Elite Specs. Player favorites are Revenant, Reaper, Daredevil, and Tempest.

Of these, Revenant is its own class, and therefore irrelevant in the Elite Spec “purpose” discussion. Reaper is not a new combat option/playstyle for the Necromancer. Thematically, Necromancers have always been aggressive and already have two weapon sets designed for up-close combat. Even since GW1, Necromancer was a favorite among melee classes and other damage-dealers for it’s dark magic damage and life-stealing ability. Reaper is not a new playstyle, it is an expansion on the class and it’s already existing capabilities. Daredevil is almost entirely dodge-mechanic focused, again expanding on the pre-existing playstyle of the Thief class. Tempest is a PBAoE Elementalist with animation flair, but more-or-less the same in regards to overall playstyle.

The rest of the Elite specializations are either largely marginalized and considered relatively mediocre, or polarizing in nature, such as the Druid – which ham-handedly forces an entirely new playstyle on the Ranger that has virtually zero synergy with the other trait lines. With a small minority loving it, a small (but larger than the first) crowd that absolutely hates it, and a majority that are ambivalent but agree the class needs re-working.

At it’s announcement, Anet made it a point to mention Druid early alongside HoT, making it clear that the Druid would be plant-based, not Celestial with only one plant-based skill, the vine attack from the trailer, a re-skinned Earth Ele Eruption, and a terrible pustule plant proc.

Returning the Druid to what it had been announced as, and turning it into a truly plant-based spec that enhances and expands the class as a whole (like the other specs) is what Rangers desperately need.

Save the Celestial mechanics for a future class, because I am genuinely a fan of the Celestial theme and skills. Just not for use on a Ranger Spec – they do not fit.

There’s a ton of fluff in that post.

I predicted exactly what Druid would be 4 months ago, with the only clues being that it was called ‘Druid’ and wielded a staff, simply by looking at our core traitlines and asking myself what we are missing.

Again, as my original post quite clearly stated – elite specs are not supposed to ‘fit’ the stereotypical gameplay of the class. They are supposed to, as you quite aptly put it, expand.

Needs allot of rework and options that does not push away the majority of Rangers (dps rangers) to be able to use astral avatar on LB and Staff for offensive and supportive depending on your trait line where we will not be forced to build cleric set. make the gylphs useful unlike what we have now that is basically useless and still cannot replace Wilderness survival for survival cleanse and condition damage support like sharpening stone.

lxghostxl.5097:

Needs allot of rework and options that does not push away the majority of Rangers (dps rangers)

not be forced to build cleric set.

make the gylphs useful unlike what we have now that is basically useless

this is not the case for pvp. pve, maybe.

I don’t find spamming heals and face tanking fun in the least. Taking double and triple the time to do what normally did for less reward ( drop in exp, karma and loots from events).

Keeping pugs alive while they consistently ignore mechanic, realizing that if they knew what they were doing the wouldn’t be taking a lot of the damage you are healing and that you wouldn’t be need by a group that was half competent.

Coming to the forum and seeing people praising almost 1 million hp heal in spvp, Knowing it would be a lot better if Ranger had range aoe damage and was dealing 1 million damage instead. Know that damage is will always be higher than healing.

Feeling as though all the veteran/elite mobs in the beta were knocked down a notch to make us feel like we were doing something or realizing a heal base Druid would get murdered repeatedly.

Was the beta raid hard just a bit but then again AC was hard for a lot of people in the beginning. Druid is new its novel it has to many short coming to make any real changes for the ranger.

I do think the new pets will do a lot for ranger as well as the condi buff on them.

I have played my ranger in the other beta and enjoyed it, except in this one. It has really turned me off on HOT.

Vendetta.1958:

ShadowKain.9410:

Vendetta.1958:

I’m a straight PvP player / WvW roamer. Druid is precisely what we needed in our profession toolset.

We always lacked meaningful team support/utility, and now we have it.

Druid has some bugs, and some skills that aren’t perfect (vine surge, unity glyph) but this is a step forward for our profession, and I think that it is a very well thought out elite spec.

I see alot of people complaining that druid is too support-ey and lacks damage. I understand where those people are coming from, but as Irenio said, if you’re looking for heavy offense, you probably shouldn’t be running the Druid spec.

Elite specs are supposed to open up new combat options and playstyles for that class (see druid, scrapper and dragonhunter) not be flat out upgrades to the class (see reaper and herald)

This is constantly re-hashed on the forums, however, take a look at turnout for the Elite Specs. Player favorites are Revenant, Reaper, Daredevil, and Tempest.

Of these, Revenant is its own class, and therefore irrelevant in the Elite Spec “purpose” discussion. Reaper is not a new combat option/playstyle for the Necromancer. Thematically, Necromancers have always been aggressive and already have two weapon sets designed for up-close combat. Even since GW1, Necromancer was a favorite among melee classes and other damage-dealers for it’s dark magic damage and life-stealing ability. Reaper is not a new playstyle, it is an expansion on the class and it’s already existing capabilities. Daredevil is almost entirely dodge-mechanic focused, again expanding on the pre-existing playstyle of the Thief class. Tempest is a PBAoE Elementalist with animation flair, but more-or-less the same in regards to overall playstyle.

The rest of the Elite specializations are either largely marginalized and considered relatively mediocre, or polarizing in nature, such as the Druid – which ham-handedly forces an entirely new playstyle on the Ranger that has virtually zero synergy with the other trait lines. With a small minority loving it, a small (but larger than the first) crowd that absolutely hates it, and a majority that are ambivalent but agree the class needs re-working.

At it’s announcement, Anet made it a point to mention Druid early alongside HoT, making it clear that the Druid would be plant-based, not Celestial with only one plant-based skill, the vine attack from the trailer, a re-skinned Earth Ele Eruption, and a terrible pustule plant proc.

Returning the Druid to what it had been announced as, and turning it into a truly plant-based spec that enhances and expands the class as a whole (like the other specs) is what Rangers desperately need.

Save the Celestial mechanics for a future class, because I am genuinely a fan of the Celestial theme and skills. Just not for use on a Ranger Spec – they do not fit.

There’s a ton of fluff in that post.

I predicted exactly what Druid would be 4 months ago, with the only clues being that it was called ‘Druid’ and wielded a staff, simply by looking at our core traitlines and asking myself what we are missing.

Again, as my original post quite clearly stated – elite specs are not supposed to ‘fit’ the stereotypical gameplay of the class. They are supposed to, as you quite aptly put it, expand.

Elite specs are supposed to expand a class, but they are also supposed to fit with the existing theme of that class.

Ranger and Druid are two separate things.

One is “one who ranges, or roves” (essentially), in terms of what the word means, or more specifically a hunter, or archer, with a pet, in terms of how the class was originally designed to function and the other is a priest, magician, or soothsayer from the .Celtic religion.

How do these two themes have anything in common?

How are Druids rangers?

They’re both thought of as being close to nature, I guess, but what else?

If they want to put two separate themes into one class, that is up to them, but it is confusing and will, of course, feel more like they have just given up on improving the initial premise of the class and have decided to change it, instead.

Naturally, lot of people, who chose Ranger for what it is/was, won’t like that.

Vendetta.1958:

ShadowKain.9410:

Vendetta.1958:

I’m a straight PvP player / WvW roamer. Druid is precisely what we needed in our profession toolset.

We always lacked meaningful team support/utility, and now we have it.

Druid has some bugs, and some skills that aren’t perfect (vine surge, unity glyph) but this is a step forward for our profession, and I think that it is a very well thought out elite spec.

I see alot of people complaining that druid is too support-ey and lacks damage. I understand where those people are coming from, but as Irenio said, if you’re looking for heavy offense, you probably shouldn’t be running the Druid spec.

Elite specs are supposed to open up new combat options and playstyles for that class (see druid, scrapper and dragonhunter) not be flat out upgrades to the class (see reaper and herald)

This is constantly re-hashed on the forums, however, take a look at turnout for the Elite Specs. Player favorites are Revenant, Reaper, Daredevil, and Tempest.

Of these, Revenant is its own class, and therefore irrelevant in the Elite Spec “purpose” discussion. Reaper is not a new combat option/playstyle for the Necromancer. Thematically, Necromancers have always been aggressive and already have two weapon sets designed for up-close combat. Even since GW1, Necromancer was a favorite among melee classes and other damage-dealers for it’s dark magic damage and life-stealing ability. Reaper is not a new playstyle, it is an expansion on the class and it’s already existing capabilities. Daredevil is almost entirely dodge-mechanic focused, again expanding on the pre-existing playstyle of the Thief class. Tempest is a PBAoE Elementalist with animation flair, but more-or-less the same in regards to overall playstyle.

The rest of the Elite specializations are either largely marginalized and considered relatively mediocre, or polarizing in nature, such as the Druid – which ham-handedly forces an entirely new playstyle on the Ranger that has virtually zero synergy with the other trait lines. With a small minority loving it, a small (but larger than the first) crowd that absolutely hates it, and a majority that are ambivalent but agree the class needs re-working.

At it’s announcement, Anet made it a point to mention Druid early alongside HoT, making it clear that the Druid would be plant-based, not Celestial with only one plant-based skill, the vine attack from the trailer, a re-skinned Earth Ele Eruption, and a terrible pustule plant proc.

Returning the Druid to what it had been announced as, and turning it into a truly plant-based spec that enhances and expands the class as a whole (like the other specs) is what Rangers desperately need.

Save the Celestial mechanics for a future class, because I am genuinely a fan of the Celestial theme and skills. Just not for use on a Ranger Spec – they do not fit.

There’s a ton of fluff in that post.

Sure, mock my post instead of address it. Also, implying that you didn’t even read it.

I predicted exactly what Druid would be 4 months ago, with the only clues being that it was called ‘Druid’ and wielded a staff, simply by looking at our core traitlines and asking myself what we are missing.

So you made a prediction and happened to get it right? Well, that’s great, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what we’ve been talking about, so I fail to see the point in why you bothered to say this at all, besides wanting to get attention and change the focus of discussion rather than address what I have explained to you.

Again, as my original post quite clearly stated – elite specs are not supposed to ‘fit’ the stereotypical gameplay of the class. They are supposed to, as you quite aptly put it, expand.

You’re merely re-defining words to fit your narrative, and shifting the goal posts.

To expand a thing presupposes, and requires, an established and defined starting point from which to continue forward.

I don’t like what the Druid is, and I like even less what its existence says about the direction Anet is taking this game.