Guild Wars 2

Ive always been on board with the fact that you guys needed an over haul. And for the most part stayed away from your forums due to the tremendous amount of whining that’s been going on for so long about said subject. Hell, You can hardly escape the subject in game…

However….

After the druid reveal, I would be quite upset myself.. And I support your cries for help. To be reduced to nothing but PVE heal bots. Talk about kicking a person when they’re down. Thankfully I retired mine long ago

Let the era of the Revenant begin…

Its nice to have Roy behind us. He actually cares about his job and had passion for the profession and elite spec he was creating. So luckily we were well taken care of, Sadly, Fate had it different for you Dragon Hunters and Druids

at least i get a bowwww chokes back a sob

Wait one second here, as an Engi I find these complaints about the Druid rather unnecessary. Basically they are getting our med kit skill 1 however it ALSO does damage.

This kit is still totally useless to me. Yes I understand that Druid is more than likely the FIRST class to be given a truly power house of a healing build/option and that others will soon follow. Yet still, as an Engi having 1 kit totally useless is just real annoying. Especially now that another class can not only do the same but far better.

Now having said all that, rangers will get more Elite specs focused on damage, support etc just like everyone else. However for the mean time every ranger should enjoy that they are the FIRST true healer to be added to the game and I suspect will be in great demand upon the raid release.

One last thing I would like to say, I main an engi yes but my second fave class and one I use the next most is my ranger. I still have nothing but love for it. They are brilliant in PvE, WvW not too shabby. I managed to get the champion title for him in PvP. So who here exactly is moaning about the druid class? Is it the dungeon runners or the “serious” top 5% pvpers?

Please more details would be appreciated, I am sure not only by the general public but for anet as well.

I think that Druid will be useful in PvP…remember, you still have two whole trait lines for damage. After all, it can just replace wilderness survival in a power based build, and you’ll have the same damage as before, while being better at group support and tougher to bring down.

Rangers received the kitten end of the stick for years in GW1 and the same trend has followed in GW2. It is clear that certain devs at Anet don’t like the Ranger from the my little pony bow to not sorting out Howler – the legendary that isn’t.

And as for the druid being a subclass of the Ranger – what a load of crud.

I think the Druid is a great choice for the ranger. Anet is moving the game away from the zerk meta and Rangers are getting an elite spec that may fit right in the new meta.

Does anyone see the problem with making Healbot a role, and then giving it to only one spec of only one class?

I forsee trouble brewing.

i think giving healbot in place of the exciting new elite specialization to a prof that few people, if anyone, rolled with the expectation/anticipation of doing any healing whatsoever, is a sure-fire recipe for trouble.

I have a feeling they gave it to Ranger first since a lot of rangers were moaning they were excluded from content (dungeons). Anets way of saying “now everyone will want to include them!”

Like I said, this is just the FIRST class to get such a build/option/spec. The other classes will get it, probably at a rate of 1 class every elite spec set release. So, welcome to the future. :P

Paulytnz.7619:

Anets way of saying “now everyone will want to include them!”

so you think people will Want rangers in dungeons / fractals / raids Because they can Heal?

rogerwilko.6895:

Paulytnz.7619:

Anets way of saying “now everyone will want to include them!”

so you think people will Want rangers in dungeons / fractals / raids Because they can Heal?

Nope I think Anet think people will want them for raids however. The players will always find a way to do the opposite to what the devs want lol. So there is a good chance people may not even want them in raids. But that’s not to say that anet wont try and push it.

AehAZE.1867:

Ive always been on board with the fact that you guys needed an over haul. And for the most part stayed away from your forums due to the tremendous amount of whining that’s been going on for so long about said subject. Hell, You can hardly escape the subject in game…

However….

After the druid reveal, I would be quite upset myself.. And I support your cries for help. To be reduced to nothing but PVE heal bots. Talk about kicking a person when they’re down. Thankfully I retired mine long ago

Let the era of the Revenant begin…

Its nice to have Roy behind us. He actually cares about his job and had passion for the profession and elite spec he was creating. So luckily we were well taken care of, Sadly, Fate had it different for you Dragon Hunters and Druids

Ummm no.

From the start of the game, Anet’s vision was to replace the MMO Holy Trinity (hard trinity – tank, dps, healer) with their own “Soft Trinity” DPS, Support, Tank. With Support includes both offensive (crowd control, snare, debilitating conditions, etc.) and defensive (heal, block, reflect, etc.)

Professions/Classes are not locked into a certain role but rather you can customize your build to perform certain roles better than others.

While this trinity somewhat exists in PvP and WvW (GvG fight with frontline and backline formations), in PvE it totally fell short as current PvE contents are badly designed to favor DPS DPS DPS.

So Anet is trying hard to address this in the upcoming expansion to restore “the balance”. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

An ersatz Warden is not a Ranger.

this is amazing, you guys got to try the Druid out, when did this happen?

the druid stuff is more than just heals.

for example a tanky melee ranger with the new elite – the one that channels damage you take into all nearby linked enemies – could do potentially ruinous amounts of damage.

the glyph skills have a great deal of utility not necessarily related to healing

you can combine the druid specialization tree into existing builds as well

Ok. First, OP is crazy and completely out of line. Second, I think a lot of the hate towards Druid has a lot to do with the fact that people don’t really believe Anet when they say the zerker meta is going away. I myself find it hard to believe. Even if HoT demands healer specs what about the rest of the game? How long will it take them to make Druids useful anywhere else if they plan on doing so at all?

I’m still looking forwards to it at least for use in HoT and PvP but yeah.

Yeah Druid really is a massive slap in the face to both rangers and people who came to the game because Anet said this game won’t rely on healers.

If I wanted to go play a healer I’d go to pretty much any other MMO becuase they have a more interesting implementation then ‘spam all your aoe heals’. Hell GW1 had one of the best healing classes in any game, this is a massive step down.

I completely disagree about being relegated to pve healbot, but I don’t really care enough to tell you why that is a dumb statement.

Edit: typo

geeez they are not Dedicated healers its not a trinity role. they will not sit at the back healing while others protect them , the druid can protect itself and deal more than enough damage , the damage is just done in a different way though the glyph tethers/links to the foes around you , so these Dps builds that need consistant attacks will have to stop attacking to avoid any extra incomming damage (pvp) combine that with a Retaliation guardian , you even attack the druid you’ll take a lot in return plus due to the druids tanky Nature by using healing to reduce damage (not heal over damage) dodging is still required its not as easy as simple black to white methods of Heal stop damage.

they CC, they Damage , the pet can be changed to ether a defence pet or a offensive pet to support the build you make , just because it heals does not mean its going to be a Dedicated healer role and it won’t be that only counts for Staff+ Cele form, Even then they still do quite a lot of damage when the damage sources are stacked up , Rangers are not about Big numbers , we don’t care about big numbers since we deal a lot more smaller numbers more consistantly than other classes pushing Burst damage to a extreme.

im looking forward to a Zealot/cav mix with Gs+staff after a bit of practice you can burst hard and fast with GS maul+quick draws and heal up fast with staff or the Cele form with Tethers for heal or damage.

right now get it out of your heads Druid is not a Healer it is a Support/Damage role 40%support/20%damage/20% control nothing is being forced on you to go into pure healing you can go Beserker for all i care , there will be ways to deal effective damage while being a druid but this concept of druid is to "Be hit and hit back " than it is to " Hit and not be Hit " like the current Beserker meta.

its not a healer , its a kitten druid.

On top what other said for the druid, they have mention they will keep an eye on the class, and most likely all of them, and try to balance where they are needed. Also, till we can play it our self, our way. We can’t see how it react in the situation we will put it through anyways.

Sigh. PvE scrubs…

Lazze.9870:

Sigh. PvE scrubs…

What does that even mean?

TJgalon.5012:

Lazze.9870:

Sigh. PvE scrubs…

What does that even mean?

It means I’m tired of reading comments from the pve crowd thinking the druid spec is borderline useless.

Lazze.9870:

TJgalon.5012:

Lazze.9870:

Sigh. PvE scrubs…

What does that even mean?

It means I’m tired of reading comments from the pve crowd thinking the druid spec is borderline useless.

I don’t even understand how it could be considered useless to run full zerk and yet have the capability of party burst healing for ~7k. What is useless about that.

ok so it was not directed to me, ok that good.
Also for now, this is all speculation. The next beta should be soon, and we can give feedback and the game is release in like a month too. I know I want to try druid, I don’t normally main Ranger, but it looks like it might be fun to try.

Mcrocha.3891:

Lazze.9870:

TJgalon.5012:

Lazze.9870:

Sigh. PvE scrubs…

What does that even mean?

It means I’m tired of reading comments from the pve crowd thinking the druid spec is borderline useless.

I don’t even understand how it could be considered useless to run full zerk and yet have the capability of party burst healing for ~7k. What is useless about that.

not much use for it in current content because its so easy you can finish it without Armour or improved Hp.

for HoT though the health you have is much more Valued as it will be much harder to recover from down state , getting up in a field of poison spores/or Mushrooms (god i hate those) a support healer will be much more valued than some one throwing protection on you or aegis as you are still limited to a set amount of hp which will effect your regroup distance before going down , lowering the chances of real recovery.

atm recovery is just killing somthing and getting back up not much afterwards is going to be a threat.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Mcrocha.3891:

Lazze.9870:

TJgalon.5012:

Lazze.9870:

Sigh. PvE scrubs…

What does that even mean?

It means I’m tired of reading comments from the pve crowd thinking the druid spec is borderline useless.

I don’t even understand how it could be considered useless to run full zerk and yet have the capability of party burst healing for ~7k. What is useless about that.

not much use for it in current content because its so easy you can finish it without Armour or improved Hp.

for HoT though the health you have is much more Valued as it will be much harder to recover from down state , getting up in a field of poison spores/or Mushrooms (god i hate those) a support healer will be much more valued than some one throwing protection on you or aegis as you are still limited to a set amount of hp which will effect your regroup distance before going down , lowering the chances of real recovery.

atm recovery is just killing somthing and getting back up not much afterwards is going to be a threat.

I disagree about it being useless in current content though. We are assuming here that say in pug runs everything goes smoothly and no one missed dodges or aegis procs or ice bow freezes or what have you. I find this too be unlikely in general and certainly not true from an anecdotal perspective. Therefore, I think that Druid adds something even in current content.

Edit: typo

I’ve said it many times. ANet hates rangers, the devs don’t play rangers and this is why we can never have nice things.

Holy trinity is back, except NOBODY wants to be the kittenty monk. Not so much of healbot as a blamebot

Sandpit.3467:

I’ve said it many times. ANet hates rangers, the devs don’t play rangers and this is why we can never have nice things.

Holy trinity is back, except NOBODY wants to be the kittenty monk. Not so much of healbot as a blamebot

I for one welcome being a staple for raids even if that means I have to run clerics/nomads/zealot/etc for my healing support. If this is what happens, MANY others will dust their ranger off to have a guaranteed raid spot in their group.

And I’m tired of people tossing “trinity” out there like there was in WoW and other games – do you really expect Druid to use every global as a healing spell? Pretty sure that isn’t going to happen at all. SUPPORT =/= HOLY TRINITY HEALER. Likewise do you expect to see full out TANK builds to “tank the boss” and everything? Come on people…stop overreacting.

Olcon.9506:

In my opinion, Rangers have gone so long without any true official theme for their profession (am I an archer? Am I a beastmaster? Am I a shamany spirit-summoning nature dude?) that some Rangers have been forced to come up with their own personal theme as to what they want their profession to be.

Almost undeniably, that personal theme has been DPS support. "Range"r, they say, it’s in the name! So they wanted Druid to support that theme they had spent long and hard following. They wanted the Druid to put them into the meta – the BERSERKER meta.

The issue here is that Anet absolutely hates the berserker pve meta, and for good reason: there is no variety. This game is balanced 80-20 in favor of PvP. PvP and WvW are vibrant places with multiple build options for all classes and the environment isn’t nearly as stifling for creativity as PvE is. I believe Anet wants to move the creativity of those two game modes into PvE, because whether they like it or not, all players start out in PvE. It’s the main mode in GW2.

Those players who strictly play PvE won’t realize this because they’ve never experimented with the other two game modes. They only see berserker, while Anet is looking – and designing – past the berserker meta.

I think this is where the disconnect happened, and is continuing to happen. The players are completely rigid; they’re confident that berserker will survive into HoT and remain the stable meta. Anet put the Druid in front of them – an elite specialization with a literal kittenload of healing – and the players immediately saw it as useless because healing power has no place in a meta where the best defense is a good offense, and active defenses take care of everything else. And because the Druid is primarily healing power, they can’t see past the wall of “uselessness” to gaze upon everything else the Druid brings to the table: the “control” portion of “dps, control, support”.

The Druid is two parts support, one part control. The perfect complement to the soft trinity Anet failed to deliver in the core game, but is now trying to reintroduce in HoT – because while they said they were going to get rid of the “hard trinity”, aka classes being locked into a specific role, they never said anything about getting rid of trinities altogether. Anet wants a “soft trinity” of dps, control, support, with every class having something to contribute towards each facet.

The base ranger class is overwhelmingly specialized towards dps, but people failed to recognize that through the mire of bugs, kittenty dev communication, iffy design practices and pet issues. So, again, when people saw the Druid with literally no dps, an elite specialization overwhelmingly leaning towards defensive support and control, they claimed there was no synergy with the base ranger at all, despite the Druid absolutely what the ranger needed more than anything else. Dps, support and control had all been met in the same class, finally. Soft trinity intact. Now the issue is getting the base profession up to speed so the dps portion can catch up to the other two, while keeping the Druid relatively stable and well-designed so we have options going into HoT – which will hopefully finally provide other options than berserker. To that end, I have faith in Irenio. If anyone can walk this tightrope, it’s him.

I’m literally going to just copy paste this across everyone of these “oh woe is me no dmgs ;(” threads from now on instead of bothering to type a reply.

I mean, all the threads are the same. Why can’t I spam the same thing, either?

Sandpit.3467:

I’ve said it many times. ANet hates rangers, the devs don’t play rangers and this is why we can never have nice things.

Holy trinity is back, except NOBODY wants to be the kittenty monk. Not so much of healbot as a blamebot

Actually i’d love to play Monk in GW2. Lack of healer class was a reason why i checked this gam? so late. I am happy with druid, already leveling mine.

It seems like a very interesting option, but I would really like the class to be more effective as a DPS class, as well.

Personally, I think a good start would be to add some decent, untargeted, stealth utilities.

When I told my BF (who doesn’t play GW2) that ranger only has a 3 sec, targeted stealth, he was horrified.

He said “God, you would think that if anyone had stealth, it would be Rangers.”.

Sandpit.3467:

I’ve said it many times. ANet hates rangers, the devs don’t play rangers and this is why we can never have nice things.

Holy trinity is back, except NOBODY wants to be the kittenty monk. Not so much of healbot as a blamebot

So how was the druid class, did it seem hard to play or were you not doing enough damage?

I really like the druid reveal, and I think everyone needs to play it before overloading with “it sucks.”

Been playing ranger for 3 years, and all it has taught me is that everyone complains unless we can two shot people.

Lazze.9870:

TJgalon.5012:

Lazze.9870:

Sigh. PvE scrubs…

What does that even mean?

It means I’m tired of reading comments from the pve crowd thinking the druid spec is borderline useless.

and I’m tired of the PvP crowd thinking that GW2 PvP isn’t any less casual then PvE but meh what you going to do

Imagine a class with minimal offensive buff and damage, but only healing.

It’d be needed in raid, and only raid, and not needed in the other 95% of the game contents :P

That’s why I refuse to be healbot.
The fact that druid has minimal group offensive/defensive supports sadden me.
(Before you say anything, the damage bonus Glyph gives you an average of 2.5% damage increase only, way worse than Frost Spirit. What a joke. The other 300 self range glyphs all look extremely useless against pve mobs)

Funny how engi complain about how useless their Gyro is, while not noticing Glyphs are way worse. (Except the Elite glyph maybe)

LOL at ppl stating anet is getting away from the zerk meta….

Please, outside of raids and MAYBE lvl 100 fractals, zerk is going to be the optimum build.
How exactly is that “getting away from the zerk meta”??? (speaking in terms of PvE only)

Now I’m excited for druid as i’m a PvP/WvW main and there seems to be a decent amount of potential hybrid/support builds…..

Unfortunately, our DPS build in PvP/WvW got little to no change, so if you like glass cannon play, this druid did nothing for you.

If you like support/healing builds, druid looks great.
If you like glass cannon, high risk/high reward? its kitten near pointless.

Maybe the next elite spec down the road will help out rangers become better DPS options but for now, it seems anet is content on making them amazing at one type of role (support/healing) and just giving the middle finger to other role (DPS)

Remember, this thou, druid is not that much of a support – its just A LOT of heals and some PBAoE CC….

Theres no boon/auras in terms of support for druids, in that case, I think its a subpar support spec for parties…..eles/guardians can do decent amount of healing AND have AMAZING boons/aurasharing. The only thing druid does is AMAZING HEALING.

Difference is, ele/guardian can still do great DPS while a druid specced healer? yea…… subpar.

PvE players amuse me. Raids are said to be the most rewarding PvE content out there…and Druids will probably be a big part of that. Yet they are useless in PvE?

“Rewarding” is subjective.

For me the rewards part is pure loot after the 1st completion. So, yeah, in that regards Raids are likely to be the most rewarding content per hour of play just like Fractals can be today. And Druid’s will be a minizmed role in that. After 1st completion content will be completed as fast as possible, JUST LIKE IT IS NOW, with minimum amount of healing/defensive support to get that goal accomplished.

Gotejjeken.1267:

PvE players amuse me. Raids are said to be the most rewarding PvE content out there…and Druids will probably be a big part of that. Yet they are useless in PvE?

Druids will either be absolutely required for raids, or be completely undesired in raids.

If raids can be completed without massive amounts of direct healing, then druids will will serve little purpose there.

AehAZE.1867:

Ive always been on board with the fact that you guys needed an over haul. And for the most part stayed away from your forums due to the tremendous amount of whining that’s been going on for so long about said subject. Hell, You can hardly escape the subject in game…

However….

After the druid reveal, I would be quite upset myself.. And I support your cries for help. To be reduced to nothing but PVE heal bots. Talk about kicking a person when they’re down. Thankfully I retired mine long ago

Let the era of the Revenant begin…

Its nice to have Roy behind us. He actually cares about his job and had passion for the profession and elite spec he was creating. So luckily we were well taken care of, Sadly, Fate had it different for you Dragon Hunters and Druids

If that’s all you managed to understand about the reveal, then it’s sad. I already see a super strong OP zerk build for this in pvp. Maybe you should re-read and theorize the build more.

I don’t think he was talking about PVP, Lettuce.

thats the point , the Core game (is the now beginner game i doubt they will go back and revamp old content that works for new players) so yes zerker will be for that content but it will be less effective in New contnet HoT and into the future that is the change they are bringing , so if you believe that zerker is still going to be the dogs , it will be in old content because that old content is classed as Easy to more experienced players and proberly difficult to new players thats the difference.

I don’t think zerker is going away for new content either. If it does, Sinister will replace it. Why? After the 1000th time you’ve done the first raid, do you really want it to take longer than it has to? No. That’s why those of us who’ve done thousands of fractals run zerker. We’ve learned the content. We know how to survive with the least amount of healing. Same thing will happen to raids. The only way for this to happen is for content to be constantly changing and significantly. We will, as a whole, take the least amount of defensive support needed to complete content. That’s why we even have a zerker meta in the first place.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

I don’t think zerker is going away for new content either. If it does, Sinister will replace it. Why? After the 1000th time you’ve done the first raid, do you really want it to take longer than it has to? No. That’s why those of us who’ve done thousands of fractals run zerker. We’ve learned the content. We know how to survive with the least amount of healing. Same thing will happen to raids. The only way for this to happen is for content to be constantly changing and significantly. We will, as a whole, take the least amount of defensive support needed to complete content. That’s why we even have a zerker meta in the first place.

get out of that mind set because the current content is easy to learn , easy to dodge, easy to use Damage metigation procs , protection blinds ect , the HoT content will bring mobs that ignore blinds , ignore direct damage, some will even ignore Condi damage or have mechanics that swap between the two , yes for some zerker is a decent stat set but it won’t be the End off all being the best in the content comming up , you can learn all the content you like but the fact is Unavoidable damage is comming no matter how much active defence you have there is a limit to how much you have which is why Support is being buffed , increased .

I think you underestimate the human ability to learn content. It’ll just separate further those than can complete content with zerkers and those that can’t.

And, again, I didn’t say running zerker is no support. You obviously don’t understand if you think it’s all 100% DPS 100% of the time. But, I’ll explain it, again, so listen this time.

We will take the least amount of defensive support and crowd control neccessary to complete content the fastest as possible. Consider that written in stone.

Please reread it as many time as you need to understand the concept.

So, that means, if Sinister gear is the fastest way to complete the new content we will have a Sinister meta. If healing is the fastest way to complete content we will have a healing meta. Do you get it now? It’s all about the fastest way to do it. That’s why a zerker meta exists. Because it’s the fastest way to do content we’ve all done hundreds if not thousands of times. Then again, if things just take too long, some of us just won’t do them. I only have a couple of hours to play a day during the week because I don’t have kids, so likely if the raids take longer than a hour I won’t be doing them except for weekends (and that’s a maybe because I have other things to do most weekends).

First off, there is no telling how HoT open world, raids, adventures or Fractals will work. Perhaps the zerker meta will still be viable and desirable in Tyria dungeons, but I think it is outright foolish to dismiss supportive play before the game releases.

Secondly, the druid is not just a heal bot. It has excellent condition removal and daze spam, especially when traited with MoC.

Third, Irenio has sad that he is keeping a close eye on the ranger and that we can expect changes in the near future. The preview from Twitch con will be a major push for the ranger, I am still surprised people do not realize this.
While the Ranger physical DPS will remain mostly the same, pet condition damage will be given a major boost, which will go rather well with both berserker and sinister builds due to Skirmishing and BM both being taken all the time for PvE. Pets will be able to maintain stacks of bleeds with player equivalent condition damage. Also, a major plus is the fact that Ice Bow has been hammered and even though an ele will do more damage, a second ele will not be that big of a deal, imho. We will see what other changes are going to happen.

The biggest impact the druid will have is WvW. An AoE daze, heal and condition clear bot will be most welcome. There will be a point in running ranger in WvW now, which is a huge deal.

And for PvP druid will be amazing. Quite possible very OP, but we cant say before we play it.

Stop whining and try to look beyond your builds.

As long as active mitigation in the form of dodge, blinds, aegis and evades was more than sufficient to deal with anything PVE could throw at you, there was no point in using tanky stats or bring any healing. If you are good, you are currently taking close to no dmg.

We will see how raids are designed, but with longer encounters, some unavoidable dmg, etc. healing – wherever it comes from – will be needed. Depending on tuning, either a little or a lot, and probably from one or two dedicated healers. How much will be needed will be a factor of tuning and player skill.

So, if Anet pulls it off, healing will be needed in raid. And druids will be one of the options. No PVE use outside of raids, though. Unless Anet releases new, radically different, Fractals.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

I think you underestimate the human ability to learn content. It’ll just separate further those than can complete content with zerkers and those that can’t.

And, again, I didn’t say running zerker is no support. You obviously don’t understand if you think it’s all 100% DPS 100% of the time. But, I’ll explain it, again, so listen this time.

We will take the least amount of defensive support and crowd control neccessary to complete content the fastest as possible. Consider that written in stone.

Please reread it as many time as you need to understand the concept.

So, that means, if Sinister gear is the fastest way to complete the new content we will have a Sinister meta. If healing is the fastest way to complete content we will have a healing meta. Do you get it now? It’s all about the fastest way to do it. That’s why a zerker meta exists. Because it’s the fastest way to do content we’ve all done hundreds if not thousands of times. Then again, if things just take too long, some of us just won’t do them. I only have a couple of hours to play a day during the week because I don’t have kids, so likely if the raids take longer than a hour I won’t be doing them except for weekends (and that’s a maybe because I have other things to do most weekends).

There’s only one condition that healing may be the Meta.

Add some “corrupted plants” type creatures.
They all have 90% resistance over directly damage and condition damage.
However, they’d take 2 times damage from healing skills :P
It’s like healing skills vs undead thingy in other games.

That way Druid will be in Meta in that type of content.
I can’t imagine anything else.

Oh, I’m not disagreeing… Again, what I am saying is that the only way a druid will be brought is that if it is required to have that much healing. Zerks bring just enough CC and support to get the job done (I think I said this already in the bolded parts above)… or they have fantastic DPS. Eles and guards can already bring fantastic healing… so… Yeah. Moot point.