Guild Wars 2

Kitty.1502:

Nike.2631:

…May the stars guide you!…

Making the rune up or has it been confirmed? if so link!

Sorry, just suggesting one. There has been some vague mention of there being new Rune-sets coming out with HoT, likely inspired by the 10 new professions. Just offering my take .

I’ve been designing them for each of the Especs I feel reasonably familiar with. Trying to take existing effects or close iterations and combining them into a tuned package.

Shoe.5821:

" increased their healing coefficients from 100-145%". I understand that line like “every coeff gets +45%” or " coeff*1,45"

i’m pretty sure it’s actually from *2.00 to *2.45, but i guess we’ll see.

that would mean ca. :
CR: 607-688 (0,40-0,49)
SoL: 375-424 (1,0-1,23)
LI: 2175-2465 (1,0-1,23)
RT: 727-824 (0,3-0,38)

that is possible when i see those numbers
9 days away from being sure

Nike.2631:

Kitty.1502:

Nike.2631:

…May the stars guide you!…

Making the rune up or has it been confirmed? if so link!

Sorry, just suggesting one. There has been some vague mention of there being new Rune-sets coming out with HoT, likely inspired by the 10 new professions. Just offering my take .

I’ve been designing them for each of the Especs I feel reasonably familiar with. Trying to take existing effects or close iterations and combining them into a tuned package.

Well I do like this suggestion though maybe make instead of converted into precision into ferocity.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

Since the third beta weekend there’s been a lot of great feedback – thanks!

Below are some of the more solid changes to the Druid since the beta weekend that were made to address some concerns regarding net damage loss in a raid, celestial avatar form feeling gated by staff and glyph reward scaling.

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

• Lingering Light: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, when you heal an ally their next outgoing attack will heal them (based upon your healing) and blind their target.

• Glyph of Unity: This skill now has a 400 initial effect radius and a 600 radius leash.

• Glyph of Empowerment: The radius for this skill has been increased to 600.

• Glyph of Alignment: Increased the weakness and cripple duration on this skill from 3s to 5s. Reduced the cast damage by 66%. This skill now applies 3 stacks of poison.

• Ancestral Grace: Is now an evade and will immediately end upon reaching your destination.

• Celestial Avatar Form: Entering this form now has a 10s CD. Charging of Astral force by healing has been reduced by 40%. Charging of Astral force by outgoing strikes has been increased by 200%. You now retain half your current astral force if you decide to break form early.

• Celestial Avatar Form: Skills that heal have had their base heals reduced by 15-25% and increased their healing coefficients from 100-145%. This should leave base heals solid while really rewarding players who elect to use healing power stats.

• (Celestial Avatar) Lunar Impact: Reduced the daze on this skill from 3s to 2s. This skill is now ground targeted and will blast finish correctly.

Well wishes,
~Irenio

Bonus: Bristleback Pet F2 is no longer the Sharpen Spines ability. The F2 is now Spike Barrage to give you more rewarding control.

More importantly….
any word on the staff Idle animation / Running Animations?
Are we still stuck with the staff being used as a Hammer when it comes to animations?

I’m am just going to chime in on my pure displeasure at the Grand master Lingering Light Change. Both Aesthetically and Mechanically I adored said trait. This new version has me worried. We know its going to have a very long cool down and we also know blind is not the most potent condition(and yet consistently is very hard to apply), and we in essence just lost a big tool for healing our Allies who are ranged-Consistently. In one swoop my favorite trait in the game is gone…Can I at least request that you leave the healing wisp around the effected allies? I’m going to miss my Wisp Friend on my own character, I even had a name for it. It was Wispy, and now I have to bury my best friend….

Kitty.1502:

Well I do like this suggestion though maybe make instead of converted into precision into ferocity.

Thanks . I felt that Precision was a more flexible choice that would serve hybrid and even some condition-damage builds (Ranger has some proc-on-crit condition traits) while still being desirable for direct power-based damage.

Nike.2631:

Kitty.1502:

Well I do like this suggestion though maybe make instead of converted into precision into ferocity.

Thanks . I felt that Precision was a more flexible choice that would serve hybrid and even some condition-damage builds (Ranger has some proc-on-crit condition traits) while still being desirable for direct power-based damage.

While I agree it does give flexible, but for taking druid you already give up to much to make condi worthwhile (no matter what tree you drop, you are losing a large percentage of dps, Honed Axes – Ambidexterity – Quick Draw) Ferocity would make the choice of going power with druid not as much as a dps loss and give better synergy between druid and core ranger. Beastmaster can lift right out of the Power Ranger and you can put Druid in its place with minimal dps loss.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

Since the third beta weekend there’s been a lot of great feedback – thanks!

Below are some of the more solid changes to the Druid since the beta weekend that were made to address some concerns regarding net damage loss in a raid, celestial avatar form feeling gated by staff and glyph reward scaling.

…

._

Now this is more like it! Great communication and thank you Irenio!!!

Kitty.1502:

Nike.2631:

Kitty.1502:

Well I do like this suggestion though maybe make instead of converted into precision into ferocity.

Thanks . I felt that Precision was a more flexible choice that would serve hybrid and even some condition-damage builds (Ranger has some proc-on-crit condition traits) while still being desirable for direct power-based damage.

While I agree it does give flexible, but for taking druid you already give up to much to make condi worthwhile (no matter what tree you drop, you are losing a large percentage of dps, Honed Axes – Ambidexterity – Quick Draw) Ferocity would make the choice of going power with druid not as much as a dps loss and give better synergy between druid and core ranger. Beastmaster can lift right out of the Power Ranger and you can put Druid in its place with minimal dps loss.

What? Removing Beastmaster is a massive DPS loss on any build and it won’t be regained by adding a bit of ferocity to a braindead heal spam spec.

Levetty.1279:

Kitty.1502:

Nike.2631:

Kitty.1502:

Well I do like this suggestion though maybe make instead of converted into precision into ferocity.

Thanks . I felt that Precision was a more flexible choice that would serve hybrid and even some condition-damage builds (Ranger has some proc-on-crit condition traits) while still being desirable for direct power-based damage.

While I agree it does give flexible, but for taking druid you already give up to much to make condi worthwhile (no matter what tree you drop, you are losing a large percentage of dps, Honed Axes – Ambidexterity – Quick Draw) Ferocity would make the choice of going power with druid not as much as a dps loss and give better synergy between druid and core ranger. Beastmaster can lift right out of the Power Ranger and you can put Druid in its place with minimal dps loss.

What? Removing Beastmaster is a massive DPS loss on any build and it won’t be regained by adding a bit of ferocity to a braindead heal spam spec.

Compared to the loss of every other spec between condi and power it is the one that lifts out the easist, and the dps loss is minimal. The Zephyr’s Speed + Loud Whistle is the most unreliable combo that power ranger runs. Resounding Timbre and Natural Healing deal with survival which you are making up with druid, and Pet’s Prowess + Pack Alphas adds dps but not nearly as much as any other trait tree.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Stilgar.6437:

You cant run a healer in 5-man pvp, you just cant, it will never work.

I do, and it works for me pretty easily.

Same. It was viable and fun.

CandyHearts.6025:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Stilgar.6437:

You cant run a healer in 5-man pvp, you just cant, it will never work.

I do, and it works for me pretty easily.

Same. It was viable and fun.

Yup same for me. And in WvW

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

Since the third beta weekend there’s been a lot of great feedback – thanks!

Below are some of the more solid changes to the Druid since the beta weekend that were made to address some concerns regarding net damage loss in a raid, celestial avatar form feeling gated by staff and glyph reward scaling.

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

• Lingering Light: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, when you heal an ally their next outgoing attack will heal them (based upon your healing) and blind their target.

• Glyph of Unity: This skill now has a 400 initial effect radius and a 600 radius leash.

• Glyph of Empowerment: The radius for this skill has been increased to 600.

• Glyph of Alignment: Increased the weakness and cripple duration on this skill from 3s to 5s. Reduced the cast damage by 66%. This skill now applies 3 stacks of poison.

• Ancestral Grace: Is now an evade and will immediately end upon reaching your destination.

• Celestial Avatar Form: Entering this form now has a 10s CD. Charging of Astral force by healing has been reduced by 40%. Charging of Astral force by outgoing strikes has been increased by 200%. You now retain half your current astral force if you decide to break form early.

• Celestial Avatar Form: Skills that heal have had their base heals reduced by 15-25% and increased their healing coefficients from 100-145%. This should leave base heals solid while really rewarding players who elect to use healing power stats.

• (Celestial Avatar) Lunar Impact: Reduced the daze on this skill from 3s to 2s. This skill is now ground targeted and will blast finish correctly.

Well wishes,
~Irenio

Bonus: Bristleback Pet F2 is no longer the Sharpen Spines ability. The F2 is now Spike Barrage to give you more rewarding control.

Wait, you only raised it from 0.25% to 0.5% for charging Astral Force?? LOL! I see that’s why you said 200% instead of the 0.5% that it is now. Gotta PR it right!

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Wait, you only raised it from 0.25% to 0.5% for charging Astral Force?? LOL! I see that’s why you said 200% instead of the 0.5% that it is now. Gotta PR it right!

I think it’s changed to 0.75%. It’s been increased by 200%, implying another 200% (0.5%) is added on top of the existing 100% (0.25%). It would make it about half the amount you’d get from the nerfed healing amount, which is going down to 1.5% with the announced 40% decrease.

I think you could really work some more pet synergy into the druid traits and/or skills. Just to name one example: the pet could help generate Astral Force when it’s attacking or when using the F2 skill. Add pet healing power to one of the minor traits, to make our pets capable of healing a more interesting choice (moas, fern hound).

Things like that, stuff that doesn’t make the druid traitline feel so isolated from the rest of the class.

Kreed.2768:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Wait, you only raised it from 0.25% to 0.5% for charging Astral Force?? LOL! I see that’s why you said 200% instead of the 0.5% that it is now. Gotta PR it right!

I think it’s changed to 0.75%. It’s been increased by 200%, implying another 200% (0.5%) is added on top of the existing 100% (0.25%). It would make it about half the amount you’d get from the nerfed healing amount, which is going down to 1.5% with the announced 40% decrease.

Healing should be now at 1.5% (down from 2.5%) and attacks at 0.75% (up from 0.25%). It’s a nerf to AF generation through healing but with the 10s CD on CF I don’t think it will matter much, let’s hope the changes to Lingering Light won’t affect AF even more…

Kreed.2768:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Wait, you only raised it from 0.25% to 0.5% for charging Astral Force?? LOL! I see that’s why you said 200% instead of the 0.5% that it is now. Gotta PR it right!

I think it’s changed to 0.75%. It’s been increased by 200%, implying another 200% (0.5%) is added on top of the existing 100% (0.25%). It would make it about half the amount you’d get from the nerfed healing amount, which is going down to 1.5% with the announced 40% decrease.

Hmm. I misunderstood then… Slightly better, but I’d have to be able to hit AF when it’s off of CD to use the blast finisher, then stack the DPS buff, then leave AF without using heals… I mean, that’s about the only way I’ll take the Druid line anyway. I hope, in use, I’ll be able to reach AF in 10sec because most of the fractal bosses are done within 15sec. So, if it takes too long I won’t be able to use AF and then what’s the point if I can’t give the dps stacking buff? And no, healing my allies doesn’t get my jiggly bits moving.

frostflare.6390:

I’m am just going to chime in on my pure displeasure at the Grand master Lingering Light Change. Both Aesthetically and Mechanically I adored said trait. This new version has me worried. We know its going to have a very long cool down and we also know blind is not the most potent condition(and yet consistently is very hard to apply), and we in essence just lost a big tool for healing our Allies who are ranged-Consistently. In one swoop my favorite trait in the game is gone…Can I at least request that you leave the healing wisp around the effected allies? I’m going to miss my Wisp Friend on my own character, I even had a name for it. It was Wispy, and now I have to bury my best friend….

As good as the new trait is, it’s completely passive now taking away yet another interesting dynamic of playing a Lingering Light druid. Previously, it was not only more satisfying but more skillful to use. It should have been buffed in its previous form.

So for PvP, as a damage build, what do we think, does running Nature Magic/Beastmastery/Druid work out? Marauder LB/GS:

NM: 312
BM: 121
Druid: 113

Still haven’t entirely decided yet on utilities beyond Signet of Stone, but compared to the common WS/NM/BM build being run right now, you free up your utilities and you pick up the ability to flash into Celestial Form, drop a dazeheal, and maybe channel 4 for a self/AoE heal, then drop 2, and flash out, which adds a great deal of survival to the damage build AND gives it the ability to help out some teammates. Not to mention flashing in, dropping a dazeheal, and flashing out can setup CC with Ancient Seeds, which combined with the taunt and other options really gives a lot of different options and output in fights.

That doesn’t even cover utilities either. Troll Unguent is still probably the best heal for the build, but for the 2 slots outside of Signet of Stone, now that you can reliably cleanse with Druid and don’t need WS or Survival skills, do you pick up Protect Me for another immunity, or one of the control oriented glyphs for even more CC to work with Ancient Seeds? Is Lightning Reflexes still so good that you put it on the bar, which still leaves any of the other mentioned options as a capability, or is Signet of Renewal more appealing? Spike Trap, did somebody say Spike Trap?

What about the elite? SotP for stability and fury, entangle for additional CC, the glyph for a soft anti-pressure measure and to further increase team support?

So many options now, and the fact that jumping in and then out of Celestial Form isn’t punished by the loss of all astral force is incredible. With the mentioned trait selection, you can go into form, lose all conditions, drop a lunar impact, leave form and give yourself and potentially your pet stealth and super speed, then close and Maul the person from stealth, proc Ancient Seeds, swap to LB, drop a barrage, use the pet taunt and Rapid Fire, then have Knockback Shot ready to go to proc Ancient Seeds again, and if it’s around weapon swap time, go back for another Maul, and still have Hilt Bash ready to proc Ancient Seeds again, not to mention you are probably approaching having celestial form ready again.

Regardless, there is a considerable amount of versatility in what you can accomplish with just this build alone. It’s exciting to see.

I actually can’t say I agree with these changes. While the change to Grace of the land are pretty good, the rest stated don’t really seem good at all. In fact, the celestial Avatar actually form adjustments are very intrusive looking compared to even necromancer, and I should know because I play both extensively.

Why do I feel this way? well, most people should have noticed that the generation for attacks are now 3/4ths % and 1½% for healing. In all honesty, I feel that this along with the requirement to get full celestial AND THEN have a CD for 10 seconds exiting is actually worth less than the addition of being able to keep some astral. As is, this is very steep requirements, with very low generation across the board considering that ranger is not a class that has other generation methods outside these like necromancer does with utilities and high percentage attacks. Because of this, I feel that the CD needs to be removed along with upping the attack generation further.

The nerf to lingering light is also pretty rough, as it was a very strong generation tool, but now this further nerfs the celestial form capabilities and makes it into a ‘only combat’ skill that cant really be used easily on other healers in your party since its not always a time they will be attacking, making the ICD rough.

All in all, I feel that the changes to this outweighs any good changes that could have been done to the avatar form and the traits so far. This doesnt even include that we know nothing of the staff, which generally felt completely horrendous outside Ancestral grace and was basically used only to access the form, which is now even harder to access and even more gated than before.

If your choice was to make celestial form intrusive, then the job is perfect, but if thats not what it was and it was in search of balance, then the old functionality actually is heavily preferred.

you do still need WS. none of the condi clears on druid are instant. the seeds are too slow and unreliable and CA is on 10s cd. You gonna slot TU and LR anyway, might as well go WS to get fury and 20% recharge. WS is also way to good at mitigation to drop – protection, bark and 5% on regen.
You can drop QZ and entangle though. SotP is better then entangle, druid has enough sustained condi-clear so its not necessary.

I think WS/druid/MM is the best way. BM is an option instead of MM. tough call, Moment of clarity but terrible pet. Skirmishing is my favorite line because of quickdraw, but those dazes are sweet with MoC.

If only the kitten pets could hit anything without beastmastery. or maybe if natural stride worked on the pet too. Its a shame druid has literally no pet synergy at all (outside being a target for heals), something in there to buff the pet would be nice.

Seems healing power will only pay off for CA skills and Lingering Light. If we’re encouraged to invest in HP at the cost of other stats, there should be more reward than that. I hope HP will scale better for things like Live Vicariously, SotW, all our sources of regen, etc. Also, please make things like Sigil of Water work with Druid traits. Things like that would open up play styles and help us feel like we’re contributing while we’re healing.

Loyo.8526:

I actually can’t say I agree with these changes. While the change to Grace of the land are pretty good, the rest stated don’t really seem good at all. In fact, the celestial Avatar actually form adjustments are very intrusive looking compared to even necromancer, and I should know because I play both extensively.

Why do I feel this way? well, most people should have noticed that the generation for attacks are now 3/4ths % and 1½% for healing. In all honesty, I feel that this along with the requirement to get full celestial AND THEN have a CD for 10 seconds exiting is actually worth less than the addition of being able to keep some astral. As is, this is very steep requirements, with very low generation across the board considering that ranger is not a class that has other generation methods outside these like necromancer does with utilities and high percentage attacks. Because of this, I feel that the CD needs to be removed along with upping the attack generation further.

The nerf to lingering light is also pretty rough, as it was a very strong generation tool, but now this further nerfs the celestial form capabilities and makes it into a ‘only combat’ skill that cant really be used easily on other healers in your party since its not always a time they will be attacking, making the ICD rough.

All in all, I feel that the changes to this outweighs any good changes that could have been done to the avatar form and the traits so far. This doesnt even include that we know nothing of the staff, which generally felt completely horrendous outside Ancestral grace and was basically used only to access the form, which is now even harder to access and even more gated than before.

If your choice was to make celestial form intrusive, then the job is perfect, but if thats not what it was and it was in search of balance, then the old functionality actually is heavily preferred.

I’ve been saying the same things but the overwhelming amount of wrongful approval means it’s probably never going to change. Adding more gates to get into Celestial Form is just not good design. All it required was some adjustments to the Astral Force generation rates which was also already done. Throwing in a static and boring cooldown is clunky. And Lingering Light has become yet another skill-less passive which will now also cause blind to foes with not a clue as to how it was done. The interesting dynamic of it being used as a faster Astral Force generator is also trashed because of the Celestial Form cooldown. Overall a less interesting specialization with these changes.

Seeds of Life need to ‘go off’ much faster for them to be nearly as good as traited survival skills, which is exactly what we need for more build diversity as they are still pretty much the only reliable way to cleanse.

Also, you need to be able to move when channelling Natural Convergence. It’s a gigantic tell and near impossible to finish without stability (which means you have to use SoTP 1st) or even to land on anyone, since they just walk away.

On the 10s CD, and AF generation changes;

I don’t think its that bad really, you can still cleanse all condis and get the stealth/super speed, every 10s. Pretty good.

Keeping half the AF is very good. That is 66 packets of damage or 33 of healing. So, you only need to generate that many every 10s to be able to enter it, then use a couple of skills and drop back out. If you are generating AF faster than that, and are hitting the CD too much, its probably too fast.

If Lingering Light has a long CD, it will be useless, it really should have a very short ICD and also make the blind very short. Either that, or just make it apply the effects of Sigil of Blood on them, so they steal health rather than do the blind.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Lingering Light: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, when you heal an ally their next outgoing attack will heal them (based upon your healing) and blind their target.

I’m curious as to how the ICD will work. if a heal affects multiple allies do they all get the effects of the trait like how blinding ashes works with AoE burn? or does it only affect one ally every 6 seconds no matter what?

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

mostly good changes but this one i hate. With this change you have doomed every ranger to run this trait in pve or be kicked from group/guild. The original version was unique and more situational, and therefore not compulsory.

For the sake of build diversity please reconsider.

scerevisiae.1972:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

mostly good changes but this one i hate. With this change you have doomed every ranger to run this trait in pve or be kicked from group/guild. The original version was unique and more situational, and therefore not compulsory.

For the sake of build diversity please reconsider.

Disagree entirely.

There is nothing wrong with traits being better at things than other options. The other 2 GMs are still equally strong, and are also equally situational as well.

This is how GM traits should be designed.

Grace of the Land is a PvE trait. The other two are for WvW and PvP.

Zatoichi.1049:

Bacon.1835:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

Why is this the only % multiplier trait in the game that affects both damage and condition damage? Surely this should be extended to other profession % multipliers as well?

Pretty annoying now that I think about it.

Lol. That was fast. One class has something my class doesnt have, i want now!

Never specified that I was talking about one particular class in general. The case was that all % multiplying traits should be extended to conditions regardless of profession.

There is a clear rationale behind grace of the land. It is not simply a damage buff like Frost spirit, banners, Spotter, Empower allies, etc. It is so good because during Avatar form the Ranger does no damage at all. Only the pet does some. This is to keep him relevant during boss fights when you need to keep up with the healing. It can somewhat compensate for the 0 DPS coming out of the Ranger.

Chokolata.1870:

There is a clear rationale behind grace of the land. It is not simply a damage buff like Frost spirit, banners, Spotter, Empower allies, etc. It is so good because during Avatar form the Ranger does no damage at all. Only the pet does some. This is to keep him relevant during boss fights when you need to keep up with the healing. It can somewhat compensate for the 0 DPS coming out of the Ranger.

If you think about it, if it were at full stacks in a good group, it could do more damage than the Ranger would do himself. This is assuming you have DPS classes who are better than Ranger at DPS. Like staff Ele. Or Sinister Engi. 15% more burn and 15% more power damage is huge. Then you still have the pet.

Heimskarl, I agree. It all depends on how it affects allies though. Does it affect 4 or 5 of them? I mean if it counts the Druid first and then 4 additional allies then it will be good, but if it does not count the Druid and it affects 5 allies, then it will be amazing.

Chokolata.1870:

It all depends on how it affects allies though. Does it affect 4 or 5 of them? I mean if it counts the Druid first and then 4 additional allies then it will be good, but if it does not count the Druid and it affects 5 allies, then it will be amazing.

It does say that allies affected by your Celestial skills will get the buff. So, it seems you can leave yourself out of it with skills 1-3 as long as you are not within the radius. Not sure about skills 4-5 since 4 affects you + allies and 5 damages enemies only.

Oh, wow. I actually read GoTL change as it just ticked once per second for allies in range…

It’s much more active this way, but harder to put the buff on everyone. A plus though, would be that we can spam SoL on the boss so melee and our pet will be buffed.

It also means that we can apply it to only the melee characters or only the ranged classes or any mixture. So no need for two Druids, one can buff both teams if they are separated by distance yet in defined groups. Awesome! Or, even better, if you do have two druids, you can organize the squad so its 4 x melee and 4 x ranged with a Druid each.

It has a ramp up time and a ramp down, but the total effect time can be 28s with a 20s CAF duration, then 10s CD to DPS yourself. So you will be able to buff yourself with it, then drop out of CAF and DPS. That is cool.

I would run one Druid as melee support with Staff-S/WH-GoR and the other as Ranged Support with Staff-LB-TU. The LB will do decent damage and allow you to stay at range and charge your AF quickly with TU which will be off CD every rotation.

scerevisiae.1972:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

mostly good changes but this one i hate. With this change you have doomed every ranger to run this trait in pve or be kicked from group/guild. The original version was unique and more situational, and therefore not compulsory.

For the sake of build diversity please reconsider.

That’s like saying that warriors are doomed to use banners or ele is doomed to camp fire on staff.

None’s forcing you to do it. Although if your group/guild is using 100% of their potential so should you.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

scerevisiae.1972:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

mostly good changes but this one i hate. With this change you have doomed every ranger to run this trait in pve or be kicked from group/guild. The original version was unique and more situational, and therefore not compulsory.

For the sake of build diversity please reconsider.

That’s like saying that warriors are doomed to use banners or ele is doomed to camp fire on staff.

None’s forcing you to do it. Although if your group/guild is using 100% of their potential so should you.

Ele’s not doomed to camp fire on staff because staff is only better than dagger/focus on a stationary target. In the actual beta raid encounter you were testing, dagger would pull ahead because the uptime of lava font on the boss was low.

Warrior banners can be used on any trait build and weapon loadout.

It’s not a remotely good comparison. Stay away from them, you’re not very good at it.

Lingering Light: I don’t like this change. I prefer this shiny and beautiful wisp flying around you. It is just a good way to heal/deal damage at the same time and it looks wonderful!

Glyph of Unity: This skill is still bad and not worth taking it. Please rework it to something useful damage and healing/support-wise.

In general the glyphs are still bad:

Glyph of Empowerment: The damagebuff/time is still too short and should receive a buff. Maybe through longer duration/efficiency or due to other buffs!

Glyph of Alignment: Well a nice “buff” I guess. But still has no good damage ability!

Ancestral Grace: I was hoping for this change. Perfectly solved!

Celestial Avatar Form: Entering this form now has a 10s CD.
Bad change I think! The no cooldown option gave it a destinction from necro shrouds and made a real “full time” healer possible. But due to this change it isn’t the case any more!

(Celestial Avatar) Lunar Impact: Good balancing.

Grace of the Land: Well, 3% seems a bit too low. Maybe boost it up to 5% so druids will find a better place in dungeon/fractals too because of their buffs.

My suggestions: Give staff a bit more damage. Soloplayers would benefit from it! It’s a great weapon but in my opinion it should get a damage buff!

The first staff skill should be able to be casted on allies too!
Staff skill 4 should become a “high burst” attack and entangles mobs for 2 seconds at least.
Staff skill 2 should be more worth using. It casts and flies way too slow and does low damage.

Glyphs should become more worth taking in the “normal” form because they are only good in CA form.

Make their “normal” form skills damage based. Like real damage based and the CA form should stay healing focused.

I hope I can help you with my suggestions.

I really do not like the change adding a CD to CAF, it forces the form to be much more one dimensional, disappointed. Would much rather have had the generation remain the same and just let us keep remaining AF when leaving CAF.

Lingering Light is ok I guess, I liked it how it was, but we’ll see with the blinds. Don’t know if Ancestral Grace should’ve gotten an evade, thought the change to the mechanic would’ve been sufficient. Other stuff is ok I guess.

“Lingering Light: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, when you heal an ally their next outgoing attack will heal them (based upon your healing) and blind their target.”

this trait change sounds like a nerf for me, before it was better in my opinion.
on discription it sounds still nice but in practice i fear it’s worse.

the beta version with the wisp circles you for 5 seconds was much better.
simply because it was up for 5 seconds healing you, allys and the pet without the need to attack.
in the same time you was able to build up celestial avatar faster with it.
and of course the shiny wisp arounding you looks nice.

now, with this changes you just heal every 6 seconds(?) for one time.
comparing this to the beta version of this trait, where a wisp arounded you for 5 seconds and healed you and allies without the need to attack for 5 seconds…
make it look verry bad for me.
at least you can random blind with it…

but lets see when it’s out, this change is made allready so…
to late to test it because no second beta weekend for ranger and engi.

the rest looks good, but not to much interesting changes for
ranger in pvp i guess.
now it depends on what they change on the old skills and traitlines,
spirits, traps and shouts…
that’s 3 skill types on ranger and all of them are bad to useless actually…

Can somebody explain this?
Glyph of Unity: This skill now has a 400 initial effect radius and a 600 radius leash.

When you press the button it leashes you to targets within 400. The leash doesn’t snap until they move beyond 600.

still highly in favor for Natural Stride as a minor.

to achieve this, simply merge Live Vicariously and Natural Mending, and replace with a new healbot option for major master

Natural Stride minor would:

• Improve offensive Druid greatly, by allowing us to also take Celestial Shadow (or verdant etching).
• Free us from Runes of the Traveler, signet of the hunt or specced WHaO.
• Make the minors seem more impactful outside of being a “healbot” spec.

One of the main complaints I see, and I do have to agree to some degree, is that healing power should be more rewarding, and not only for the celestial avatar (and maybe lingering light).

Perhaps one of the traits could be changed to have the following affect, or something alike?:
“For every X amount of healing power, your boon, condition (and maybe control) durations are increased by 5%”
This trait would make a healing power investment more interesting and could potentially open the gates for healing hybrid builds, as well as help pure healing builds keep their boons up longer, keep enemies CCed / weakened for a bit longer. I would suggest the max possible to be 15% with a full investment in healing power.

Where would you place this? This could be Live Vicariously, or you could move natural stride to minor instead of LV, place LV in Major Master slot and add this functionality to it. Or people that are better at balancing could place it wherever. But I do feel a trait like this of sorts would help make HP more attractive.

Reading over it again I think I missed Lingering Light changed.

I prefer the idea of the wisp being put on me for a bit of self-healing while the rest of my heals are obviously more focused for others. The personal wisp was my favorite of all the Druid traits. I really hope this still has a chance to not be changed. :/

I love you Wispy, please return soon! ;_;

jcbroe.4329:

So for PvP, as a damage build, what do we think, does running Nature Magic/Beastmastery/Druid work out? Marauder LB/GS:

if youre gonna go marauder, I feel you need survival still. two stun breaks (LR and QZ), SoS, and SotP.

Druidic Clarity is reliable only once, at most twice during an engagement. when I was testing seeds of life (from glyphs and avatar), I actually did not find them to be viable at all in practice. when youre running around kiting people, you cant wait in a small area for the seed to explode. that just doesn’t work. so I found WK essential still, unfortunately.

given how quickly people will focus you in avatar form, I also found protection to be absolutely essential… so to be survivable with marauder stats, I ran NM for protective ward, WK and druid. I suppose if I wasn’t too worried about condi spam, id run BM instead of wilderness. that has been my experience dealing with comps that had condi pressure.

but I’m thinking all this will change with improvements to Hp scaling, and the addition of trapper runes. all of a sudden, settler and celestial stats are looking very appealing.

Let’s be honest: Glyphs are still gonna suck after this. They need cooldown reductions, and I don’t get poison on Alignment at all…what exactly is the theme of glyphs? Hell, what is a glyph? The elite glyph seems just like a crappy form of retal on exceedingly short range, why would I use this over any other elite?

The Celestial Avatar CD changes look ok, but if I understand correctly, the attack charging is going from .25% to .5% which is still really bad…and the healing percent is getting nerfed significantly…this looks bad. It would be far better to just give healing a 2% charge and damage a 1% charge. 50 hits of healing for a full bar or 100 hits of damage.

All the other changes seem pretty good, but really, at this point glyphs just look sloppily constructed. We will have to wait and see how Celestial Avatar charging feels, but I’m not that hopeful. To fully charge it now only requires 1 minute and 40 seconds of continuous shortbow autoattacking, so good luck with that.

And now I’m remembering how I felt about leaving Druid to the last beta weekend and how I knew it wouldn’t be changed significantly enough in time before launch.

mistsim.2748:

jcbroe.4329:

So for PvP, as a damage build, what do we think, does running Nature Magic/Beastmastery/Druid work out? Marauder LB/GS:

if youre gonna go marauder, I feel you need survival still. two stun breaks (LR and QZ), SoS, and SotP.

Druidic Clarity is reliable only once, at most twice during an engagement. when I was testing seeds of life (from glyphs and avatar), I actually did not find them to be viable at all in practice. when youre running around kiting people, you cant wait in a small area for the seed to explode. that just doesn’t work. so I found WK essential still, unfortunately.

given how quickly people will focus you in avatar form, I also found protection to be absolutely essential… so to be survivable with marauder stats, I ran NM for protective ward, WK and druid. I suppose if I wasn’t too worried about condi spam, id run BM instead of wilderness. that has been my experience dealing with comps that had condi pressure.

but I’m thinking all this will change with improvements to Hp scaling, and the addition of trapper runes. all of a sudden, settler and celestial stats are looking very appealing.

so now that bar will scale with damage better, im going to try something like this out first after patch. Seems to be a real CC machine.

I think a lot of people underestimate the defense qualities that Quickdraw brings.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQLLWuCOsAVLWYEM4m6Vtr2Mu6chAmCw3KAUyKSD-TpBFABiXGAhjAABPAga2fYhDBAAXAAA

depending on your party setup/roles, you could swap natural stride with celestial shadow, and trappers expertise for primal reflexes. I might even try it with celestial ammy.

DR/NM/WS also looks good with protective ward if you want extra protection. I like the extra CC potential with quick draw though. just not quite as good against Mesmer.

there is a 5 target limit for these heal skills so you could you please be much more generous with the radius on some of these heal skills?

I am curious if regen acts as a healing proc for Grace of the Land

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Glyph of Alignment: Increased the weakness and cripple duration on this skill from 3s to 5s. Reduced the cast damage by 66%. This skill now applies 3 stacks of poison._

This is just wrong. Ranger was lacking AoE direct dmg since day 1, and when you finaly gave us option to play AoE direct dmg burst with this specialisation, now you are nerffing it. Why? We dont need more condies. Beside, skill was criting for 1900-2200, now it will be like 600-700 on crit. Realy?