Guild Wars 2

I really don’t like that we only got the one beta weekend. It’s put us behind quite a few of the other professions in terms of balance etc. and we could still use some major tweaking.
So lets all treat the expansion launch as our second beta.
Nothing will change the fact that they leave us for last, but if we make enough noise they just might hear us.

Frigoris.7853:

but if we make enough noise they just might hear us.

I don’t think it works that way.

~ Kovu

I know, but at this point i can either despair or remain stubborn.
So I’m just gonna make suggestions and let them be ignored regardless.

Staff skills

1. should burn and have some sort of aoe, whether its a radius around the target or bouncing between multiple targets.
2. really doesn’t feel like it does much. At this point i don’t know what it needs but i hardly use it at all because it feels lacking.
3. Is prettymuch the main reason i use staff. It is fantastic.
4. Is slow cast slow animation. If it’s going to stay that way it needs to at least pack a punch. Up the damage and make it deal heavy bleeding.
5. is really situational and not often used. I kinda feel like they made it as a way for us to deal with RF without reflect. It would be more useful if it also acted as a boon/condi converter. Convert boons to condis on enemies that run through, and condis to boons for allies that run through.

CAF
I’ve only had the chance to really use it since they stopped the degen and the only thing i don;t like about it is the #1 skill. It has a super small radius and by the time it’s cast the target has usually rolled away.
They should change it entirely, make it an inverted solar beam. Call it lunar ray, target allies (make it so tab would target allies instead of enemies in CAF) healing them and slowing any enemies that pass through the beam.

Frigoris.7853:

I know, but at this point i can either despair or remain stubborn.
So I’m just gonna make suggestions and let them be ignored regardless.

Staff skills

1. should burn and have some sort of aoe, whether its a radius around the target or bouncing between multiple targets.
2. really doesn’t feel like it does much. At this point i don’t know what it needs but i hardly use it at all because it feels lacking.
3. Is prettymuch the main reason i use staff. It is fantastic.
4. Is slow cast slow animation. If it’s going to stay that way it needs to at least pack a punch. Up the damage and make it deal heavy bleeding.
5. is really situational and not often used. I kinda feel like they made it as a way for us to deal with RF without reflect. It would be more useful if it also acted as a boon/condi converter. Convert boons to condis on enemies that run through, and condis to boons for allies that run through.

CAF
I’ve only had the chance to really use it since they stopped the degen and the only thing i don;t like about it is the #1 skill. It has a super small radius and by the time it’s cast the target has usually rolled away.
They should change it entirely, make it an inverted solar beam. Call it lunar ray, target allies (make it so tab would target allies instead of enemies in CAF) healing them and slowing any enemies that pass through the beam.

regardless to you suggestions(which i don’t agree with most of them) I think you made some errors/overlooked some things.

1# Solar beam got base piercing attack so basically its got aoe damage and healing.
2#AW not only does damage with a fair power coefficient, it heals your pet/you/any other ally(if in melee range) and build AF very fast. If you don’t use it, start using it.
3#True
4#Herre I must to agree, it needs to be more rewarding or easy to land(no bleed plz).
5#Its also a small radius water field, I;m sure you can find a use to a water field. Try to combo it with staff 3 for a big aoe heal.

CAF
Each heal on caf has a specific use. A.net designed a great feature as part of the action combat camera system, especially for skills like CAF 1, try it.

Druid is fine more or less. It is viable for all kinds of scenarios (it isn’t supposed to bring world peace and prevent 3rd World War).
It has several options, has synergy with MoC and is useful even for ZerkMeta…

The only thing we need is pets with better control. That’s aaaaaall we need.
Heck, we’ll even use former pets if we can control blasts, dog KnockDown or Warthog charge. If some of the cast times are made lower we are as good as ready to go.
Druid is not the problem. Core Ranger is and always has been.

If aesthetics around druid are the topic:

1. Druid has close to no synergy with pet or any other traitline except for MoC.
2. Druid is forced down to 1 Stat/Weapon set without any other game-play options. You either are a healer without DPS or you are not a healer. No hybrids, no condition choices, no room for interesting cross-trait interactions (I don’t know… Poison transferring conditions to enemies to have synergy with Wilderness Survival and Poison Master or whatever)…
3. Druid doesn’t interact with pet and doesn’t benefit from other support builds (no interaction with Regen, Pet Heals, Invigorating Bond that is still useless)

I have no idea what youre going on about OP. druid is in a great shape, with the exception of LINGERING LIGHT which will have to be brought down to 6s ICD, otherwise no one will slot it.

it’s the core ranger that has serious problems and id like to start seeing some changes on that front soon.

Druid is in a very delicate position right now and some skills feel undertuned. It has a lot of potential, but suffers from some pretty frustrating setbacks. The most common one is too-small AoE radius on skills.

Staff
Staff still feels awkward. The animation for female humanoids resembles someone attempting to play limbo poorly, and the “sonar” noise is grating. Staff 2 is good very situationally, but needs a larger radius around the affected enemy to hit allies in max melee range. Staff 3 is excellent save for its bugged in-combat state. Staff 4 is too slow to hit any moving target and needs adjustment in either speed, radius, or both. Staff 5 is too small, has too high of a cooldown for its usefulness, and ideally should be a dome similar to Guardian shield 5, which serves essentially the same purpose but is significantly better.

Traits

Most of the traits are solid. There are a couple outliers that are less useful. Natural Mender should be attached to the Staff adept trait and a new, more versatile minor introduced. Lingering Light has been too heavily nerfed and now serves no purpose in essentially any build. Reduce the ICD on Lingering Light to 6 seconds. Blinding Ashes, an Elementalist trait, has an ICD of 8 seconds, but applies blind directly on burn. This allows Elementalists who take the trait to maintain offensive pressure AND reduce incoming damage. Lingering Light requires a) healing an ally/self, and b) hitting an enemy with the buff applied. Because of its less-intuitive and more easily-counterable Blind application, as well as Druid’s lack of offensive pressure, Lingering Light deserves a slightly shorter ICD.

Glyphs

Glyph of Alignment and Glyph of Unity stand out as the weakest Glyphs. Glyph of Alignment should have its damage increased, the poison removed (Rangers already have good Poison pressure in other forms, including AoE poison and a poison field in Viper’s Nest), and perhaps given another utility if it still seems lackluster, such as short-duration Protection or Stability (say, 3s). Glyph of Unity needs something more. The cooldown is too long for the effect, which is essentially a weak form of Retaliation. Give Glyph of Unity some damage mitigation and/or Stability (since it takes the place of our best Stability-granting skills), and it will be in a good spot.

CAF

CAF 3, 4, and 5 are excellent skills in general, though the damage on 5 is a bit low considering the long channel and how vulnerable the Druid is during the cast. CAF 5 should pose a serious threat to enemies, given how easily counterable it is even with stability. CAF 1 and 2 are the issues. Please double the radius on both of these. To hit moving targets in AoE-heavy fights, with heavy area denial, is impossible. People especially NEED to be able to dodge within the radius of Seed of Life and still receive healing/condition cleansing. I understand that the Blind on CAF 2 makes increasing the radius an issue, especially due to Verdant Etching. For this, I would suggest increasing the heal and condition-cleanse radius to 300-360, but keep the blind near the bloom with a 180 radius. Change the description to note this disparity.

Well written, sad it wont be read and considered by the people in charge.

But, I enjoyed it.