Guild Wars 2

So I feel that I need to point this out for everyone to see what will happen because of the Druid Class.

1: Rangers will not be allowed to take part in Dungeons/Fractals/Raids unless there are more than 2 druids in a group. Oh and only if no other class can be found first!

2: Druid Class will take all blame if party dies even once. It won’t matter if you have a bad internet connection you are still responsible.

3: If you don’t move to the specific spot to heal the person that is taking damage at the time they are taking damage you will get yelled at, this while your healing someone else at the same time.

4: Griefing and Elitism. This will run rampant on Druids. They will be picked on and put down.

5: Prediction 5 is a little late someone already said it in this topic, but I will use it anyway. Go join a good guild. This will backfire when people in those “good guilds” start asking for Druid and no one will want to go as it because they got abused last time.

I know that there are more for me to predict but I can’t think of them at the moment but will add more over the next few days.

kinda like what happend with guild wars 1, with the monks, but the problem is guild wars 2 is not set up for a dedicated healer, everyone can heal themselves, why bring a druid when i can bring a revenant who can do better dammge and decent healing, rangers are pretty much screwed, and this is the last beta, so theres really no way to fix this calss and tested before the game comes out in 3 weeks.

Like, probably (I wouldn’t immediately bet on ‘no rangers unless 2+ druids, but the rest sure) but what makes you think people aren’t titanic jerks for playing ‘wrong’ already?

Here is my own statement: most rangers will not want to play druids. If druids are really mandatory for raids as Anet seems to state it, then raids are done. If they change raids to adapt for the lack of druids, then druids are a complete failure and it is possible many rangers will leave the game. And if druid are not actually that mandatory for raids, then they are already a complete failure, because they are not good at anything else.

But hey, we are rangers. We should not have expected any less. It will be fun, having to choose between a damage dealer spec no one wants of because ele/guard/war already got everything and will keep on, or an even more useless pure healer class in a game where pure healing has been long replaced by support. Feels completely out of context.

a really nice wvw/ stronghold class.

SNIEVES.3964:

kinda like what happend with guild wars 1, with the monks, but the problem is guild wars 2 is not set up for a dedicated healer, everyone can heal themselves, why bring a druid when i can bring a revenant who can do better dammge and decent healing, rangers are pretty much screwed, and this is the last beta, so theres really no way to fix this calss and tested before the game comes out in 3 weeks.

I think they are going to have to do another Beta. Cause so far Raids and Squads haven’t been working well, and not many people have actually had a go at raids.

I am perfectly okay with those predictions as long as we are required. However, I think everything you stated is a generic healer thing not unique to druid only.

Relshdan.6854:

a really nice wvw/ stronghold class.

Ummm have you looked at your sig ?

Gilgalas.7860:

Here is my own statement: most rangers will not want to play druids. If druids are really mandatory for raids as Anet seems to state it, then raids are done. If they change raids to adapt for the lack of druids, then druids are a complete failure and it is possible many rangers will leave the game. And if druid are not actually that mandatory for raids, then they are already a complete failure, because they are not good at anything else.

Agree’d

Believe it or not but it’s entirely possibly to run Druid with Marksmanship/Skirmishing and do high damage while being able to go into healing form whenever necessary. I understand lots of people don’t like math but it’s easy to tell Druid’s healing hardly scales with healing power.

Well im a ranger, im in a guild and im one of the most active and social members so i wont have a problem getting into any group or raids or anything. As for druid, I played around with it, used it for dps, and healing. Quite frankly, i just didn’t enjoy it. It wasn’t all that fun, its damage compacities with staff and glyphs are next to none existent even running full zerkers. Playing it as healing just was meh, this game is just not designed in its current state for incorporate healing in this manor. Unless they make so you can target a player from the UI party window and cast direct heals I see it as a very clunky manor of support where you gotta look at your party window, see who is taking heavy hits, then figure out where that person is and then either port yourself there with that staff teleport and throw out an aoe heal there or throw out a ground targeted heal and hope they dont dodge out of it avoiding something else. This was my experience. If anet wants to make a healing role I feel it needs to be done in a much less clunky more efficient way. If that means clicking on UI health bars like the old school ways and hitting with fast direct heals then so be it, would it be that awful?

Firebird Gomer.9563:

Gilgalas.7860:

Here is my own statement: most rangers will not want to play druids. If druids are really mandatory for raids as Anet seems to state it, then raids are done. If they change raids to adapt for the lack of druids, then druids are a complete failure and it is possible many rangers will leave the game. And if druid are not actually that mandatory for raids, then they are already a complete failure, because they are not good at anything else.

Agree’d

I 3rd that.

From my testing perspective, Druids are decent at what they do.
And they hold a vast PvP/WvW potential. The lockdown/burst/Sustain nature of MoC druid is amazing.

As it goes for PvE – people do not really need you unless the group is organized. Which raids are (or better said are supposed to be).
Playing a healer in open world PvE is pointless. As it is in current Dungeon System (you are either insta-killed or you suffice with your own sustain) – no one really needs you. But that’s not a problem. No one needs a full Signet Warrior either.

Will druid be mandatory for Raids? No, not really. But druid is one of the better options how to fill a certain role. To sustain the damage that you cannot avoid and your own healing source cannot keep up.
Of course there are other choices how to do the sustain. Simply bring a DPS ranger with Healing Spring, pre-set it somewhere, bring Staff ele and other blasts and you can get healed by 18K easily.
The problem is that it sacrifices a whole set of other utility (for Might, AoE blindness, Team positioning, cooldowns and stuff) while a Druid can run with the water field to you, heal you all in seconds while all of you can deal the damage – making it much better in efficiency.

Is druid needed in raids? Yes and no.
Druids role is needed but can be replaced by other strategies.

infantrydiv.1620:

Believe it or not but it’s entirely possibly to run Druid with Marksmanship/Skirmishing and do high damage while being able to go into healing form whenever necessary. I understand lots of people don’t like math but it’s easy to tell Druid’s healing hardly scales with healing power.

agree (although healer druid will likely have a place in stronghold and maybe raids, simply due to having so many).
not to mention the insane daze/cc/interrupts that you can add to a maul or bonfire quickdraw build, or to a trapper build

Dradiin.8935:

Relshdan.6854:

a really nice wvw/ stronghold class.

Ummm have you looked at your sig ?

i assume that’s an insult, but pls explain?

Druids will not be required for raids, they will use other class like revenant and guardians that can heal and fill a better dps role, we rangers are doomed from the beggining

Tragic Positive.9356:

Will druid be mandatory for Raids? No, not really. But druid is one of the better options how to fill a certain role. To sustain the damage that you cannot avoid and your own healing source cannot keep up.

See, this is one of the things I expected to hear about Druids – who the hell made anyone think only Druids would be viable healers? Because I sure as hell didn’t see anything like that. But we knew Druids, Guards, Revenants, and Elementalists would all have varying degrees of heals.

I mean, I don’t know that it’s TRUE that they’re more efficient (strictly speaking, the most efficient healer is the one htat throws the bare minimum of support to keep you alive while maintaining the highest dps… so in other words, I fear Eles will still handle it) but it’s definitely weird that some of the posters here thought Drood would be the alpha and omega of all healing.

Relshdan.6854:

Dradiin.8935:

Relshdan.6854:

a really nice wvw/ stronghold class.

Ummm have you looked at your sig ?

i assume that’s an insult, but pls explain?

He might have been referring to the lack of Ranger Main in your signature. Just ignore it. Lots of people tend to get aggressive due to the Elite spec reveal.

It’s to be expected since not everybody got what he wanted.

Relshdan.6854:

infantrydiv.1620:

Believe it or not but it’s entirely possibly to run Druid with Marksmanship/Skirmishing and do high damage while being able to go into healing form whenever necessary. I understand lots of people don’t like math but it’s easy to tell Druid’s healing hardly scales with healing power.

agree (although healer druid will likely have a place in stronghold and maybe raids, simply due to having so many).
not to mention the insane daze/cc/interrupts that you can add to a maul or bonfire quickdraw build, or to a trapper build

I agree that there probably will be a place for a dedicated healer druid running clerics or whatnot, but it just seems like many people don’t understand that it would be entirely possible to play druid as a hybrid and only go into the form for 5-10 seconds to use the 3/4 skills once or twice on your party and then go back to DPS focus. This would be even more possible if changes are made to up the Astral Force gain from damaging skills and regen, then a Druid could play BM/Skirmishing with the standard condi stacking rotation while being tanky and being able to do heals on demand.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Relshdan.6854:

Dradiin.8935:

Relshdan.6854:

a really nice wvw/ stronghold class.

Ummm have you looked at your sig ?

i assume that’s an insult, but pls explain?

He might have been referring to the lack of Ranger Main in your signature. Just ignore it. Lots of people tend to get aggressive due to the Elite spec reveal.

It’s to be expected since not everybody got what he wanted.

Ah….well that would make sense.

anyway…i kinda like a bunch of what is current druid and with the right changes to some staff skills and glyphs, it can be a pretty nice elite spec.

infantrydiv.1620:

Relshdan.6854:

infantrydiv.1620:

Believe it or not but it’s entirely possibly to run Druid with Marksmanship/Skirmishing and do high damage while being able to go into healing form whenever necessary. I understand lots of people don’t like math but it’s easy to tell Druid’s healing hardly scales with healing power.

agree (although healer druid will likely have a place in stronghold and maybe raids, simply due to having so many).
not to mention the insane daze/cc/interrupts that you can add to a maul or bonfire quickdraw build, or to a trapper build

I agree that there probably will be a place for a dedicated healer druid running clerics or whatnot, but it just seems like many people don’t understand that it would be entirely possible to play druid as a hybrid and only go into the form for 5-10 seconds to use the 3/4 skills once or twice on your party and then go back to DPS focus. This would be even more possible if changes are made to up the Astral Force gain from damaging skills and regen, then a Druid could play BM/Skirmishing with the standard condi stacking rotation while being tanky and being able to do heals on demand.

yep…..it’s weird to see so many sleeping on this.

Relshdan.6854:

infantrydiv.1620:

I agree that there probably will be a place for a dedicated healer druid running clerics or whatnot, but it just seems like many people don’t understand that it would be entirely possible to play druid as a hybrid and only go into the form for 5-10 seconds to use the 3/4 skills once or twice on your party and then go back to DPS focus. This would be even more possible if changes are made to up the Astral Force gain from damaging skills and regen, then a Druid could play BM/Skirmishing with the standard condi stacking rotation while being tanky and being able to do heals on demand.

yep…..it’s weird to see so many sleeping on this.

I actually already play it this way, but the other way round.
The only faulty atm is that Astral Force is literally glued to nothing but staff.
If the astral meter is build in 6-10 seconds by doing Zerk DPS, that would become a viable solution. It currently takes ages.

I was totally consumed by Crusader (power,tough>healing,ferocity) gameplay where I baited all the cooldowns of the enemy, playing defensive and when I saw the opportunity, I left Astra/Staff formation and swapped to GS>Sigil of Intelligence+Maul, stun, pressure.

If this worked the other way, as well… Now that would be all and exactly what the druid needs.
Some numerical tweaks like Glyph of Unity or Staff skills would be welcome but core changes like DPS Astral form access need to get to live.

infantrydiv.1620:

Believe it or not but it’s entirely possibly to run Druid with Marksmanship/Skirmishing and do high damage while being able to go into healing form whenever necessary. I understand lots of people don’t like math but it’s easy to tell Druid’s healing hardly scales with healing power.

If Rangers can “do high damage” we would be part of the Meta, we are from from that, so i guess i would need to know what you think is “high damage”.

SNIEVES.3964:

kinda like what happend with guild wars 1, with the monks, but the problem is guild wars 2 is not set up for a dedicated healer

This is one of the problems with the Druid, and any other healing build in the game. You can’t target allies and use skills on them, only things flagged as enemies.

As a result, all healing in the game could be considered “Indirect Healing”. In order to heal, you have to position yourself properly so allies fall in your cone of influence and you have to use ground targeting to specifically heal any Allies.

That makes a full on healing spec kind of a disaster in my opinion, and its amazing that the Druid can work at all with every aspect of the game play working against it.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Relshdan.6854:

infantrydiv.1620:

I agree that there probably will be a place for a dedicated healer druid running clerics or whatnot, but it just seems like many people don’t understand that it would be entirely possible to play druid as a hybrid and only go into the form for 5-10 seconds to use the 3/4 skills once or twice on your party and then go back to DPS focus. This would be even more possible if changes are made to up the Astral Force gain from damaging skills and regen, then a Druid could play BM/Skirmishing with the standard condi stacking rotation while being tanky and being able to do heals on demand.

yep…..it’s weird to see so many sleeping on this.

I actually already play it this way, but the other way round.
The only faulty atm is that Astral Force is literally glued to nothing but staff.
If the astral meter is build in 6-10 seconds by doing Zerk DPS, that would become a viable solution. It currently takes ages.

I was totally consumed by Crusader (power,tough>healing,ferocity) gameplay where I baited all the cooldowns of the enemy, playing defensive and when I saw the opportunity, I left Astra/Staff formation and swapped to GS>Sigil of Intelligence+Maul, stun, pressure.

If this worked the other way, as well… Now that would be all and exactly what the druid needs.
Some numerical tweaks like Glyph of Unity or Staff skills would be welcome but core changes like DPS Astral form access need to get to live.

i like the hybrid/condi version using quickdraw for bonfire on torch…and just using troll ungent when your pet is low-ish on health works well for building AF…but yeah, nothing is as good as staff auto currently in non-group play. i don’t mind staff, in that skill3 and 4 are quite useful, and twhen traited MoC the 2 sec daze on swap is pretty sweet…but i would love AF generation on attack skills to be bumped up enough to not need staff. it would certainly help augment other builds with less drawbacks

Just added a 4th prediction.

Photinous.4628:

I am perfectly okay with those predictions as long as we are required. However, I think everything you stated is a generic healer thing not unique to druid only.

you are right about “a generic healer thing” many other games have this issue hence why when GW’s 2 first announce no ‘pure’ healer class I like many others rejoiced.

However being wanted/required is subjective to ability/internet speeds/and what you want to play as VS what you are told to play like it or not.

This is a stupid thread.

Who cares about any of that? Go find yourself a good guild and none of that is relevant.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

This is a stupid thread.

Who cares about any of that? Go find yourself a good guild and none of that is relevant.

Sorry you think that.

I am in a number of good guilds. I know FROM experience of OTHER games that REQUIRE healers for certain objectives that what I have posted will happen in this game. I was in good guilds in those games too. I saw FIRSTHAND what was said to me and to others if they failed in their healing. Which is why I and others switched to DPS classes and then those guilds wondered why they couldn’t find healing classes.

Will you experience this? Maybe not but you have a high chance you will.

Firebird Gomer.9563:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

This is a stupid thread.

Who cares about any of that? Go find yourself a good guild and none of that is relevant.

Sorry you think that.

I am in a number of good guilds. I know FROM experience of OTHER games that REQUIRE healers for certain objectives that what I have posted will happen in this game. I was in good guilds in those games too. I saw FIRSTHAND what was said to me and to others if they failed in their healing. Which is why I and others switched to DPS classes and then those guilds wondered why they couldn’t find healing classes.

Will you experience this? Maybe not but you have a high chance you will.

As someone who played one of those games that required a healer in absolutely freaking everything…..

I was going to say that I believe I heard that there was going to be no LFG for raids so your experience was going to depend entirely on your guild. However it looks like someone more or less beat me to it.

I will add though that I’m not at all convinced that druid will find a home in raids. So far from the little I got to raid in the wee hours of the beta there was a need for boon stripping and condi application. Full on dedicated healers weren’t a priority. This certainly could change but I suspect that even if it IS the case the inclination will to be to take the class that provides the minimum amount of healing required while providing the maximum amount of dps. I am doubtful druid will ever fill this role.

I could and hopefully will be wrong as the entire spec seems to be geared to this endgame. Time will tell.

Mr Pin.6728:

I was going to say that I believe I heard that there was going to be no LFG for raids so your experience was going to depend entirely on your guild. However it looks like someone more or less beat me to it.

I will add though that I’m not at all convinced that druid will find a home in raids. So far from the little I got to raid in the wee hours of the beta there was a need for boon stripping and condi application. Full on dedicated healers weren’t a priority. This certainly could change but I suspect that even if it IS the case the inclination will to be to take the class that provides the minimum amount of healing required while providing the maximum amount of dps. I am doubtful druid will ever fill this role.

I could and hopefully will be wrong as the entire spec seems to be geared to this endgame. Time will tell.

Nah I can’t see LFG not happening. Otherwise you couldn’t have commanderless squads which they have said you can have. And all you have to do is put a LFG in the open world content section and there it is. I imagine your answer to that is you can only have 5 in a group. That’s easy to get around as well. Simply have Raid Party 1 – Joes group and Raid Party 2 Joes group.

And as someone else said somewhere if the Druid fails to fit in each of the different areas (PVP, WvW and PVE) then it fails overall.

It is perfectly fine if Core Ranger is better then Druid in old Tyria dungeons.

In WvW it will obviously serve a purpose, but pets will still need to be addressed to not die to AoE instantly. It had quite solid CC and sustain.

In PvP the druid is pretty good. It might not be OP as Revenant/Herald or Chronomancer are, but its in a spot thats above Daredevil, Berserker, Dragon hunter and pretty equal to Reaper.

Chrispy.5641:

As someone who played one of those games that required a healer in absolutely freaking everything…..

I’m a SCH main, and ran a empath Defender back in the day. He’s really, truly, not. Or at least, he’s wrong if he thinks it’s unique to druids. I mean, have you dungeoned in this game? People are already titanic jerks to each other about doing everything ‘perfectly’. There are plenty of groups you can’t join without X AP and full zerk gear, with kittening gearchecks (Which given that it requires manual linking, seems like it’d take longer than just the slower run).

I don’t genuinely expect Druids to be treated better in content where you could reasonably ask for them, no, but it’s a symptom of how the game’s community usually treats people, not some weird thing only Druids (Or only healers, if you prefer) will experience.

Rutee.1058:

Chrispy.5641:

As someone who played one of those games that required a healer in absolutely freaking everything…..

I’m a SCH main, and ran a empath Defender back in the day. He’s really, truly, not. Or at least, he’s wrong if he thinks it’s unique to druids. I mean, have you dungeoned in this game? People are already titanic jerks to each other about doing everything ‘perfectly’. There are plenty of groups you can’t join without X AP and full zerk gear, with kittening gearchecks (Which given that it requires manual linking, seems like it’d take longer than just the slower run).

I don’t genuinely expect Druids to be treated better in content where you could reasonably ask for them, no, but it’s a symptom of how the game’s community usually treats people, not some weird thing only Druids (Or only healers, if you prefer) will experience.

He’s not saying its going to be unique to healers, he’s saying all the current problems with the game, what you just described, is going to get worse with healers in content they are required for.

Also SCH? What the kitten is an SCH? What is wrong with people who can’t be bothered to type out acronyms that aren’t common to these forums?

Chrispy.5641:

He’s not saying its going to be unique to healers, he’s saying all the current problems with the game, what you just described, is going to get worse with healers in content they are required for.

If it happens, it’ll be because the community was already genuinely horrible. I get far less abuse as a healer in a game where they’re more required, and healers have far less sacrosanctity than they did a decade ago.

I mean, I’ve seen newbie Guards treated like complete crap for not slotting a particular wall skill in advance, and blamed for wipes because of it. You think that’s qualitatively different from what’s in the OP? I’m not convinced it’ll be worse for this game’s healers, because it’s already pretty bad.

Also SCH? What the kitten is an SCH? What is wrong with people who can’t be bothered to type out acronyms that aren’t common to these forums?

I expected you to know what that was about as much as I expected you to know an Empath Defender – not at all. I also figured, from context, you could gather that they were a healer class in an MMO. It’s not like ‘Scholar’ connotes ‘healer’ outside of its own game.

It’s hard not to be disappointed by a specialization which brings to the table only healing, condi cleanse and daze. A healing staff plus a dedicated healing form was just over kill. Frankly, the implementation has too many redundancies. Making skills impactful and varied offers more interesting gameplay than what we are presented with.

Rutee.1058:

Chrispy.5641:

He’s not saying its going to be unique to healers, he’s saying all the current problems with the game, what you just described, is going to get worse with healers in content they are required for.

If it happens, it’ll be because the community was already genuinely horrible. I get far less abuse as a healer in a game where they’re more required, and healers have far less sacrosanctity than they did a decade ago.

I mean, I’ve seen newbie Guards treated like complete crap for not slotting a particular wall skill in advance, and blamed for wipes because of it. You think that’s qualitatively different from what’s in the OP? I’m not convinced it’ll be worse for this game’s healers, because it’s already pretty bad.

Also SCH? What the kitten is an SCH? What is wrong with people who can’t be bothered to type out acronyms that aren’t common to these forums?

I expected you to know what that was about as much as I expected you to know an Empath Defender – not at all. I also figured, from context, you could gather that they were a healer class in an MMO. It’s not like ‘Scholar’ connotes ‘healer’ outside of its own game.

I could gather that from the context. I just take issue with people who can’t spend the extra .5 second it would have taken to type out exactly 4 more letters so people would understand an acronym they don’t normally see. You also wouldn’t have liked it when I said this about Scholars:

Just as much about damage as they are healing in most games. One subclass from one game doesn’t mean they are all healing.

Healing is not really needed in current PvE content so yeah druid will be as useful as ranger for current content (Druid traitline can replace BM for condi builds).
We have yet to see anything about fractal 50+ and raids. Healing might be needed, support might be needed even more, melee might be impossible most of the time (ranged meta doesn’t even exist).
Druid was probably created specifically for this content we can’t try so we can only gives feedback for PvP/WvW and open world PvE.

Dradiin.8935:

infantrydiv.1620:

Believe it or not but it’s entirely possibly to run Druid with Marksmanship/Skirmishing and do high damage while being able to go into healing form whenever necessary. I understand lots of people don’t like math but it’s easy to tell Druid’s healing hardly scales with healing power.

If Rangers can “do high damage” we would be part of the Meta, we are from from that, so i guess i would need to know what you think is “high damage”.

That’s sad… Because Rangers have been meta ever since pre-HoT update.
I’ve explained it countless of times so I don’t feel like going through with it again.

If you feel like reading in through (instead of using your own head), feel free to do so. But I’d say chances for that are too slim. You skeptical attitude will prevent you from doing it because why on earth would someone else be right when you weren’t able to prove anything at all.

Firebird Gomer.9563:

So I feel that I need to point this out for everyone to see what will happen because of the Druid Class.

1: Rangers will not be allowed to take part in Dungeons/Fractals/Raids unless there are more than 2 druids in a group. Oh and only if no other class can be found first!

2: Druid Class will take all blame if party dies even once. It won’t matter if you have a bad internet connection you are still responsible.

3: If you don’t move to the specific spot to heal the person that is taking damage at the time they are taking damage you will get yelled at, this while your healing someone else at the same time.

4: Griefing and Elitism. This will run rampant on Druids. They will be picked on and put down.

5: Prediction 5 is a little late someone already said it in this topic, but I will use it anyway. Go join a good guild. This will backfire when people in those “good guilds” start asking for Druid and no one will want to go as it because they got abused last time.

I know that there are more for me to predict but I can’t think of them at the moment but will add more over the next few days.

1.) Honestly don’t think Druids will be wanted in most PvE content outside of potentially raids, and that is yet to be seen. DPS is and always will be better in the older content.
2.) Healer and Tank has always taken all the blame, whether it is true or not isn’t always the case. Easy escape goat.
3.) Call them out on why they failed. Generally will shut them up.
4.) Not more than Rangers already are.
5.) This has actually happened in other MMOs where a vast majority of healers have left guilds because of healer abuse. The best healers will go to the best communities if we are vital, this again is yet to be seen.

Chrispy.5641:

I could gather that from the context. I just take issue with people who can’t spend the extra .5 second it would have taken to type out exactly 4 more letters so people would understand an acronym they don’t normally see.

You also wouldn’t have liked it when I said this about Scholars:

Just as much about damage as they are healing in most games. One subclass from one game doesn’t mean they are all healing.

Hah. This is honestly adorable – you think you’re giving me an unpleasant truth to say “sometimes, classes styled after academics are dps”. No, really? I wonder how I might distinguish the rather more generic term ‘scholar’ (which, after all, could be misinterpreted to even refer to classes in GW2) to specify the particular iteration where they’re a healer that I mained… perhaps I’ll use their abbreviation from the game where they’re healers…

Tragic Positive.9356:

That’s sad… Because Rangers have been meta ever since pre-HoT update.
I’ve explained it countless of times so I don’t feel like going through with it again.

If you feel like reading in through (instead of using your own head), feel free to do so. But I’d say chances for that are too slim. You skeptical attitude will prevent you from doing it because why on earth would someone else be right when you weren’t able to prove anything at all.

Er, aren’t you confusing ‘meta’ with ‘strong’? Maybe the NA servers are different, maybe I’m not looking often enough, but the meta seems unchanged from Guards, Eles, and Wars. I’ve not seen people ask for Rangers. I believe you when you say they’re good (I reserve such judgements for parses and similar, personally), but that doesn’t make them the meta, because the meta is determined by the community.

Rutee.1058:

Chrispy.5641:

I could gather that from the context. I just take issue with people who can’t spend the extra .5 second it would have taken to type out exactly 4 more letters so people would understand an acronym they don’t normally see.

You also wouldn’t have liked it when I said this about Scholars:

Just as much about damage as they are healing in most games. One subclass from one game doesn’t mean they are all healing.

Hah. This is honestly adorable – you think you’re giving me an unpleasant truth to say “sometimes, classes styled after academics are dps”. No, really? I wonder how I might distinguish the rather more generic term ‘scholar’ to specify this particular iteration was a healer… perhaps I’ll use their abbreviation from the game where they’re healers…

Listen son, you could just say healer since that’s what we’re talking about, but its pretty obvious your either too lazy to type 4 letters or just trying to complicate things by using an acronym from (let me guess here) FFXIV that not many of really care about. So I’ll ask again, What is wrong with people like you who can’t be bothered to type out a full word because the acronym isn’t common on these forums?

Rutee.1058:

Tragic Positive.9356:

That’s sad… Because Rangers have been meta ever since pre-HoT update.
I’ve explained it countless of times so I don’t feel like going through with it again.

If you feel like reading in through (instead of using your own head), feel free to do so. But I’d say chances for that are too slim. You skeptical attitude will prevent you from doing it because why on earth would someone else be right when you weren’t able to prove anything at all.

Er, aren’t you confusing ‘meta’ with ‘strong’? Maybe the NA servers are different, maybe I’m not looking often enough, but the meta seems unchanged from Guards, Eles, and Wars. I’ve not seen people ask for Rangers. I believe you when you say they’re good (I reserve such judgements for parses and similar, personally), but that doesn’t make them the meta, because the meta is determined by the community.

So….Rangers have been meta for about 9 days then? I wouldn’t call that meta, or even good.

Honestly, I think that druid in itself is a scary specialization. Its super strong in support healing, but its offensive and non-healing support is lackluster, along with its damage being on the lower end. because of this, once people get the hang of Revenant, it will just be a pretty useless specialization outside this. So it really needs to be made LESS specialized unlike other specializations because right now, its such a complete package in healing that its not even really much synergy found outside with moment of clarity.

Chrispy.5641:

Listen son, you could just say healer since that’s what we’re talking about, but its pretty obvious your either too lazy to type 4 letters or just trying to complicate things by using an acronym from (let me guess here) FFXIV that not many of really care about.

Yeah… that’s kinda the idea, skippy. It isn’t immediately obvious I’m referring to a healer when I say ‘I main a Scholar’. It’d be perfectly valid to assume I was trying to be coy about maining Mesmer/Ele/Necro. Wrong, but valid.

So I’ll ask again, What is wrong with people like you who can’t be bothered to type out a full word because the acronym isn’t common on these forums?

That cute little truth bomb you fumbled with about how ‘Scholars are often not healers’ is exactly why I used an abbreviation – It would be more comprehensible, because there is no room for misintepreting it as a generic concept – it’s not like you care super much about understanding a game you don’t play and presumably had little interest in.

So….Rangers have been meta for about 9 days then? I wouldn’t call that meta, or even good.

I mean, if they’ve been in demand for 9 days, then yeah, for now, they’re meta. If they aren’t in demand, they aren’t meta. It’s not a good commentary on where range’s been for 3 years if they’ve only been meta for 9 days, you’re right, but it doesn’t mean much to their state now.

Loyo.8526:

Honestly, I think that druid in itself is a scary specialization. Its super strong in support healing, but its offensive and non-healing support is lackluster, along with its damage being on the lower end. because of this, once people get the hang of Revenant, it will just be a pretty useless specialization outside this. So it really needs to be made LESS specialized unlike other specializations because right now, its such a complete package in healing that its not even really much synergy found outside with moment of clarity.

This does seem pretty likely, yeah. Druids probably do have much better healing numbers (Given the sheer number of heals, it’d be pretty implausible for them not to), but Glint/Vent or Guardian both bring offensive team support as well as healing and defensive support, as could a Cleirc’s Ele. If you can get away with lower heal numbers (Which you should be able to, because otherwise you have poor design that forces the other healers out), you would probably shun the Druid even if they have higher HP/S, since overhealing gives nothing in most games (GW2 included)….

…but if Rangers are desired for the deepz Spirits add as support already, Druid may be fine enough (Even if it’s suboptimal to Glint/Vent or Guardian, which is my big concern)

As someone who has almost exclusively played ranger since launch, runs a lot of dungeons, enjoys difficult content, and is very focused on efficient play, here are my predictions:

• Druid will not see effective use in any of the current PvE content, nor any of the new open world content.

• Edit: After finally being able to test druid in raids I can say for sure that full support druids will be strong in raids and possibly high level fractals.
They might have a place in raids and specific fractal levels if instabilities favor them. Efficient Druid builds will likely focus on offensive stats and traits, either physical or condition depending on what is needed, and switch into celestial form when burst healing is needed. The staff is unlikely to be used.

• Players unconcerned about efficiency will likely to be drawn to a healing druid and run a build significantly weaker than the notorious “bearbow”. It will likely consist of a staff/longbow, clerics gear, and a wyvern because they are cool (but incredibly weak). They will view their healing as useful, will try to let their pet tank while healing it, but in reality will just be dragging everyone down in a group setting.

Rutee.1058:

Chrispy.5641:

Listen son, you could just say healer since that’s what we’re talking about, but its pretty obvious your either too lazy to type 4 letters or just trying to complicate things by using an acronym from (let me guess here) FFXIV that not many of really care about.

Yeah… that’s kinda the idea, skippy. It isn’t immediately obvious I’m referring to a healer when I say ‘I main a Scholar’. It’d be perfectly valid to assume I was trying to be coy about maining Mesmer/Ele/Necro. Wrong, but valid.

So I’ll ask again, What is wrong with people like you who can’t be bothered to type out a full word because the acronym isn’t common on these forums?

That cute little truth bomb you fumbled with about how ‘Scholars are often not healers’ is exactly why I used an abbreviation – It would be more comprehensible, because there is no room for misintepreting it as a generic concept – it’s not like you care super much about understanding a game you don’t play and presumably had little interest in.

So it really is hard for you to type “I’m a healer main in another game”, like to the point that you are so physically unable to you spent half the thread trying to defend not just saying that to start.. Got it, As long as you admit that, everything is right in the world again.

Bri.8354:

As someone who has almost exclusively played ranger since launch, runs a lot of dungeons, enjoys difficult content, and is very focused on efficient play, here are my predictions:

• Druid will not see effective use in any of the current PvE content, nor any of the new open world content.

• They might have a place in raids and specific fractal levels if instabilities favor them.
Efficient Druid builds will likely focus on offensive stats and traits, either physical or condition depending on what is needed, and switch into celestial form when burst healing is needed. The staff is unlikely to be used.

• Players unconcerned about efficiency will likely to be drawn to a healing druid and run a build significantly weaker than the notorious “bearbow”. It will likely consist of a staff/longbow, clerics gear, and a wyvern because they are cool (but incredibly weak). They will view their healing as useful, will try to let their pet tank while healing it, but in reality will just be dragging everyone down in a group setting.

Well, since you’re talking about efficiency and speed, yeah, a Druid with Cleric stats will be dragging everyone down with him.

Chrispy.5641:

So it really is hard for you to type “I’m a healer main in another game”, like to the point that you are so physically unable to you spent half the thread trying to defend not just saying that to start.. Got it, As long as you admit that, everything is right in the world again.

No, it wouldn’t be hard – it would just be less specific than I wanted to be. As much as you may feel there is only one way to communicate, you are in error.

Rutee.1058:

Er, aren’t you confusing ‘meta’ with ‘strong’? Maybe the NA servers are different, maybe I’m not looking often enough, but the meta seems unchanged from Guards, Eles, and Wars. I’ve not seen people ask for Rangers. I believe you when you say they’re good (I reserve such judgements for parses and similar, personally), but that doesn’t make them the meta, because the meta is determined by the community.

I’ve seen several groups (not many but still) ask directly for Frost Spotter rangers.

And the class has been recognized as MetaZerk by the community by metabattle (where, of course, the meta comes from) for the past few weeks even though we haven’t really been directly buffed in DPS ever since Trait Changes.

Plus, all the maths and experience say that Rangers provide better DPS than a warrior, can fill the party with perma fury and swiftness, 11 permanent might, and high amount of vulnerability.

The reason why people believe Rangers are not in meta is because people (rangers) suck. 9 out of 10 rangers you see are horrible. That’s just plain statistics. Dunno if you guyz have better luck but I don’t.
But that is nothing but human factor. A skilled Ranger is better contribution for the party than any other DPS fill-in (unless you need utility like skips or heavy reflects).
A bad ranger, on the other hand, is the worst nightmare you can probably get. That’s why people do not risk for the trade-off is not worth.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’ve seen several groups (not many but still) ask directly for Frost Spotter rangers.

And the class has been recognized as MetaZerk by the community by metabattle (where, of course, the meta comes from) for the past few weeks even though we haven’t really been directly buffed in DPS ever since Trait Changes.

See, the fact that it’s requested in-game means infinitely more than the fact that a particular site lists it (Unless that site tracks aggregate uses of a particular thing across all games/plays/etc). The metagame is about how the game is actually played, not about how it could be played. And I can plainly tell you, I don’t see those requests at /all/ in the EU servers. Even I think they probably exist, but if they are rare requests, they aren’t really ‘in the meta’. They could be, but they aren’t (yet).

Plus, all the maths and experience say that Rangers provide better DPS than a warrior, can fill the party with perma fury and swiftness, 11 permanent might, and high amount of vulnerability. …
But that is nothing but human factor. A skilled Ranger is better contribution for the party than any other DPS fill-in (unless you need utility like skips or heavy reflects).
A bad ranger, on the other hand, is the worst nightmare you can probably get. That’s why people do not risk for the trade-off is not worth.

You sing ranger’s praises rather more highly than your source does, to say the least.