Guild Wars 2

If we have learnt one thing from history, than that it is constantly repeating – for people are unwilling to learn from mistakes others did.
In the end, every new generation – on a philosophical approach – must have the right to repeat the mistakes of the former one.

This seems to be also a rule in game development. We see it right here right now with the druid specialization in GW2. This is just a giant deja vu. It is the same flawed logic like back in 2004 to 2007.

But let me be more clear, I will give you some context:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Celestial Avatar healing is the best available by a decent margin right now. One issue that came up is that the healing coefficients are so insignificant that running with healing stats yields very little reward.

The best healing in the game being available without using any healing power; this is not good for the game.

If you want to focus on being the top offense then you probably shouldn’t be selecting the Druid specialization.

The problems core and origin is the approach of GW2 to be a raid centric game. If people like it or not, if they are in denial or blind doesn’t matter, the new raid needs the trinity – tanks, healers and damage dealers. We are back to the good system of old, like in most other MMOs.

Now as we have dedicated healers and tanks, the fundamental question is, what are they supposed to do.

Irenio went with the approach, that the druid should be a healer, in fact the best in game. This comes with a prize, the damage of the druid will be subpar.

This is a common argument written below and Irenio both pushed them into the discussion with his statements above:

Player argument 1:“You can heal, why do you think you should do as much damage as a class that is specialized in damage and can’t heal?!”

Player argument 2:“If you don’t like playing a healer, play a different class, but if you are a class that can heal, you should heal!”

This was common game design a decade ago for druids in WoW. Their damage was bad even if specced and equipped for it, their healing was great and that is what the other people wanted.
Noone played a druid, groups/raids waited for hours to find a healer.

We are at this point right now with HoT in GW2.

So let me get to the points made:

Druid is the strongest healer right now in the game by the statement.

This has two consequences both not in favor for the game:

Consequence 1: The endgame is designed around and needs the max amount of healing available, which will pigeon hole all rangers/druids into the healing role, as a druid is absolutely necessary to beat the content.

Consequence 2: The healing of other professions is good enoug, which makes the superior healing of the druid totally useless. In fact, druids will offer less than other healing classes, as they are so focused on (over)healing, that they are becoming second choice.

Druids should not be the single best healers in GW2, unless you want to enforce “LF1M Druid all healing gear ascended” on raids and challenging content. (consequence 1)
If the healing is not needed, what is all this healing good for? Noone will care. (consequence 2)

If you have to have healers, all healers should be on the same level. This gives choice to groups, and diversity to the game.

Now to the “if you can heal you shouldn’t do damage” argument:

If you have a ranger, and you want to play as damage dealer in raids, how can this work.
Even in the best ascended zerker gear with the best trait setup, the ranger is only average in damage. And that is the situation before the addition of the revenant and the eight other elite specs.

So if you play as a ranger, you will not only have to compete for a damage spot with all other vanilla professions, but also with all other elite specialization. How will a vanilla ranger compete against that? Its elite specialization will actually hurt the ranger’s damage, that is not an option.

What you literally say Irenio – and I will write it here for you as clearly as possible – is:

If you want to play anything else than a healer in raids, you better reroll another profession!

Wow, the “if you don’t like healing roll another class” argument for GW2, for a base profession that is all about pewpew?
Good luck rangers, enjoy being subpar in all of the PvE game outside of healing raids. This is the cost for introducing raiding.

- Druid is pigeon holing ranger into a healing role for raids. How is this helping the ranger profession?
- This will not work. Players will get angry because they can’t find a druid healer and will call for a buff of other healers and then just not care about druids as healers. How does this help the ranger profession?
- Rangers will be the worst choice to pick as a profession for everything outside of raid healing in PvE. How will this help the ranger profession?

To say it with the words of Trahearne: This won’t end well.

Druid being a supreme healer with subpar damage won’t work. The concept is a 100% flawed.

Look, the other game has overcome this problem, at least when I left seven years ago, druids were great damage dealers, great healers or great tanks, depending on how they geared and specced.

You should rethink your mindset on the core design of the druid. It is bad for rangers, raids and GW2 in general.

Thank you.

Please do not use quotation marks when it is not a quote, you are misrepresenting Irenio here. Either remove the false quotes or make them accurate please.

Hello there,

i’ll quote Irenio’s post here for other people to read: it’s the best way to show that you are either misinterpretating stuff or simply making things up.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

There’ll be more supportive damage for Celestial Avatar by launch… possibly from trait modifications or from skill changes.

An issue which should not be decoupled here is that Celestial Avatar felt gated behind staff use (and troll unguent), which left a ranger with one damage-focused weapon option and one support weapon. I’m making some changes to astral force rate gain to try to address this. Ideally it should be possible to build up your astral force without -needing- to run staff, but running staff should speed up the process by nature of the heals it provides. This would yield the option of running two non-staff weapons while still having Celestial Avatar available.

Celestial Avatar healing is the best available by a decent margin right now. One issue that came up is that the healing coefficients are so insignificant that running with healing stats yields very little reward.

The best healing in the game being available without using any healing power; this is not good for the game.

The berserker meta not be the only consideration requires that other stat combinations be rewarding.

Being able to run two more damage-focused weapons (if that’s your thing) and still have Celestial Avatar available should address some of your offensive concerns if you want to play a bit more offensively as a hybrid. If you want to focus on being the top offense then you probably shouldn’t be selecting the Druid specialization.

That’s all I’m going to say on the subject for now (though I will continue to read constructive feedback here and elsewhere) as there is plenty to be done in order to address these and other issues. /me ducks back to work on Scrapper and Druid.

I don’t want to defend (or offend) anyone: i believe that if Irenio felt the need to defend himself he could do so more adequately than i can.
I only think that it’s too wrong to write stuff as if he said those things when in reality he didn’t, only to fool people to agree with your arguments/concerns (some of which may even be legitimate too).

Look, the other game has overcome this problem, at least when I left seven years ago, druids were great damage dealers, great healers or great tanks, depending on how they geared and specced.

the core problem with your post is that druid is not a class.

druid is a spec.

if you don’t want healing, don’t spec druid.

What a surprise fanboys descend without apparently properly reading the OP. The predicted consequences are right for an action mmo like GW2; A ‘dedicated’ healer that is designed as the best will force that as it’s niche. This becomes compounded when that is all an entire elite specialisation has to offer is healing and not even other kinds of support. Glyph of empowerment is probably the only thing it has to offer a vanilla style Ranger who’s niche is unique support whilst providing damage.

Shoe.5821:

Look, the other game has overcome this problem, at least when I left seven years ago, druids were great damage dealers, great healers or great tanks, depending on how they geared and specced.

the core problem with your post is that druid is not a class.

druid is a spec.

if you don’t want healing, don’t spec druid.

You’re literally proving OP’s point. That’s all it does. An elite spec should provide synergy with the vanilla class at the very least if it doesn’t provide anything else. Chronomancer for example is useful for bunker, damage or conditions thanks to the traits having synergy with the entire class rather than being a self contained ‘role’. Berserker has both offensive and highly defensive traits. Herald has both offensive and defensive support options that can combo with other legends very well. It really shouldn’t be all or nothing.

You make a dedicated, ‘best’ healer and that’s what their meta role will be. You don’t provide any other options and you’re just cramming them into a pidgeonhole.

This becomes compounded when that is all an entire elite specialisation has to offer is healing and not even other kinds of support

thousands of years of daze

This thread should be closed.

Misquoting others, especially an Anet employee, invalidates any argument you may have had.

Shoe.5821:

This becomes compounded when that is all an entire elite specialisation has to offer is healing and not even other kinds of support

thousands of years of daze

I’m interesting to see where the nerf bat swings with regards to druid CC.

Seriously, for the people having a hard time with reading comprehension and comparsion, I edited the one part that could have been seen as a misquote if you really really wanted to do so for the sake of pointing it out.

Hope this will help.

Druid spec is indeed healing and CC (daze and immobilize).

I do agree Druid needs to be able to deal damage as well. Staff is pretty great at dealing sustained damage, but the damage is too low, even with full ascended berserker stats. If Staff requires full ascended berserker stats just to get some damage out of it, then that’s what people will use for it.

In HoT, Longbow will have a ton of reflect/destroy it can’t deal with, making staff the only valid ranged alternative for power builds without killing yourself half the time. That’s the role staff needs to fulfill as well: A replacement for longbow. It loses range and burst, but gains immunity to reflect/destroy, however, it also loses much of the damage.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Seriously, for the people having a hard time with reading comprehension and comparsion, I edited the one part that could have been seen as a misquote if you really really wanted to do so for the sake of pointing it out.

Hope this will help.

Reading comprehension is fine thank you. This OP is a very long-winded way of rehashing the tired old complaint of “I don’t like healing, don’t force me to heal” to which the answer is invariably “no one is forcing you”.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Look, the other game has overcome this problem, at least when I left seven years ago, druids were great damage dealers, great healers or great tanks, depending on how they geared and specced.

But, that is exactly what they’re aiming for here, it’s even what Irenio says in the post you were referencing that krumhur quoted accurately for the benefit of everyone in the thread. The only difference is that in this instance a druid specced for only being a great damage dealer (rather than a hybrid of roles) will most likely be called a ranger.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

for a base profession that is all about pewpew

I think here might be where the root of your misconception lies, but I can’t be sure.