Guild Wars 2

Also, a healing mantra mesmer can spam an almost 3000 heal every 3-4 second with no healing gear

Astra Lux.2846:

Nova Stiker.8396:

CETheLucid.3964:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Healing Spring, Pet heal, Spirit of Nature and…
That’s it. That is literally the only ally healing the ranger has outside of Druid traitline.

That’s incorrect.

You’re also missing information with regards to druid traits that synergize with and bolster these base healing skills you mention, which is another point of synergy beyond the one idea I already mentioned.

So, hey. Thanks for that.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Are people still struggling to see the problem with Druid? It has absolutely no synergy with the ranger. It might as well be it’s own class it’s so out there.

If you can’t find synergy with two trait lines or make the connection that I made for you with three in the druid, I can’t help you.

I doubt anyone else can for that matter.

I’m not going to think for you and I don’t have the patience nor the desire to convince you of something you’ve already decided for yourself.

MetaBattle will get you up to speed in time.

Alright Einstein, list me other ally healing abilities rangers have. Go on, list all of them, I wanna see the ally healing the ranger has. After all, Druid benefits from HEALING and healing allies, not boons. So might, protection, fury and what not will not help the Druid.

And please, list 1 Druid trait that goes great with a Ranger trait.
Keep in mind I said great, increasing the stun duration you get from swapping into staff is far from ‘great’.

---

Covering your incompetence by saying, “I don’t have time for you” will not save you from being terribly wrong.

Adept: Druidic Clarity- condi cleanse that removes ALL conditions upon F5 (which fills from damaging foes too)

Master:
Natural Stride- Reduces the duration of movement-impairing conditions. Your movement speed is increased as long as you have none of these conditions
Verdant Etching- Reduces recharge of glyphs. Activating a glyph skills plants a seed.

Grandmaster:
Ancient Seeds- Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe summons roots to entangle them
Grace of the Land- While you are a celestial avatar, your allies gain reduced incoming condition damage.

This all seem like they would be really easy to incorporate into non-healing builds and don’t have anything to do with the staff. I’m not seeing the major problem here.

The major problem is the ranger already has similar survivability in other places.

So taking Druid reduces your overall damage and nets you the same results.

Grace of the land is inferior to Empathic Bond.
Natural Stride is inferior to Lightning Reflexes.
Verdant Etching… how is that helpful for rangers? It’s a delay condition and heal. Real great for trying to stay mobile.
Ancient Seeds is inferior to Entanglement.

The best way for those traits to be helpful for the ranger would be go a healing Druid, period.

Lets not forget, now, this is definitely subject to change but healing an ally charges the avatar form by 2.5%
How much from damaging a foe? 0.5%

So yeah, Druidic Clarity, REAL HELPFUL, get that heavy condition removal from damage alone? Good luck.

Nova Stiker.8396:

The only point you’ve made is how ignorant you are.

It possibly also has to do with the fact that we’ve only seen the trait line/skills and can’t make real judgement calls until we get our hands on it.

So the options are speak out of ignorance (because ignorance isn’t exactly a bad thing) or out of emotion (which is what you’re doing now). Your call.

Nova Stiker.8396:

CETheLucid.3964:

Nova Stiker.8396:

CETheLucid.3964:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Healing Spring, Pet heal, Spirit of Nature and…
That’s it. That is literally the only ally healing the ranger has outside of Druid traitline.

That’s incorrect.

You’re also missing information with regards to druid traits that synergize with and bolster these base healing skills you mention, which is another point of synergy beyond the one idea I already mentioned.

So, hey. Thanks for that.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Are people still struggling to see the problem with Druid? It has absolutely no synergy with the ranger. It might as well be it’s own class it’s so out there.

If you can’t find synergy with two trait lines or make the connection that I made for you with three in the druid, I can’t help you.

I doubt anyone else can for that matter.

I’m not going to think for you and I don’t have the patience nor the desire to convince you of something you’ve already decided for yourself.

MetaBattle will get you up to speed in time.

Alright Einstein, list me other ally healing abilities rangers have. Go on, list all of them, I wanna see the ally healing the ranger has. After all, Druid benefits from HEALING and healing allies, not boons. So might, protection, fury and what not will not help the Druid.

And please, list 1 Druid trait that goes great with a Ranger trait.
Keep in mind I said great, increasing the stun duration you get from swapping into staff is far from ‘great’.

---

Covering your incompetence by saying, “I don’t have time for you” will not save you from being terribly wrong.

I’m not covering up my incompetence, I freely confess it to you.

You’ve made up your mind about this. You’re wrong mind you, but I’m almost certain I can’t convince you of that. I don’t have that kind of people/social skill.

I don’t know you. You’re certainly hostile at this point to that any sense I’m making will be blinded by a desire not to seem stupid in your assessment.

So.. I dunno. Go stand over there and be wrong? Post more wrongness? Attack my person or sexuality as is customary of these penial exchanges?

Makes no difference to me. I’m done. I’ve made my point. See you around.

The only point you’ve made is how ignorant you are.

you have tunnel visioned so far into your argument it’s quite hilarious how oblivious you are

How about we all wait for BETA again right? Ok? and after BETA is over, lets make a thread called BW3 DRUID FEEDBACK , and tell the devs what we think works and what doesnt in a mature constructive way, so we can get the results we desire.

Because I mostly see a bunch of nerds complaining about how their class is now ruined, etc, etc.

I’m just curious why glyph of tides or or glyph of alignment isn’t a stunbreak.

Every other elite class got a utility that’s a stunbreak, and here we are with our only glyph stunbreak coming from having to be in celestial form to use it.

I also must say I don’t see the point of Glyph of Rejuvenation.

Glyph of Rejuvenation only has 6 seconds less cd than healing spirng, but it’s not a water field, which heals far more through group blasts, and healing spring removes conditions on pulse.

Similarly, Glyph of Tides seems so bare boned, as does Glyph of Alignment. I mean, 4.5 secs of weakness and a cripple are not that great for a utility skill.

Glyph of Equality is a crappier mantra of distraction, it dazes for 1 more second but it has quadruple the cooldown, and mantra of distraction is a 1 second aoe daze every 5 seconds for 3 charges.

Or compare it to engineer turret CC.

Glyph of Empowerment is on the weak side, 10% extra damage for 5 seconds out of 20 seconds turns out to be 2.5% party wide extra damage for a utility slot, it’s actually worse than frost spirit which is a 7% boost.

And yet, Glyph of Empowerment is the only utility glyph I’d take for PvE content.

Westwater.1095:

You’re arguing that Druid doesn’t add to Ranger, but Druid works EXACTLY how an elite spec SHOULD work.

The elite spec shouldn’t be about augmenting the base class, the elite spec should drastically change the playstyle of the class and then use the other trait lines to augment the elite spec. That concept seems to have been lost on a lot of the other specs, but this is what elite specs are supposed to do in their purest form.

You are right, it is about changing the playstyle. I have no problems with a healing, tanky ranger. None.

But this is just doing it POORLY. It has no synergy, it’s punishing to go Druid and NOT bring staff. Hell, it’s the only elite spec where having the new weapon is practically a must as you benefit from healing allies, and not boons. Meaning that most of the supportive traits for ranger does not work well with Druid.

Imagine if the Tempest increases the duration of auras, BUT it only affects the auras granted in the Tempest traitline AND you must wielding the Hunting Horn for it to work.

Sure, it’s good but God kitten it’s so limiting. It’s not a traitline, it’s a build!

neurosis.6350:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid
Show me a single freaking word about solar\lunar magick! We’re NOT speaking about real existed druids, we’re in the game where own lore exists.
So yes, ArenaNET broke the lore.

Quote: "…the Druids actually shed their physical bodies to become one with nature. The Druids now exist as spirits, appearing similar to Oakhearts. " They shed they body not with cosmos\astral\sun\moon\celestial forms\etc but with NATURE.

Open any Members link there and you WON’T find (again) a single word about solar\lunar magick\celestial form.

Actually, the cycle of the moon/sun and stars are very much part of nature, the druid lore is all about how they attuned themselves to nature, tell me where they say that they only attuned themselves to the aspects of nature dealing with plants and animals? Because i don’t see that distinction there. They refer to nature as a whole, which means it can perfectly encompass both plant/animal life and the moon/sun cycle and the stars. All being part of nature as a whole.

I get it, you expected it to be one way, and it turned out a little bit different, but lorewise nothing was ignored or changed. They took liberties with the wording instead of thinking of nature as a very closed system of just plants and animals. Which i’m sure a lot of people did expect, but just because they did so does not make the druid a bad concept or a contradiction to known lore. It just makes it something you didn’t expect.

lxghostxl.5097:

ANET forgot that we chose Rangers because we love to solo and dps. I think all this worked is just a joke. who ever decided that rangers should be the clown of the party is offended us with this spec. the promise of no healer/tank is just a lie, ANET failed!

I think you forgot what elite specs were meant to do, add a new playstyle to an exisiting class. Yes rangers are great at solo/dps, so why give them more of the same? They expanded what the ranger could do.

And if you honestly think that there were no healers ingame you must not have paid much attention playing. Healing was already a thing ingame, be it engineer, elementalist , guardian, even mesmer lol. I remember playing a healing necro for quite some time , and pretty succesfully. The problem was that the encounters were build in such a way that healing or building more tanky (which was also possible before HoT) didn’t benefit anyone. Anet has always said that they didnt want the holy trinity, but instead put in their own trinity of support/control/damage. Of those only 1 was viable due to how the encounters were made, and that was never anet’s intention. They want to give every class the capabilities to do any of these roles. And are finally making those roles that werent viable before , viable. Which is what they always intended. Just because you ignored that fact doesnt change it.

Leo G.4501:

Nova Stiker.8396:

The only point you’ve made is how ignorant you are.

It possibly also has to do with the fact that we’ve only seen the trait line/skills and can’t make real judgement calls until we get our hands on it.

So the options are speak out of ignorance (because ignorance isn’t exactly a bad thing) or out of emotion (which is what you’re doing now). Your call.

Except, you CAN judge it. This isn’t an argument on how viable it is, no one can say that, this is an argument on how limiting it is.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that having an elite traitline that is healing focused and ONLY rewards healing is going to be limiting.

But apparently it does take a genius, who knew?

Druids feel rushed

Aomine.5012:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Aomine.5012:

I’ll add some more info that people fail to see.

They fail to recognize Druid provides no might, no fury, no quickness, no stability, no protection, no Aegis, boons that any other heal classes have good access to that actually makes a difference.

They’d soon realize this truth and shaft Druid away and pick on another Ele which do everything Druid can do (heal, CC), while doing even more damage and provide all the useful boons I listed above. (Oh, they probably will bring another Mesmer too because it provides unique offensive buffs)

Keep up the delusion folks. Druid will probably be good only in PVP and WvW. (condition bulky druid probably)

’

Druid is essentially the water ele x 10, how many of those boons do you see Ele pumping out using water?

Ranger does those boons (except might) very easily and can perma all of them (except quickness and stability) on a party, so combined with the healing, its quite good.

Yeah, except might, quickness, protection, stability, Aegis…

Oh wait! That’s like 80% of the important boons!

I’m talking about the party-wide support, not the selfish one which every classes can do.

Ranger can maintain Protection on the party and 50% uptime of stability.

So, you’ll have a PS warrior for Might. Ranger can then bring perma Regeneration, Swiftness, Fury and Protection with a 50% uptime on Vigor and Stability. Guard will fill out the Stability for crucial times with Aegis and Blind too. Mesmer will be there for Quickness. What’s the issue?

There was always a trinity in this game, one of damage/control/support, all they are doing now is making those viable. We already have healers ingame, just no one chose to specc that way because it slowed down everything.

The druid reveal isn’t changing anything really, they jsut added more support to what most people call a selfish class.

Purecura.1795:

Irenio,

Thank you so much for a well thought out spec. The DRUID truly is unique for GW2 and I cannot be more happier. It upsets me how so many people can complain over such an amazing class.

They need to go sit in a corner somewhere and learn to be grateful. Ppl are spoiled so much. I just want to say thank you for all your hard work over the months and the dedication into making a class I’ve been wanting to play since I began playing 3 years ago.

Keep up the good work ANET and IRENIO!!!! Druid HEALER INCOMING!!!

Grateful for what? Nobody needs a healer in PvE and you cannot promote group synergy by just changing a single class. Guild Wars 2 was never that type of game to begin with anyway. I find it quite hilarious that they’re pretending to have this philosophy now and taking it all out on druid alone.

They’ve ignored the complaints about pet mechanics and added a totally new healing component which I’m sure people who played RANGER did not want.

Druid isn’t a pure healer, it’s 1/3rd of your trait choices. You can still bring Beast Mastery or Marksmanship or Skirmishing or Nature Magic or Wilderness Survival. Every druid will have a second weapon set and two core specialisations in addition to druid (honestly my builds could easily drop a trait line for druid and remain mostly the same).

Keep in mind pets do a lot of DPS if you bring the right ones, so even a full nomad druid will have DPS. I suspect druid will bring either Cleric, Apothecary, Zealot or Celestial stats – so some kind of DPS stat in addition to their healing stat – and will not spend all their time swinging the staff. You can still use a longbow or a shortbow or a axe and torch then swap back to your staff when you need to pump out support (or use astral form).

Linken.6345:

You do know what the argument is about right? its like they synergy bettwen specilisations.

An example.
Remorseless and Furious Grip or if you like Wilderness Knowledge or Windborne Notes

Thats 1 grandmaster trait working well with 3 other trait lines.

The druid dont have anything like that.

Are you serious?
Ancient Seeds + Moment of Clarity/Predator’s Onslaught
Grace of the Land + Bark Skin/Loud Whistle
Not to mention unique cool stuff like Celestial Shadow which can be utilized with other build types for additional utility such as a stealth trapper or something.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Except, you CAN judge it. This isn’t an argument on how viable it is, no one can say that, this is an argument on how limiting it is.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that having an elite traitline that is healing focused and ONLY rewards healing is going to be limiting.

No it doesn’t. I wonder what that says about your argument then.

But apparently it does take a genius, who knew?

Who knew that the Ranger doesn’t have an ally to heal as an integral part of their performance and concept. Who knew indeed.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Leo G.4501:

Nova Stiker.8396:

The only point you’ve made is how ignorant you are.

It possibly also has to do with the fact that we’ve only seen the trait line/skills and can’t make real judgement calls until we get our hands on it.

So the options are speak out of ignorance (because ignorance isn’t exactly a bad thing) or out of emotion (which is what you’re doing now). Your call.

Except, you CAN judge it. This isn’t an argument on how viable it is, no one can say that, this is an argument on how limiting it is.

How is it limiting? Ancient Seeds has direct synergy with both Great Sword and Shortbow along with the various pet knockdowns.

Druidic Clarity could be very good depending on how often we can bounce in and out of Celestial Mode.

And finally, all 3 Master level traits are universal in their uses.

None of the base versions of the non-heal skill Glyphs even heal. They are all offensive in nature and hit for a lot of damage in an AoE which is absolutely needed on the Ranger which has kitten poor AoE damage.

The Druid is not 100% healbot and implying so is simply demonstrably false.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Aomine.5012:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Aomine.5012:

I’ll add some more info that people fail to see.

They fail to recognize Druid provides no might, no fury, no quickness, no stability, no protection, no Aegis, boons that any other heal classes have good access to that actually makes a difference.

They’d soon realize this truth and shaft Druid away and pick on another Ele which do everything Druid can do (heal, CC), while doing even more damage and provide all the useful boons I listed above. (Oh, they probably will bring another Mesmer too because it provides unique offensive buffs)

Keep up the delusion folks. Druid will probably be good only in PVP and WvW. (condition bulky druid probably)

’

Druid is essentially the water ele x 10, how many of those boons do you see Ele pumping out using water?

Ranger does those boons (except might) very easily and can perma all of them (except quickness and stability) on a party, so combined with the healing, its quite good.

Yeah, except might, quickness, protection, stability, Aegis…

Oh wait! That’s like 80% of the important boons!

I’m talking about the party-wide support, not the selfish one which every classes can do.

Ranger can maintain Protection on the party and 50% uptime of stability.

So, you’ll have a PS warrior for Might. Ranger can then bring perma Regeneration, Swiftness, Fury and Protection with a 50% uptime on Vigor and Stability. Guard will fill out the Stability for crucial times with Aegis and Blind too. Mesmer will be there for Quickness. What’s the issue?

Umm, what build gives the whole party perma Protection as a ranger?
Don’t tell me stone spirit because that uptime and trigger method is horrid as a protection source.

Also, what gives the “PARTY” 50% stability up time as a ranger?

One more thing, ranger sacrifices a great deal of damage for perma swiftnes/ regen.

PS Warrior, Ele, and Guardian sacrifices nothing for all their might/ fury/ quickness/ protection/ aegis.

I was just thinking, with all those healing skills and ways to buff your heals…druids might not even need to worry about having healing power on their gear…thoughts?

I will admit that I don’t like the presentation of druid celestial form (I would have preferred a more leafy style) however this is only my opinion about presentation.

I am however really worried about the healer meta that the druid is supposed to fulfill. Anet has tried to very hard to avoid “looking for healer” situation and the druid appears to a substitute for this (are we going to see “looking for druids” for raids now ?).

The scrappers extended interaction range and the druid’s healer shroud both appear to be rather cheap and make me wonder if these elite specs were not rushed.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Astra Lux.2846:

Nova Stiker.8396:

CETheLucid.3964:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Healing Spring, Pet heal, Spirit of Nature and…
That’s it. That is literally the only ally healing the ranger has outside of Druid traitline.

That’s incorrect.

You’re also missing information with regards to druid traits that synergize with and bolster these base healing skills you mention, which is another point of synergy beyond the one idea I already mentioned.

So, hey. Thanks for that.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Are people still struggling to see the problem with Druid? It has absolutely no synergy with the ranger. It might as well be it’s own class it’s so out there.

If you can’t find synergy with two trait lines or make the connection that I made for you with three in the druid, I can’t help you.

I doubt anyone else can for that matter.

I’m not going to think for you and I don’t have the patience nor the desire to convince you of something you’ve already decided for yourself.

MetaBattle will get you up to speed in time.

Alright Einstein, list me other ally healing abilities rangers have. Go on, list all of them, I wanna see the ally healing the ranger has. After all, Druid benefits from HEALING and healing allies, not boons. So might, protection, fury and what not will not help the Druid.

And please, list 1 Druid trait that goes great with a Ranger trait.
Keep in mind I said great, increasing the stun duration you get from swapping into staff is far from ‘great’.

---

Covering your incompetence by saying, “I don’t have time for you” will not save you from being terribly wrong.

Adept: Druidic Clarity- condi cleanse that removes ALL conditions upon F5 (which fills from damaging foes too)

Master:
Natural Stride- Reduces the duration of movement-impairing conditions. Your movement speed is increased as long as you have none of these conditions
Verdant Etching- Reduces recharge of glyphs. Activating a glyph skills plants a seed.

Grandmaster:
Ancient Seeds- Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe summons roots to entangle them
Grace of the Land- While you are a celestial avatar, your allies gain reduced incoming condition damage.

This all seem like they would be really easy to incorporate into non-healing builds and don’t have anything to do with the staff. I’m not seeing the major problem here.

The major problem is the ranger already has similar survivability in other places.

So taking Druid reduces your overall damage and nets you the same results.

Grace of the land is inferior to Empathic Bond.
Natural Stride is inferior to Lightning Reflexes.
Verdant Etching… how is that helpful for rangers? It’s a delay condition and heal. Real great for trying to stay mobile.
Ancient Seeds is inferior to Entanglement.

The best way for those traits to be helpful for the ranger would be go a healing Druid, period.

Lets not forget, now, this is definitely subject to change but healing an ally charges the avatar form by 2.5%
How much from damaging a foe? 0.5%

So yeah, Druidic Clarity, REAL HELPFUL, get that heavy condition removal from damage alone? Good luck.

Wait, do we actually know this rate at which celestial form builds up from damage and healing? I might’ve missed it. And why are we comparing traits to skills? I think the conditional permaspeed is good. How is Entangle better than Ancient Seed when AS is the same thing on a 10s cooldown, coupled with several skills old and new that can place the requirement more frequently than every 60 seconds? I only put Verdant for the recharge on glyphs. Which aren’t healing based skills (aside from the 6)

Other than Moment of Clarity -Predator’s Onslaught- Hidden Barbs- Light on Your Feet- Ancient Seeds (+Glyph of Equality/Concussion Shot/Hilt Bash/Stone Spirit/Pink Moa/Black Moa/canines/wyverns/pigs) there are a few others I can see, but it does focus on healing, yeah. There’s more to the spec than just traits though (i.e. glyphs)

Pants Are Dangerous.2079:

I am however really worried about the healer meta that the druid is supposed to fulfill. Anet has tried to very hard to avoid “looking for healer” situation and the druid appears to a substitute for this (are we going to see “looking for druids” for raids now ?).

Probably.

Anet has directly stated that Raids will not be something that you can just up and pug with random strangers. They will require organized guild groups of people and advanced planning.

Any guild of sufficient size to do raids in the first place is likely going to have at least 1 person who will be happy to play healer.

It’s simply not going to be an issue.

Leo G.4501:

Linken.6345:

You do know what the argument is about right? its like they synergy bettwen specilisations.

An example.
Remorseless and Furious Grip or if you like Wilderness Knowledge or Windborne Notes

Thats 1 grandmaster trait working well with 3 other trait lines.

The druid dont have anything like that.

Are you serious?
Ancient Seeds + Moment of Clarity/Predator’s Onslaught
Grace of the Land + Bark Skin/Loud Whistle
Not to mention unique cool stuff like Celestial Shadow which can be utilized with other build types for additional utility such as a stealth trapper or something.

Oh yes, Predators Onslaught. Except, everything that goes great with that trait. Literally every ranger weapon can trigger that trait. Not to mention most pets have snares plus CC as well and lets not forget all the utilities that also cripple, CC and chill.

Grace of the Land + Bark Skin/Loud Whistle? LOL how do those even go great together? You got a condition duration reduction and health thresholds. It’s good because tanky? Er, what is you are pure zerker?

That is not synergy. You know what synergy is?
____________________________________

Lets look at Tempest shall we?

• Element Bastion – Auras you apply heal allies. Apply a frost aura to yourself and nearby allies when struck while below the health threshold.

Works great with:

• Unstable Conduit – Overloading an attunement grants an aura based on the element you’re attuned to when the ability is completed.
• Powerful Aura – When you apply an aura to yourself, grant that aura to all nearby allies as well.
• Soothing Ice – Gain regeneration and frost aura when critically hit.
• Elemental Shielding – Gain protection when applying an aura to yourself or an ally.
• Tempest Defense – Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled
• Conjurer – Gain fire aura when an ally picks up a conjured weapon.
• Sunspot – Inflict damage at your location when you attune to fire and gain a fire aura.
• One with Fire – Fire auras you apply last longer and grant might when applied.
• Zephyr’s Boon – Auras grant fury and swiftness when applied.

BUT I DON’T WANNA USE AURAS AS A TEMPEST!
No problem! Lets focus on those overcharges! Going for a glassy, damaging Tempest.

• Lucid Singularity – Remove and gain massive resistance to movement-impeding conditions while overloading your attunements.

Goes great with:

• Harmonious Conduit – Recharge from overloading an attunement is reduced
• Elemental Enchantment – Boon duration is increased, and attunements recharge faster.
• Fresh Air – Recharge air attunement on a critical hit.
• Stone Heart – You cannot be critically hit while attuned to earth.
• Pyromancer’s Puissance – Each skill you use while attuned to fire grants you might.

That was just two examples from Tempest, condi, Warhorn Tempest isn’t that bad actually and I didn’t even go into that.

So while you are scrapping for Druid synergy I just gave you a MASSIVE list from good synergy from the Tempest.

And people think the way Druids are designed is good, HAHAHA, ArenaNet has already made good, the fact is they screwed up the Druid. They didn’t design an elite spec, they made a BUILD. A single build.

I agree with Aomine. Let’s just petition to have the Devs delete the medium armors + mesmer and mesmer. There’s no reason to ever run those bad profs anyway when The GW2 own super special trinity can do it all. It’ll save everyone time and effort in the long run.

Nemesis.6938:

Shinzan.2908:

That’s kind of the problem, druid seems so good at healing that unless other classes get a huge buff , healer druids might become required, don’t want to go back to lfg druid 8/10.

this 100%
either druid will be useless for pve or absolutely required making all other (heal)classes like guardian useless…
you cant “change the game meta” by simply doing that through one class

this seams just bad design/strategy

animus.8254:

I was just thinking, with all those healing skills and ways to buff your heals…druids might not even need to worry about having healing power on their gear…thoughts?

Depends on the healing power scaling on each skill. Base healing is not anything effective to justify. Aegis/Protection offers far more mitigation than just flat out heals.

Main problem with a spec like druid that focuses on heal utility is the only time it’s effective is when people play badly or if mobs have hard/impossible to dodge attacks. Either way it doesn’t promote good play or fun. There are some usefulness in mass organized wvw battles but in pve it’s core design is flawed.

The other problem I can see is that the abilities lock you into a certain build type, which is one centered around healing power. So aside from being a heal bot for your wvw zerg train while putting off some minimal conditions there’s really no other effective way to build a druid.

Pants Are Dangerous.2079:

I will admit that I don’t like the presentation of druid celestial form (I would have preferred a more leafy style) however this is only my opinion about presentation.

Some of us are already quite leafy =)

You have Celestial form, why do you need a Synergy?

+ there are still synergy with beast mastery and more.

Kirschsahne.2081:

lxghostxl.5097:

because to me this just sad and very bad move from ANET.

Jepp… you nailed it. For you it’s a bad move.
Everyone else on that planet loves it

No, not everyone loves it. You love it. Just like he does not. And I do not. And some friends I was on skype with during the reveal do not.

It’s funny how you notice that he was a good guy and said it’s his opinion, but then you fall into that self-assuring trap he managed to avoid.

finally spec that I was missing………clear choice for me since I love healers and shamans/druids in games

SkyShroud.2865:

like every skills and classes….anet will super nerf it later on

Some of us tried to run healing builds for a long time now….

Water Elementalist’s got dagger auto changed long ago as it was a huge problem in PvP… It’s autoattack allowed it to solo a lot of content in clerics gear… so it was removed.
Staff has only a limited amount of skills avaiable for healing most of which are HIGLY dependant on blast finishers… Auto heal can be extremely high on a dedicated build (1100-1450+ healing / auto with a full zealot/clerics build respectively)

Guardian is master of mitigation, but even though I do own a commanders build guardian (cleric/nomad build mace/? & staff shout condi removing build), it still is mostly adept in preventing damage in the first place, self sustain, yes, AOE heals by virtue of resolve and smal aoe fields, partly focussed on melee….. (well the symbol can do a lot of healing if yu do not mind to drop pure of voice. also allowing the symbol of swiftness to be an AOE targetable healing field)

Necro has limited options, though we will have a projectile blocking field now, whcih will provide weakness and poison as well when enemies push through (25% dmg reduction and no crits, and -33% reduced healing) , though staff 2 and mark on dodge can provide instant regen, focus offhand gives regen,and transfusion can be a powerfull heal. Wells can provide some buffs… But the big thing about necro’s is people will not bleed out….
It’s just a shame vampiric (aura) scales so bad with healing….
Warrior has still acces to regen banners…. can remove conditions wth warhorn, use shouts for heal and condi clears…. and well… that’s about it unless you’d consider banner of tactics relevant giving 20% boon duration and 180 healing buffing all party heals and buffs

Mesmer I never played as a healer… It will undoubtably be adept in being a healer but I prefer other builds, PU perplexity has some use in PvE even now confusion has base dmg..
And stealth means you can move around relatively safe, jus a shame durations are to be nerfed (PU effectiveness will be halved (I do really enjoy this with regards to WvW))

Enigineer is a proffesion I finally did my HP and WP map on, but I’m very inexperienced playing engi. cannot say I tried out a real (healing) build…. Shame on me.

Ranger has an AOE water field, A blast finisher in combat on beastmastery, or on warhorn, this warhorn balst can be modded to include regen, It can provide regen on shouts…. While I haven’t played ranger as a healing build I did play it with this support in place and in effect it provides 100% regen uptime without any real thought in a healing spec, of course you also have a regen signet…. I think druid might not add much to ranger as a DPS build, but ranger will most certainly add to druid as a healer.

I still look back with sadeness to the +300 healing and the +30% boon duration we lost june 23rd, which did nerf many heal and support builds BADLY which was only compensated minimally….. mostly by traits mostly very conditional, and the boon duration was removed completely in most cases… neither healing scaling or buff duration was used to compensate….

In effect A-net destroyed healing 23rd june, and now introduced druid… which seems illogical…

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Kirschsahne.2081:

lxghostxl.5097:

because to me this just sad and very bad move from ANET.

Jepp… you nailed it. For you it’s a bad move.
Everyone else on that planet loves it

No, not everyone loves it. You love it. Just like he does not. And I do not. And some friends I was on skype with during the reveal do not.

It’s funny how you notice that he was a good guy and said it’s his opinion, but then you fall into that self-assuring trap he managed to avoid.

Nah Kirsch did specify “everyone on that planet”. Now I don’t want to read too much into that statement but well you get my drift…. :-P

They already said they’re going to make PvE harder. World bosses in HoT will have mechanics you cant dodge or block through. They’re also adding breakbars with mechanics requiring you to break their breakbar to defeat them. This is already going to promote different support and control builds.

The other thing is I hate the argument that people don’t want to have to wait for a healer to do content. Even if you do need healers for some of the new world bosses or for raids, it won’t be a big deal. I’m sure in the Zerg of people at events there will be people running all sorts of builds, including support builds.

Also, in raids what’s the difference for waiting 8/10 for a healer and waiting 8/10 for 2 Phalanx warriors that have skill? Just because some people don’t enjoy playing support doesn’t mean that you should make it useless and force people to run specific dps builds. I’m sure it won’t be hard to recruit people that enjoy healing to raid with you. There’s also the fact that if you don’t want a healer then do any of the old content that doesn’t require one.

Another thing is that said they’re adjusting other classes. I’m sure they’ll adjust the other classes with support to put them more in line with Druid. I personally don’t think you can make challenging content without having build diversity with different roles. I mean, I’m sure a lot more people will play support or anchors in GW2 because you’re not just staring at health bars and spamming heals. You’re still engaged in combat, manually position your heals and buffs with ground targeting and positioning, and damaging the mobs at the same time.

Are you seriously trying to use overcharges as an example of a well designed elite spec mechanic?

evilunderling.9265:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not referring to optimal. I am referring to viable. If it is not possible for full thief raids to complete the entire thing, then something has gone wrong…

That doesn’t imply that anything has gone wrong at all.

Raids are meant to be hard — the norm for hardcore raids in other games is that you need to be able to do something like 90% of your theoretically attainable DPS to beat the enrage timer. GW2 should be quite a bit more lenient than that (after all, we will never have genuinely better gear to bring along), but not by that much if they’re to remain credible.

Every time you drop a profession in favour of stacking another profession, balance demands that you’re significantly worse off for doing so. If these are credible raids and the game is balanced, you should not be able to do that eight times over.

It means that something is very wrong because being able to do that is the core philosophy of the game. Being able to complete any content with whatever party composition you have. You take who you have, and don’t have to wait around because you lack a healer/etc.

If you have to sit around for an hour and wait for a druid or other player that is setup/geared as a dedicated healer, then Anet has completely thrown their core design philosophy out the window.

For dedicated healing to fit into the game’s design, it would need to be an option, not a requirement. Taking one dedicated healer instead of having lesser healing/defense support spread over several other party members. I think it’s doable, but it will be a difficult and delicate balance to make sure both options are equally viable.

The healing in F5 form is pretty strong even without healing power. If you run a more offensive build, you will still get a lot of team support out of that.

It really depends on what kind of pressure you’re looking at and how much healing is needed in a certain time frame.

Kirschsahne.2081:

A little bit of a Drama Queen aren’t we dear OP ??

These changes are insanely welcome by 99% of the fanbase.
Get used to it.
People will gladly play Druid or Tank

So 99% of people are happy we get an even more strict meta? Seems weird.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem with the druid is that it is a mono-tool. A tool that exists to do one very specific job, and not much else.

This is kinda what specializations are for. You don’t take Druid if you don’t want it for the healing or the control; just like you don’t take, say, Reaper if you don’t have any use for it or if Reaper’s Shroud is a detriment rather than a boon.

Just looking at it now, Druid may be worth considering for Power Ranger, just because you always have Point Blank Shot, Hilt Bash, the sword Block and your dog to land consistent control effects, which you can chain into free Entangles every ten seconds, which is a really strong effect for just about any ranger.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Exact same issue with the druid. Why bring the druid when the guardian, elementalist, engineer, and revenant are already good with healing?

Because they have different healing styles and strategies, and bring different cooldowns and other tools.

1. not sure, but I would guess no
2. no idea
3. yes, you can. He mentioned you would want that sometimes with some of the traits.
4. leaving celestial is a weapon swap, going into I’m not sure. Does deathshroud count? When yes this is likely to do, too, but my guess it doesn’t since you have no weapon in celestial.
5. they will likely share the cooldown, would be OP otherwise
6. time will show – we just don’t know with what mechanics they’ll come up in HoT.

Ele’s water attunement on staff is healing too. Where is a 500+ posts of weeping about it?
No one forces ppl to use this spec. Just think: Tempest and Dragonhunter absolutly useless in current PvE.

Unfortunately the main problem with tanks and healers that also applies to trinity MMORPGs is the gear dependency. Think about it, where do you use your best tank/heal gear and spec in a trinity MMORPG? In the harder dungeons and in raids, but out in the open world you use your mostly DPS specs, even in full trinity games. Most trinity games allow different specs for healers/tanks so they can also deal some damage and not get bored to death when doing regular questing, and a big turn off for healers and tanks in many many MMORPGs is their inability to do regular content on their own fast enough.

So a healer/tank is required to have multiple sets (one for raids, one for regular pve) and the dps specs need only one set for everything. With the price of Ascended being so high, anyone who will play a tank/healer will have to choose between raids and regular pve or have their healer/tank only for raids and not do regular pve with them. Because let’s face it, even in the most hardcore trinity game, doing regular pve with a healer/tank is dull and boring.

Halan.7931:

It may be amazing, but it’s not what I expected. Those shoulders with animals and staff created some expectations about either plant-magic (like Entangle), or some animal forms/aspects/claw kits, but not about being a shiny transparent fairy. My ranger is Norn female, but now I’m thinking maybe I should make a sylvari… but I have a sylvari guardian.

Since I’ve done my share of healing in another game, I’m not opposed to healing, only to visual theme. At least it’s not clicking on green rectangles.

I agree, I expected a ton more plant skills and less celestial skills. Solar beam and celestial skills make sense for a Druid, but I think they took it a step too far. I want to know how this connects to the Druids in lore. I think they may have gone less plan based and more celestial because of the Druids in the lore and how they’ve shed their physical bodies to become nature spirits.

lxghostxl.5097:

If I wanted to play an MMO that has healers I would have moved to WOW or other new games out there. I was hoping that these new elite class are gonna provide buffs while staying on track with their main play style because buffs that you can get from another player is more better than having or forcing a dps type to become a healer, the guy who does not have a skill and only focus on healing his teammates following their needs while looking like an idiot in the battle field like a clown?

Lol….you understand that people who will play healers most likely do that because they like to play healers, right? You’re making it sound like damage is the ultimate ‘proper’ much envied battlefield role and that the lowly scrubs who are ‘forced’ into healing their companions are somehow subservient to them because they weren’t skilled enough for a damage role. Bwahahahahaha, sorry that’s nonsense. It’s a bit like the people who think that corner stacking and copying a build from internet makes them super skilled players who never mistime an ability and never die, lol. :P

Linken.6345:

Monk Tank.5897:

There is no grind in GW2.

correction there is no required grind only optional

correction there is grind, but it’s just well disguised, when all but one of the options are terrible

Halan.7931:

It may be amazing, but it’s not what I expected. Those shoulders with animals and staff created some expectations about either plant-magic (like Entangle), or some animal forms/aspects/claw kits, but not about being a shiny transparent fairy. My ranger is Norn female, but now I’m thinking maybe I should make a sylvari… but I have a sylvari guardian.

Since I’ve done my share of healing in another game, I’m not opposed to healing, only to visual theme. At least it’s not clicking on green rectangles.

The leaked trait that referenced Aspects makes me think they ended up redoing the whole thing at the last moment and went with what fit the heal spam theme.

The shoulder pads and tree staff definitely do not match the celestial theme.

Okay, guys. I see your point of view.
Despite of our different imagination of what natural spells are (I still think that Solar\Lunar spells are kinda astral spells :P) all I want is possibility to damage in Celestial form. You know, I’ve been playing Ranger from the very beginning and I’d like to see another damage skills since I play most of the time alone. I would realy appreciate that my Ranger would get another skill set with another weapon and visuals just to do story\exploring alone. Why do I want to damage in Celestial form? Because I don’t want to just pass through such cool spell (despite even that it not meets my expectations of more natural tree-leafy-spirit-whatever form). Since my druid have it why can’t I just use it to dps to?
Make it just a li’l bit more powerfull than staff. I’m OK with that I won’t play as DPS in Raids as druid. But I’m think that it’s unfair to take our opportunity to deal damage in Celestial form.
It’s like to have a big candy but you HAVE to eat it with wrapper

Aomine.5012:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Aomine.5012:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Aomine.5012:

I’ll add some more info that people fail to see.

They fail to recognize Druid provides no might, no fury, no quickness, no stability, no protection, no Aegis, boons that any other heal classes have good access to that actually makes a difference.

They’d soon realize this truth and shaft Druid away and pick on another Ele which do everything Druid can do (heal, CC), while doing even more damage and provide all the useful boons I listed above. (Oh, they probably will bring another Mesmer too because it provides unique offensive buffs)

Keep up the delusion folks. Druid will probably be good only in PVP and WvW. (condition bulky druid probably)

’

Druid is essentially the water ele x 10, how many of those boons do you see Ele pumping out using water?

Ranger does those boons (except might) very easily and can perma all of them (except quickness and stability) on a party, so combined with the healing, its quite good.

Yeah, except might, quickness, protection, stability, Aegis…

Oh wait! That’s like 80% of the important boons!

I’m talking about the party-wide support, not the selfish one which every classes can do.

Ranger can maintain Protection on the party and 50% uptime of stability.

So, you’ll have a PS warrior for Might. Ranger can then bring perma Regeneration, Swiftness, Fury and Protection with a 50% uptime on Vigor and Stability. Guard will fill out the Stability for crucial times with Aegis and Blind too. Mesmer will be there for Quickness. What’s the issue?

Umm, what build gives the whole party perma Protection as a ranger?
Don’t tell me stone spirit because that uptime and trigger method is horrid as a protection source.

Also, what gives the “PARTY” 50% stability up time as a ranger?

One more thing, ranger sacrifices a great deal of damage for perma swiftnes/ regen.

PS Warrior, Ele, and Guardian sacrifices nothing for all their might/ fury/ quickness/ protection/ aegis.

Honestly pointless in discussing it further with you, won’t matter that it is indeed possible, since you’ll just say that the method used to make it so is horrible, in your own opinion. War gives up arms for tactics, Ele is nerfed in all the areas it was brought for and guard has to make DPS sacrifices with utility skills, runes and traits for the most Aegis. If you don’t like it, don’t play it, go play one of the others, while the rest of us enjoy Druid and providing boon support as well as bulk heals and decent damage. But yeah, anyway, Support Druid with perma Swiftness, Regen, 4 Might, Fury + Spotter, Protection, 60% uptime of Vigor and 60% uptime of party wide stability, its truly only 30% because of the CD, but you don’t need it unless its a hard boss, which you would be saving it for. And that is just with core Ranger stuff, then you add in Staff, CAF and more condi removals and heals (passive will be near 1k per second) and it starts looking like it almost covers everything.

DeathPanel.8362:

Main problem with a spec like druid that focuses on heal utility is the only time it’s effective is when people play badly or if mobs have hard/impossible to dodge attacks. Either way it doesn’t promote good play or fun. There are some usefulness in mass organized wvw battles but in pve it’s core design is flawed.

The other problem I can see is that the abilities lock you into a certain build type, which is one centered around healing power. So aside from being a heal bot for your wvw zerg train while putting off some minimal conditions there’s really no other effective way to build a druid.

You are just looking at it the wrong way and your eyes are not open yet, look at the Mad Seed build on the 1st page or the Remorseless Druid build I posted, its on the 2nd page.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Oh yes, Predators Onslaught. Except, everything that goes great with that trait. Literally every ranger weapon can trigger that trait. Not to mention most pets have snares plus CC as well and lets not forget all the utilities that also cripple, CC and chill.

Are you slow? Ancient Seeds is a trait not a skill. That and you can easily stack them or replace one effect (either trait, pet or skill activation) to utilize such effects not to mention it goes the other way too (many skills would trigger Ancient Seeds thus continuing to trigger other effects).

Nova Stiker.8396:

Grace of the Land + Bark Skin/Loud Whistle? LOL how do those even go great together? You got a condition duration reduction and health thresholds. It’s good because tanky? Er, what is you are pure zerker?

So every build has to 100% be aimed at pure zerk? You’ve got 4 other trait lines for that! But even then, Bark Skin lowers physical damage of pets while above 90% while Loud Whistle improves pet damage while above 90%, Grace of the Land just covers the condition damage side not to mention you can start cleansing and heal your pet with Celestial form. It synergizes with a Beastmaster build.

Lets look at Tempest shall we?

• Element Bastion – Auras you apply heal allies. Apply a frost aura to yourself and nearby allies when struck while below the health threshold.

Works great with:

• Unstable Conduit – Overloading an attunement grants an aura based on the element you’re attuned to when the ability is completed.
• Powerful Aura – When you apply an aura to yourself, grant that aura to all nearby allies as well.
• Soothing Ice – Gain regeneration and frost aura when critically hit.
• Elemental Shielding – Gain protection when applying an aura to yourself or an ally.
• Tempest Defense – Surround yourself with a Shocking Aura when disabled
• Conjurer – Gain fire aura when an ally picks up a conjured weapon.
• Sunspot – Inflict damage at your location when you attune to fire and gain a fire aura.
• One with Fire – Fire auras you apply last longer and grant might when applied.
• Zephyr’s Boon – Auras grant fury and swiftness when applied.

Have you even played Tempest? The only real synergy Elemental Bastion has is with a heal build and isn’t supplemented with Overload Water since you’ll be healing less by swapping from water. Powerful Auras doesn’t work properly with the various skills and abilities and practically all the other stuff is just “apply this boon when applying an aura” which is painful to sacrifice a trait for a short-lasting boon.

BUT I DON’T WANNA USE AURAS AS A TEMPEST!
No problem! Lets focus on those overcharges! Going for a glassy, damaging Tempest.

• Lucid Singularity – Remove and gain massive resistance to movement-impeding conditions while overloading your attunements.

Goes great with:

• Harmonious Conduit – Recharge from overloading an attunement is reduced
• Elemental Enchantment – Boon duration is increased, and attunements recharge faster.
• Fresh Air – Recharge air attunement on a critical hit.
• Stone Heart – You cannot be critically hit while attuned to earth.
• Pyromancer’s Puissance – Each skill you use while attuned to fire grants you might.

Hmm, I don’t believe you know what the word synergy even means…