Guild Wars 2

Ok guys, lets keep this civil, orderly and above all else, constructive. That is not to say must be positive, but be objective with your criticism if it is negative. We have precious little time to address any issues we see. I’ll maintain the thread and make sure all the good stuff ends up on the 1st page. Enjoy, good times ahead Rangers Druids.

Oh yeah, and thanks goes out to Irenio for his hard work leading the dev team on Druid and everyone else involved with development, cheers to you!

I updated this post with all the skill/trait feedback in the thread and will continue to do so.

Concerning the synergy with pets issue, Cultivated Synergy opens up some interesting potential for “proxy” healing, especially is you’re going with the classic “pet tanks, I pewpew” approach.

Edit: I agree that Glyph of Rejuvenation could use some love to make it stand out from the other healing skills, especially Healing Spring and the buffed WHAO. Remember that we don’t know what stats, if any, he was using during the demonstration on the livestream, so I’m still taking a “wait and see” approach for now.

I agree with the need for at least one more blast finisher. Although the wiki says Lunar Impact is actually a blast finisher, which I wasn’t aware of. Not sure if they mentioned it on the stream either, I’ll have to rewatch.

Since pets count as allies (at least he stated that in the stream, no?) there’s actually some pretty good synergy between druid and pet since alot of the traits seem to factor in allies

Hepatolith.6389:

Since pets count as allies (at least he stated that in the stream, no?) there’s actually some pretty good synergy between druid and pet since alot of the traits seem to factor in allies

With a group, though, the pet gets nothing.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Hepatolith.6389:

Since pets count as allies (at least he stated that in the stream, no?) there’s actually some pretty good synergy between druid and pet since alot of the traits seem to factor in allies

With a group, though, the pet gets nothing.

well, yeah nothing especially dedicaded to pets that’s true, they’ll probably add some to the skills they want to address.
Oh and Wyvern’s AA seems veeeery slow which will make it even harder for them to hit moving targets… i mean it basically roots iself for 1+ second because AA are 2 strikes

I agree entirely with your ideas, Heimskarl tho I’d suggest that Solar beam needs to be changed a bit more dramatically. It’s appearence looks like some kind of Mesmer laser-beam. It could do with being sort of white-yellow and thicker, like you know sun-light or something. It could do with something in addition to your cripple. Right now a single repeating beam is pretty boring. Maybe it should have a slower pre-cast but heavier damage, like it’s charging up. Healing remains about the same. Maybe Burn instead of Cripple.

I also see another problem which seems to be amjor issue with Irenio, he really seems to hate stun-breakers. There doesn’t seem to be one on any of his utilities, druid or scrapper. Though someone said there was one on a celestial form glyph, but that’s an entirely unreliable place for a stun-break.

Glyph of tides I would suggest for a stun-break. I’m really not convinced about it’s celestial version though. A group-pull in “oh-noes!” healer mode? That doesn’t sound wise or useful.

also, not to be a jerk but celstial form should be completely reinvented and made into something that makes sense. Something to do with druids perhaps, like oak-heart form. Also I’ think hitting Death-shr..sorry celestial should remove the pet. If we’re ina psotion where we really need to heal a team, then 1 of two things will happen
1. the pet will steal a heal that was meant for a player and the player will die, out of our control
2. Players will take up the alloted heal limit and the pet will die, having no tactical control or active defences.

If not removal of pet in this form then it should be made invulnerable to AoE or something. Maybe just remove the pet as a target for receiving boons and healing alltogether, and have it automatically share boons and healing with the player in Cele form.

A question a lot of us have is “how does a druid get credit for anything?” I think the next elite spec may be “become a WvW scout and get absolutely nothing for 6 hours of play.”

Presumably mobs in raids are going to drop zero loot, as that seems to be the trend of the living story. So the druid would get the end chest and that’s all anybody gets. If that’s not true, and bosses or mobs drop loot, druids are hosed.

How do druids get anything in WvW?

Open world PvE is clearly a no-go for druids, it’s not even possible.

Good stuff, hope they don’t merge this one.

I wonder if they have the technology to “ground tether” for solar beam. So you could put the beam ground targeted and it would damage enemies and heal allies that it passes through. That could help with the damaging aspect. Or it could just be piercing. :P

Going to repost my critique then so it doesn’t get hidden away by the attempt do away with the other thread:

I have mixed feelings. To be honest when I heard our spec was called “druid” I was kind of expecting it to be very heal oriented, so this did not surprise me at all. However, It’s kind of disappointing. No improved AoE, no strong dps support except for that one glyph with the 10% buff. Druid as it is would not be very useful in the current state of PVE. However, Anet seems to keep saying HoT is going to change things up. So I suppose we can’t really judge the druid until the actual expansion is out. It could be very interesting. I mean I used to be a feral/resto druid in WoW so having a role doing some healing support would be nice. It’s definitely worth trying. But it’s also something I wouldn’t want to do all the time. Sometimes I just like dps.

I am concerned with the total lack of synergy of the druid traitline with the rest of the core ranger. There are no damage modifiers or anything that would help buff damage much. Many of the other elite specs allow you to spec into the elite spec and still maintain some of your playstyle. For instance, you can still be a death shroud focused reaper if you want. Or you can still be a shatter based chronomancer or a phantasm based chrono. There are things in the elite spec lines that are still useful for those playstyles. That’s just not true of the ranger. If I want to be a sword/axe power ranger or a remorseless greatsword ranger or a sinister axe/torch ranger in pve there is literally nothing for me to really take in the druid traitline. I suppose I just won’t take druid at all if I want to be full dps. The problem with that is the core profession has many problems still.

It just feels like you would only ever take druid if you wanted to be heal support in pve. Or for pvp, the spec does seem like it might have some nice things for wvw and spvp.
However, Irenio did say that he was watching the forums and was aware of a lot of issues we’re having with base class.

Well that balance stream happened and there are still many issues with the core profession. I’m happy about the pets getting condi stats, that’s great. But it’s not quite enough. Hopefully he just ran out of time and there’s a lot more.

Hepatolith.6389:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Hepatolith.6389:

Since pets count as allies (at least he stated that in the stream, no?) there’s actually some pretty good synergy between druid and pet since alot of the traits seem to factor in allies

With a group, though, the pet gets nothing.

well, yeah nothing especially dedicaded to pets that’s true, they’ll probably add some to the skills they want to address.
Oh and Wyvern’s AA seems veeeery slow which will make it even harder for them to hit moving targets… i mean it basically roots iself for 1+ second because AA are 2 strikes

I think what Heimskarl meant was that in a group pets get literally nothing. Group healing and boon sharing is capped at 5, sometimes less. This number includes the caster. In the sort of situation where you would need to heal up your party, your pet would get nothing since players are typically prioritised over Ai in boon/heal sharing. Added to their fraility, lack of active defences etc. you’re looking at perma-dead pets. All the talk of cele form not having damage becasue pet, is a bit of a red-herring, since the pet can’t attack when it’s down. When you need it most, it will be toast.

I could be wrong tho and he was making a different point.

I made a thread with concerns on some of the new pets. I highly recommend these points make the list. The pets look amazing, but stat, tooltip, and footage analysis has me worried that they might end up being cool to look at rather than useful.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-Pet-Concerns/first#post5531188

I have strong feeling that Natural Mender minor, even if it sounds cool, will be re-worked into standard 15% outgoing healing increase minor. Or the duration of each stack will be increased to 8-10s.

I’m curious about Glyph of Unity range. Like I know you will have to be within 300 range when the skill is cast, but if you move outside of that range is the tether broken? Also somewhat related, I think this skill could be funny in general to mess with if you were to say just 1v30 a Zerg, swoop in cast GoU and SoS and just watch 5 guys get downed for top lels m8.

Edit: also One suggestion I have for Lingering Light is to change the functionality as I don’t think it will be too competitive with the other two gms at first glance. Something like “Generate AF quicker and degenerate AF slower while in CAF”.

Some of the Glyphs could definitely use something extra, perhaps a blast finisher. Glyph of empowerment seems bad and the knockback one does have quite a long CD.
But one has to consider the Glyph trait which does make them quite a bit more potent with the AoE heal and condition cleanse.

I think that Glyph of Empowerment is the number one candidate for an upward tweak.

I also think that there should be more synergy towards the pet overall.

Than you @Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 for bringing order.

I think glyphs should have somthing more especially while in celec form. We have very underwheling effects like stun with 40 sec CD? giving healing power buffs to allies? I dont think it will cust it. Also, all the celec weapon abilities are heals, so having our utilities as heals whle in celec form feels like a waste of resources.

I agree that Glyph of Empowerment needs a boost. I’d suggest an increase in damage to 20%, as well as affecting condition damage. Perhaps increase the duration slightly to 8 seconds but also increase the cooldown to 30 or 40.

That way it feels much more satisfying when you pop it and you can clearly and immediately see a burst from your team. 10% just isn’t enough.

Going to copy/paste my “repsonses to the most common complaints” thread in here since it was merged into the abyss with the rest of my threads. There may or may not be a place for this in a FAQs section in your thread but I’ll leave that to your discretion OP.

Just to address a few of the most common complaints:

1. “Druid is pure healing but provides no other buffs to help the zerka meta!! We’re still not going to be wanted! It’s creating a healing meta!”

Irenio and Rubi specifically discussed at the end of the Druid reveal that HoT will be moving the game away from the zerker cancer-meta starting via its PvE and Raids content design. Full zerker parties as they are today will not survive in the new content without some kind of, at least semi-dedicated, heal/support profession. This is the role that a staff Druid will fill if they choose. Therefore, set-ups that just serve to buff the current zerker meta will be redundant.

As for the “healing meta” complaint… Just because healing elements may be required in new group content, it does not mean that everyone is suddenly going to be a healer. We will still need 90% DPS-focussed team members to actually get us through the content, but they will now need that new, higher level of support the Druid can offer. You can’t have a party full of healing Druids in group content because nothing will get finished!

On an additional note, Irenio mentioned throughout the Druid reveal that many of the skills are still under review and might be beefed-out with additional capabilities, or have their current abilities diversified.

2. “Druid does nothing to buff our core mechanic, the pet!”

Simply put, the pet is not the core mechanic of the Druid. Astral Avatar form is. The Druid design is at no obligation to improve the pet mechanic, though they have added some amazing new pets in the process with some interesting new capabilities. The pet improvement concern is to be discussed for Rangers. That’s not to say that pets don’t need their improvements however, because they really, really do.

3. “I don’t want to be a healer!”

Then don’t. Taking the Druid traitline does not force you into being a dedicated healer. Read people’s new build and theory-crafting threads – the Druid traitline opens up entirely new sustain and dynamic potential for existing builds, and also creates niches for new builds that improve upon existing ones – the trapper for example. You also do not have to wield a staff to be a Druid.

4. “It’s not nature-themed!”

It couldn’t be more nature-themed. Celestial (i.e. of planetary bodies – of which the Earth itself is one remember), heavens, spirits, influence on nature of the earth – it’s all interlinked thematically. It brings a brilliant, unique flavour to a nature-themed profession and it looks good too. One might argue that the magic nature (since Druid here is a magic spellcaster) of the astral lore is more fitting than the plant-and-soil stuff.

One valid complaint:

“What about event credit?”

This is something that will need looking into. As it stands, the loot from events is poorly distributed even without dedicated healers running around the place. Everyone is too focussed on tagging enough enemies, particularly champs, to get as much of the loot as possible. It entirely detracts from the fun of the game. The loot should all be collated in one large chest in one area at the end of each event. That way the event can be spread over larger areas and a huge zerg won’t have to run around tagging everything together. People might actually form tactics…

Quite honestly, the QoEmp should be a 20% damage boost and a 20% reduced damage taken in its inverted form.

Ltomato.8649:

I agree that Glyph of Empowerment needs a boost. I’d suggest an increase in damage to 20%, as well as affecting condition damage. Perhaps increase the duration slightly to 8 seconds but also increase the cooldown to 30 or 40.

That way it feels much more satisfying when you pop it and you can clearly and immediately see a burst from your team. 10% just isn’t enough.

Agreed, when I saw the 10% I thought “awww what?”, then I put my “what about balance?” head on, and having done both have come to the conclusion that a 20-25% boost would be more reasonable – entirely subjective of course

Chokolata.1870:

Quite honestly, the QoEmp should be a 20% damage boost and a 20% reduced damage taken in its inverted form.

+1 great idea.
15 char

I am definitely worried the cele avatar become the tome of courage 2.0
Long cooldown because you have to build up the astral energy bar, only healing skills that will not tag any reward and quick burn down for what i saw in the preview.

The cele Avatar need more ways to spread damage and the form should last longer.
Or at least being able to cast it before the bar is full, that by the article in this site is goig to be case.

Turning ancestral grace into a 1,2k range targeted teleport with a decent heal attached and a low cd would make that skill incredibly overpowered, keep in mind ranger is balanced around not having teleports.
At highest the skill should get some evade frames, we will have to see how it works out during the next beta weekend, but as of now the skill seems actually okay.

Lastly I am all for adding a stunbreaker to atleast one of the glyphs, preferably glyph of tides since it looks the most interesting to me and I want to be able to play without slotting atleast 2 survival skills now that rangers can get quite a good amount of condi cleanses without them.

Just wondering, for those saying Druid will get no open world credit….why not use weapon swap? Every thread and concern I read seems to be neglecting weapon swapping away from staff to something else.

As someone mentioned in another thread there is a lot of synergy to be had with some of our other weapons and the Druid line (Ancient Seeds + SB for instance).

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

General thoughts

hide spoiler

• Love the throw back skill and trait names!
• The new pets look just amazing.
• Does not seem to be a lot of synergy with the other Ranger trait lines, there is some there when you look for it, but not many stand outs.
• No aspect has any synergy whatsoever with pets. This very much needs to be addressed.

Staff skills

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Solar Beam

• Great that it is not a projectile. Could have a short cripple on it.

Astral Wisp

• This could really benefit with something that interacts with the pet, “Pet attacks against this foe deal 10% more damage”. Or _"Pet attacks against this foe apply Poison for 2s".

Ancestral Grace

• Would be better as a straight up teleport or if invulnerable during the travel time.

Vine Surge

• May be quite difficult to actually use tactically.

Sublime Conversion

• Looks excellent. Could this possibly be a Light field so that the projectiles actually combo and give regeneration?

Glyphs

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General

• Glyphs could really do with more utility such as boons, stun breaks or blast finishers.
• Range possibly a bit small.

Glyph of Rejuvenation

• Could do with a boon
• Could do with more healing, its quite low when compared to Ranger’s other heals. Although with all the other healing, some other utility could be better, like Resistance or Breaking Stun and removing conditions.

Glyph of Alignment

• Cripple duration too short

Glyph of Equality

• Possibly shave a few seconds off the CD? See Mantra of Distraction/Power lock

Glyph of Tides

• Looks solid, but has potential to be a troll. Possibly change the Knockback to a launch for Ancient Seed synergy. Good CD and damage.

Glyph of Empowerment

• Perhaps a bit too short a duration for the CD. Without the trait it is only 2.5% party damage increase. Perhaps party-wide Quickness would be good on this, or increase the damage.

Glyph of Unity

Celestial Transform

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General

• The skills look nice, but there are no boons whatsoever and very little damage, I’d suggest adding at least some minor AoE damage so people can get credit for tagging in PvE. Probably the most important change that could happen is to add damage to the CAF skills, purely for PvE and for triggering sigils and on-hit effects.

Cosmic Ray

• Difficult to use a ground targeted skill as an AA and remain mobile. Ask engineers about Grenade kit carpal tunnel.

Seed of Life

Lunar Impact

Tidal Surge

Natural Convergence

• IF this skill is a root channel, does it have to be?

Traits

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Celestial Being

• Astral Force on damage perhaps too low, can’t be sure as yet. Perfect place to add pet synergy, make pet damage also add to the Astral Force.

Live Vicariously

• Possibly apply this heal to the pet as well, help solve some of its survivability issues.

Natural Mender

• Possibly too difficult to maintain the buff while not in a large group. Could also benefit to swap this trait with Natural Stride so that healing Druid is not the only effective way to play it, if you are not rolling with a group or doing lots of healing it is a wasted trait, whereas Natural Stride in its place would be of massive benefit. See Time Marches On from Mesmer.

Druidic Clarity

• looks very solid

Cultivated Synergy

• Possibly add a boon to this trait as Druid has none, short Resistance maybe? Even a Random boon for 10s would be amazing.

Primal Echoes

Celestial Shadow
Provide the buff to the Druid on entering CAF and on both Druid and allies on exit. Or split it to Stealth on entry and Super speed on exit for both druid and allies. Or perhaps just increase the duration.

Verdant Etching

Natural Stride

Grace of the Land

Lingering Light

Ancient Seeds

• Could be made to work with Knocked back foes for synergy with PBS/Counterattack, although glyph of the tides may be OP then?

Druid FAQ

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• Will CAF skills work with Quick Draw?
• Can Druid generate Astral Force while in CAF like you can generate life force in DS?
• How long does CAF last for and under what conditions does it drop?

New pet FAQ

hide spoiler

I completely agree with you, especially about the part of Astral Gace staff skill that needs to be invulnerable, I mean whats the point it if you can be CC’ed and knocked back during the skill. Also, about Ancient Seeds trait – doesnt it already work with knocked back foes?. And Just a few extra notes:

First of all, most, if not all, of the radius of the traits and some of the staff skills (and even Glyhps as you already mentioned) are really low. This mens people need to stack up together – which in most scenarios is not possible. I suggest the radius should be higher, according to tests during the next BWE.

Moreover, I suggest adding maybe Pierce option to the staff skills (basically to the 1# staff skill that it will work with – Solar Beam). Since it will work only with 1 skill I dont think its OP , and if it is then this option can be added to a specific trait, maybe Primal Echoes.

I hope Irenio will listen to the feedback and tips in this thread (I have great hope he will since he listned to us so far).

Currently I am kind of at odds with one thing only: Healing feeding the celestial gauge faster than damage does. On the surface it seems like your healing is being rewarded with more healing. IDK, it seems weird to me, but I do want to actually see how it plays out in battle before I say whether its ok or not.

I like Glyph of Empowerment.

It seems like it’s being sincere in the way it engages your timing and position-based skills. You can actually be good at using this, and meaningfully distinguish yourself from other people using it based on how well you play.

But I get where you guys are coming from.
It seems like no matter how much I agree with this on a gameplay level, on the impact-I’m-having level I always end up thinking of Banners. They’ve sort of taken up root in my mind as the measuring stick of “how much you can get in return for not really applying yourself at all”. So things like this that are – rightly – promoting skillful play, end up feeling under-tuned in comparison.

And honestly, that’s a real shame.

Ofir.2405:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

General thoughts

hide spoiler

• Love the throw back skill and trait names!
• The new pets look just amazing.
• Does not seem to be a lot of synergy with the other Ranger trait lines, there is some there when you look for it, but not many stand outs.
• No aspect has any synergy whatsoever with pets. This very much needs to be addressed.

Staff skills

hide spoiler

Solar Beam

• Great that it is not a projectile. Could have a short cripple on it.

Astral Wisp

• This could really benefit with something that interacts with the pet, “Pet attacks against this foe deal 10% more damage”. Or _"Pet attacks against this foe apply Poison for 2s".

Ancestral Grace

• Would be better as a straight up teleport or if invulnerable during the travel time.

Vine Surge

• May be quite difficult to actually use tactically.

Sublime Conversion

• Looks excellent. Could this possibly be a Light field so that the projectiles actually combo and give regeneration?

Glyphs

hide spoiler

General

• Glyphs could really do with more utility such as boons, stun breaks or blast finishers.
• Range possibly a bit small.

Glyph of Rejuvenation

• Could do with a boon
• Could do with more healing, its quite low when compared to Ranger’s other heals. Although with all the other healing, some other utility could be better, like Resistance or Breaking Stun and removing conditions.

Glyph of Alignment

• Cripple duration too short

Glyph of Equality

• Possibly shave a few seconds off the CD? See Mantra of Distraction/Power lock

Glyph of Tides

• Looks solid, but has potential to be a troll. Possibly change the Knockback to a launch for Ancient Seed synergy. Good CD and damage.

Glyph of Empowerment

• Perhaps a bit too short a duration for the CD. Without the trait it is only 2.5% party damage increase. Perhaps party-wide Quickness would be good on this, or increase the damage.

Glyph of Unity

Celestial Transform

hide spoiler

General

• The skills look nice, but there are no boons whatsoever and very little damage, I’d suggest adding at least some minor AoE damage so people can get credit for tagging in PvE. Probably the most important change that could happen is to add damage to the CAF skills, purely for PvE and for triggering sigils and on-hit effects.

Cosmic Ray

• Difficult to use a ground targeted skill as an AA and remain mobile. Ask engineers about Grenade kit carpal tunnel.

Seed of Life

Lunar Impact

Tidal Surge

Natural Convergence

• IF this skill is a root channel, does it have to be?

Traits

hide spoiler

Celestial Being

• Astral Force on damage perhaps too low, can’t be sure as yet. Perfect place to add pet synergy, make pet damage also add to the Astral Force.

Live Vicariously

• Possibly apply this heal to the pet as well, help solve some of its survivability issues.

Natural Mender

• Possibly too difficult to maintain the buff while not in a large group. Could also benefit to swap this trait with Natural Stride so that healing Druid is not the only effective way to play it, if you are not rolling with a group or doing lots of healing it is a wasted trait, whereas Natural Stride in its place would be of massive benefit. See Time Marches On from Mesmer.

Druidic Clarity

• looks very solid

Cultivated Synergy

• Possibly add a boon to this trait as Druid has none, short Resistance maybe? Even a Random boon for 10s would be amazing.

Primal Echoes

Celestial Shadow
Provide the buff to the Druid on entering CAF and on both Druid and allies on exit. Or split it to Stealth on entry and Super speed on exit for both druid and allies. Or perhaps just increase the duration.

Verdant Etching

Natural Stride

Grace of the Land

Lingering Light

Ancient Seeds

• Could be made to work with Knocked back foes for synergy with PBS/Counterattack, although glyph of the tides may be OP then?

Druid FAQ

hide spoiler

• Will CAF skills work with Quick Draw?
• Can Druid generate Astral Force while in CAF like you can generate life force in DS?
• How long does CAF last for and under what conditions does it drop?

New pet FAQ

hide spoiler

I Completely agree with you, especially about the part of Astral Gace staff skill that needs to be invulnerable, I mean whats the point it if you can be CC’ed and knocked back during the skill. Also, about Ancient Seeds trait – doesnt it already work with knocked back foes?. And Just a few extra notes:

First of all, most, if not all, of the radius of the traits and some of the staff skills (and even Glyhps as you already mentioned) are really low. This mens people need to stack up together – which in most scenarios is not possible. I suggest the radius should be higher, according to tests during the next BWE.

Moreover, I suggest adding maybe Pierce option to the staff skills (basically to the 1# staff skill that it will work with – Solar Beam). Since it will work only with 1 skill I dont think its OP , and if it is then this option can be added to a specific trait, maybe Primal Echoes.

I hope Irenio will listen to the feedback and tips in this thread (I have great hope he will since he listned to us so far).

I think the laser beam do pirce up to 3 targets, but perheps the 3 targets is apllied for the heal only.

Irenio said something about adding an additional effect to seeds of life. I am thinking Stability would be ideal

0. Fix spirits to be viable (survivable) in raids and wvw. Actually addressing their survivability and mobility issues would do as much for the class as the entire Druid specialization.

1. Give us some flexibility with staff: 2,3,4 should do moderate damage. Healing is a good role but it should not be the only role. We don’t want to make ourselves a 1 trick pony with this weapon. There should be more to the staff than healing people.

2. Theme. Differentiate colors between normal Druid and SpaceJam mode. The spells and effects outside of SpaceJam could look way more warm / natural (staff auto looks really out of place), and the blue stuff could be special for the transform. Staff is one of the weapons with zero Animal animations and thats a bit of a thematic letdown too (Eagle and Bear on GS, bees and snakes on sword, wolves and birds on horn).

3. Glyphs look really weak. AoE Daze is redundant with AoE knockback. The 300 radius on glyph of rejuve and equality is absolutely laughably small. Glyph of empowerment is an exact clone of frost spirit: theyre both going to give you a 10% boost for a few seconds (by then frost spirit is dead), thats not exciting. Elite Glyph is really dependent on how its dmg/healing work out. Glyph of Alignment should really apply some damaging conditions to help see at least 1 Glyphs in condition builds.

4. Celestial Avatar: Too much one-trick-pony. We have a spam heal on auto-attack, maybe we can drop healing on some other skills to get things like a RESISTANCE, a movement skill, a block, a burst skill of some type. Any type of support, utility or damage that makes this more than just “every single button is a heal”

5. Traits: Duration and radius of Celestial Shadow is way too low to ever justify over the other strong traits in the middle. Otherwise traits look strong. Wish they had more boons like Resistance or Prot, but theyre not awful.

Bryzy.2719:

2. “Druid does nothing to buff our core mechanic, the pet!”

Simply put, the pet is not the core mechanic of the Druid. Astral Avatar form is. The Druid design is at no obligation to improve the pet mechanic, though they have added some amazing new pets in the process with some interesting new capabilities. The pet improvement concern is to be discussed for Rangers. That’s not to say that pets don’t need their improvements however, because they really, really do.

Druids ARE rangers. You can’t get to druid without creating a ranger first. Pets are the Ranger mechanic. Pets are the Druid mechanic. Celestial Avatar is an additional mechanic for druid. It does NOT replace the pet.

Druid looks really interesting, but I am somewhat concerned that it’s too niche as a dedicated “heavy healer.” What applications does this have in open-world PvE, solo play, world bosses, or even the current dungeons?

What I was expecting to see was something like… when you go into Celestial Form, all those healing skills on the staff turn into higher damage/offensive applications, or vice versa.

Bryzy.2719:

Druids are not Rangers. … I’m getting sick of having to explain this to people who don’t listen to the Devs/read properly.

How bout we let people voice their opinions on whatever they want to complain or praise about and not try to argue that their opinion is wrong because of X. The devs need feedback not arguments.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Druid looks really interesting, but I am somewhat concerned that it’s too niche as a dedicated “heavy healer.” What applications does this have in open-world PvE, solo play, world bosses, or even the current dungeons?

This. Druid is too focused on just one thing and seems to have been designed with the idea that they want healers in raids (after we came to this game being told that we won’t need healers) and thats not even unique. What is druid going to provide outside of heals? Why won’t parties just bring a bunch of different classes who can all buff and heal each other and themselves, why would a Druid be needed? Why should it be taken over an ele placing down water feilds then blasting them with all their different blast finishers? Why should druids be pigeonhold into one mode?

Chokolata.1870:

Quite honestly, the QoEmp should be a 20% damage boost and a 20% reduced damage taken in its inverted form.

This is a great idea.

Bryzy.2719:

Mavander.3208:

Bryzy.2719:

2. “Druid does nothing to buff our core mechanic, the pet!”

Simply put, the pet is not the core mechanic of the Druid. Astral Avatar form is. The Druid design is at no obligation to improve the pet mechanic, though they have added some amazing new pets in the process with some interesting new capabilities. The pet improvement concern is to be discussed for Rangers. That’s not to say that pets don’t need their improvements however, because they really, really do.

Druids ARE rangers. You can’t get to druid without creating a ranger first. Pets are the Ranger mechanic. Pets are the Druid mechanic. Celestial Avatar is an additional mechanic for druid. It does NOT replace the pet.

Druids are not Rangers. If they were, the Druid traitline would be added to the profession and we’d still be called Rangers regardless of whether or not we took it. The Devs have repeatedly explained that Elite specialisations are separate professions, and as such have been developed with completely new profession mechanics. The profession mechanic of the Druid is Astral Avatar, NOT THE PET.

You are right in that it does not replace the pet, however the pet becomes a secondary element of the Druid profession whereas for the Ranger it is its profession mechanic and therefore primary element. I’m getting sick of having to explain this to people who don’t listen to the Devs/read properly.

Please stop spewing forth incorrect information. You are wrong. It is not a matter of debate. Pets are the class mechanic of ranger. Druid is an elite specialization of ranger. Its all ranger at the end of the day. Chronomancer is a Mesmer, Berserker is a Warrior, Herald is a Revenant. Druid is a Ranger. Please comprehend that.

Levetty.1279:

Fyrebrand.4859:

Druid looks really interesting, but I am somewhat concerned that it’s too niche as a dedicated “heavy healer.” What applications does this have in open-world PvE, solo play, world bosses, or even the current dungeons?

This. Druid is too focused on just one thing and seems to have been designed with the idea that they want healers in raids (after we came to this game being told that we won’t need healers) and thats not even unique. What is druid going to provide outside of heals? Why won’t parties just bring a bunch of different classes who can all buff and heal each other and themselves, why would a Druid be needed? Why should it be taken over an ele placing down water feilds then blasting them with all their different blast finishers? Why should druids be pigeonhold into one mode?

Chokolata.1870:

Quite honestly, the QoEmp should be a 20% damage boost and a 20% reduced damage taken in its inverted form.

This is a great idea.

Although I’m very pro-H3ALZ, I also feel that the Druid will need additional access to CC and perhaps more condition damage to prevent it from becoming a completely stale state-of-play after a while. I feel this can be both built into the skills themselves (during the reveal, Irenio did say that multiple skills are still under review and may be beefed-out to set them apart from the rest) and also built better into the traits. They’re along the right lines with the dazes etc. but I feel they can build on this more.

Bryzy.2719:

Raven.9603:

Bryzy.2719:

Druids are not Rangers. … I’m getting sick of having to explain this to people who don’t listen to the Devs/read properly.

How bout we let people voice their opinions on whatever they want to complain or praise about and not try to argue that their opinion is wrong because of X. The devs need feedback not arguments.

It’s not opinion, it’s fact! If someone expresses an opinion that I don’t agree with, I’ll explain that I disagree and leave it at that. If someone says something that’s factually wrong (as above) I will explain why they’re wrong using facts.

Arguing what amount to semantics is a detriment to the constructive nature of the thread.

This is derailing fast.

I’m done with it. No getting through to this guy.

I’m done. Not sure how to argue against people unwilling to accept facts.

EDIT: deleted my posts to alleviate the thread clog.

On with the feedback!

Chokolata.1870:

Quite honestly, the QoEmp should be a 20% damage boost and a 20% reduced damage taken in its inverted form.

That sounds like a great idea. Currently I’m just finding the glyphs kind of underwhelming, especially that one. 10% is just ok and the current inverse is rather terrible. The radius of the glyphs is also pretty awful.

I’ve seen a few people mentioning making solar beam pierce, but we’ve already got bows that do that, why not mix it up a little and have it reflect off of targets (like a lazerbeam off mirrors) hitting up to 3?
If it bounces right you could end up getting multiple heals on some people from one attack.

The staff should have a few offensively focused skills rather than all heals, the avatar form being a heal bomb I can understand but I feel like that should be an ace up our sleeve for when it all hits the fan. It would also be nice if the pet changed with us and gained some supportive effect.

Personally I like the theme and animations. It’s refreshing and interesting and not at all the horrible rooted in place slow animation vine user we were all dreading.

Frigoris.7853:

I’ve seen a few people mentioning making solar beam pierce, but we’ve already got bows that do that, why not mix it up a little and have it reflect off of targets (like a lazerbeam off mirrors) hitting up to 3?
If it bounces right you could end up getting multiple heals on some people from one attack.

The staff should have a few offensively focused skills rather than all heals, the avatar form being a heal bomb I can understand but I feel like that should be an ace up our sleeve for when it all hits the fan. It would also be nice if the pet changed with us and gained some supportive effect.

Personally I like the theme and animations. It’s refreshing and interesting and not at all the horrible rooted in place slow animation vine user we were all dreading.

I got the impression from the reveal that Irenio is leaning towards “beefing-out” a number of our skills, particularly the healing ones, perhaps with the intent of adding some kind of CC or additional condi damage. This is needed to diversify the gameplay. I hope we get feedback responses/changes before BWE3 so we have a better ground to start from.

Would it really be fair to give Druid in Celestial form the addition of boons to the skills?

I think its nice that Druid offers pure healing. Why? because the Guardian is boon heavy.
This breaks up the monk profession nicely between Guardian, Druid and Ventari from the Rev.

Perhaps regeneration would make sense. but protection based boons… I think its best left off the druid and let the guardian have its spot light.
It makes sense to me because guardian really doesn’t “heal” very well. they have their own role.

Eric.7813:

Would it really be fair to give Druid in Celestial form the addition of boons to the skills?

I’m asking myself the same thing. Nature Magic is our boon-centric traitline at the moment. Not completely against adding boons to Druid though, but it needs to be selective.

As I see it, Resistance could be a thing for the Druid. Grace of the Land is a step in that direction for mitigating some condition damage. There’s possibly some room to add it in somewhere in the traitline. Just not sure where at the moment.

From what I’ve seen I’m very unhappy with my ranger of all things being transformed into a healer. The Guardian is entirely specialized to be a healer already. This feels like an enormous dodging of making more out of a broken class. I could say the same thing for whatever Dragonhunter is supposed to be doing.

I’m really becoming convinced Anet is too hyped up about having to only deal with 10 skills for this game. It means that when they do these broad-sweeping changes they really have to think about just those 10 factors. 80 total (n largely unused skills). It comes out to a lot of math and a lot work for them even so, but it’s hardly as complicated as games of the past or current generation.

Guild Wars 1 was a better idea when it came to how to do this. If they wanted to make Master Levels work this way they should have made them a secondary profession line where we could still be our primary class type (Mesmer, Ranger, etc), but then choose to swing into Druid, Dragonhunter, Daredevil or the rest as our secondary. Mastery Points would be like Attribute Points where we have 170 to work with and 20 we could put toward different aspects within our class’s traits. So, if you’re a guardian you might go 12 consecration, 6 meditation and Ranger 6 Signets. I get where they’re trying to take us, but so far I feel like this is the Oregon Trail; I’m not sure if my character’s going to be cannibalized during the night while I’m asleep.

Bryzy.2719:

Ltomato.8649:

I agree that Glyph of Empowerment needs a boost. I’d suggest an increase in damage to 20%, as well as affecting condition damage. Perhaps increase the duration slightly to 8 seconds but also increase the cooldown to 30 or 40.

That way it feels much more satisfying when you pop it and you can clearly and immediately see a burst from your team. 10% just isn’t enough.

Agreed, when I saw the 10% I thought “awww what?”, then I put my “what about balance?” head on, and having done both have come to the conclusion that a 20-25% boost would be more reasonable – entirely subjective of course

this is why most of the things written in this very thread so far cannot and will not be taken seriously. you guys are being silly. 20-25% damage boost on 5 players? do you have any idea how OP that is? 10% is great and makes a huge difference for a group’s damage output. there are glyphs in a much worse shape.

OLD STUFF (most of my concerns)

- spirits wont see any play whatsoever. they are useless, their boons are unimportant, their actives don’t make a difference, and they die in 2 hits in pvp. you guys need to do something about spirits…like, now. they’ve been useless for too long. just turn them into invulnerable wisps that orbit the player. the ranger can ground target and use up a wisp to create a field actively. passively, wisps can imbue weapons with different effects. some wisp actives should cleanse condies or stunbreak. buff Spirit of Nature (keep the big tree theme) by greatly reducing cooldown, OR by greatly increasing its passive and active effects and range.

- there are a few shouts that are not being slotted by anyone…please REVAMP them: Search and Rescue, Sic ‘Em, and possibly guard (not sure how it will work with WHaO). utilities need to: stun break, condi cleanse, reliably increase damage, decrease damage to caster, and/or aoe buff/debuff. currently these 3 shouts don’t do any of these things.

- Muddy terrain is not being slotted by anyone because no one cares about cripple, and the initial immob is not a game-changer. this utility needs to do more. revamp it, buff it, or remove it. similarly, Sharpened Edges is not being slotted because it just doesn’t do much for us.

- weapons. many are bad. please revisit our weapons.
- sword: leave #1 as is, #2 should leave a field of wasps that pulses torment for 3s on first cast, and the second cast should be a piercing skill shot nuke (leap that pierces 3-5 targets and does 5k damage with marauder stats); #3 needs to do poison damage in a cone or aoe.
- warhorn and OH axe: both of these have ONE skill that is entirely useless. Hunter’s Call is terrible. it has no buff, debuff or utility, no condi component, and its power damage is downright PATHETIC; Whirling Defense is complete suicide…no one really cares about projectile reflects first of all, the damage is terrible, it roots us, and it’s just bad. OH axe and WH aren’t used by any good ranger for any reason ever in the world. please have a look at these two offhands, specifically the mentioned skills.

- Shortbow: please don’t make us rely on spamming autoattack. this game punishes AA spam hard, yet this weapon doesn’t offer enough outside of that. retal, reflects, frost aura…all ubiquitous and very punishing. give SB an interesting autoattack chain that is perhaps lower rate of fire, but has greater effect per arrow.

- useless pets: too many to list here. the new pets are cool and useful. there are at least two dozen that don’t see any play because a) they don’t do any damage, and/or b) their f2’s are bad. please have a look.

DRUID

- love the celestial form, as long as we can fill the green bar at a decent rate. we’ll wait and see. overall, great job on the druid…experienced players see the massive potential and synergy. personally i don’t have too many complaints.

- Glyphs: i feel a lot of them are quite underwhelming WITHOUT Verdant Etching. also none of them offer any stability or stun breaking. glyphs need to be solid on their own without traits, which theyre not right now. one of them needs to be a stunbreak, and somehow we need more stability

- Stability: rangers actually have POOR ACCESS to stability. this is mostly because both SotP and SoW have a cast time. one or both of these needs to be instant cast. if you want us to use glyph of unity, then we cant slot SotP. secondly, if stab can’t be used reactively, it is often useless (not always). warriors, eles, guards, reapers, revs, and i think even engies can use stability reactively. alternatively, allow one glyph to give us stab or come up with a trait that will allow glyph use to give stab. think about this.

cheers, hope this helps.

(source: i have about 4k hours on my ranger, all in pvp).

+1 Mistsim (now you put it into the context of 5 players, yeah 25% would be a tad OP :P but I do think if it stays at 10% the duration could be increased slightly by a couple of seconds). Though don’t get too downhearted just yet, during the balance livestream Irenio said that what he revealed there was just a glimpse at what Rangers will be getting on Tuesday. He is also still working on Druid between now and next weekend, so I’m trying to reserve most feedback till after I’ve played it. I think rate of re-fill of the CA bar will certainly be raised as an issue.