Guild Wars 2

I would like to thank Anet for how much work they are putting into these specializations. Most people seem to forget that most game developer’s throw their players’ opinions out of the window and just do what they feel is best for everyone. So thank you Anet (yea there’s some things that need to be fixed, but that comes with time).

Next, I’d like to say that I am highly disappointed some of the ranger community, heck some of the overall GW2 community, for just finding any opportunity to when their expectations aren’t met. NEWS FLASH! You didn’t make this game, you don’t own it, and the dev’s don’t owe you anything. If you can’t appreciate the changes that are happening to your specific class, change classes, and if you don’t like any other class you can just play another game.

I’d like to state that I am not an expert in any of these fields, all it took was for me to go to Google and do some research Yea, its that kittening easy

Now to address the druid:

It seems like most people don’t see the connection between the term “druid” and “celestial”, and other are just angered that the druids is healing oriented. Well, I’m here to tell you all that there is a connection and that the druid being a healer is thematically appropriate.

Let’s start with the definition of “Celestial”:
1. of, relating to, or suggesting heaven or divinity
2. of or relating to the sky or visible heavens <the sun, moon, and starts are celestial>
3. otherworldly, eternal
Example of Celestial: Starts, planets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies
Used in a sentence: The late afternoon sunlight gave the room a celestial glow

In other words, celestial has everything to do with nature. “Nature” itself has nothing to do with JUST plants and animals. Nature is anything that is natural or not man-made. Thus celestial does in fact fit the theme of a natural druid/ranger.

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/celestial

Now, lets go to the history/definition of “Druid”: (there’s different variations but I’ll refer to this general druid concept)
“In ancient times a Druid was a philosopher, teacher, counselor and magician, the word probably meaning ‘A Forest Sage’ or ‘Strong Seer’. In modern times, a Druid is someone who follows Druidry as their chosen spiritual path.”

In other words Druidry is a spiritual following that revolves around nature.

During Druidry training, “you are taught thirteen rituals in addition to the eight Druid seasonal ceremonies. These rituals help to attune you to the natural word, to rhythms of the earth and moon, the sun and stars”

Source: www.druidry.org

Thus Druidry does not only include a connection with Earth’s nature but also celestial nature (stars, sun, moon, other planets, the galaxy).

This is also why having a dps oriented Druid just does not fit. A Druid is a spirtual figure, almost like a priest (sorta). If anyone has ever played other MMORPGs, they will know that a priest is generally a healing/protection based class. As a result, the Druid’s overall healing theme fits perfectly.

Finally, each armor group has a healing based class:
It seems that most people haven’t noticed Anet has given each armor group (heavy, medium, and light armor) a class that specializes in heavy healing, and ranger is the medium healer.

So please don’t post counterproductive topics to this forum. Its hard enough on the devs as it is. They want to hear from us, but only if what we have to say will benefit the overall game/community.

Overall Conclusions (Based on Discussion):
Druids (in game) don’t totally mirror real druids (especially in relation to GW1). Anet has not yet provided an explanation for how the current druids came to be considering the differences between druids in GW1 vs GW2. We just wait for an explanation from HoT (hopefully).

Druid Complaints I Agree With:
1. Druid is TOO healing based where players seem to have no way to avoid going through the healing route.
2. The New specialization seems to ignore our class’s pets. Nothing really connects with the pet.
3. Where does GW1 celestial themes connection with these new Druids?

My though on the druid are pretty negative so I won’t criticize your IRL research on what it mean to be a druid IRL. But honnestly this :

Finally, each armor group has a healing based class:
It seems that most people haven’t noticed Anet has given each armor group (heavy, medium, and light armor) a class that specializes in healing and a class that specializes in support (minor healing and buffs).

Heavy:
Healing Class: Revenant
Support Class: Guardian

Medium:
Healing Class: Ranger (druid)
Support Class: Engineer

Light:
Healing Class: Elementalist
Support Class: Necro/Elementalist

End of Lesson

This show how bad is your understanding of the different profession in game.

Your vision of the Druid applies to the real world druids.

You don’t even know that Druids already have a specific lore from GW1 and that’s what people are referring to when they say the Druid spec shouldn’t be so heavily focused on the ceslestial aspect. Not to mention that all the theme we were expecting to see with the Druid was partly present in the Ranger (not the astral stuff) which would have been a great (and probably the only) way to make a strong link between the profession and its specialization. I am curious to know how you can efficiently explain why Rangers could become Druids through the celestial theme !
Also the astral/celestial theme is already very important in Canthan lore.
Mixing those two things kills both of them at the same time.

Before trying to “educate” people you should make sure that you really know what you’re talking about.

I’d like to add that Druid isn’t even that much ’’Celestial’’ as people like to think. The staff and glyph skills have a lot of connections to natural energies and there are some plant based skills too (these tie to the Druid channeling the powers of the jungle). Even in the Celestial form there are only 3 celestial skills.

I find it fitting that the Druid uses plants and natural energies for basic skills, and when you enter the Celestial form, the energies are more cosmic as the Druid is channeling the natural energies on a larger scale to gain more power.

Also in the stream, Irenio said they are trying different things on the Blossom and Surging Tides to add a damaging support component, so the Celestial form most likely won’t be heal, heal, heal, heal… when HoT launches.

P.S. I’d put Mesmer as Support Class of the light armor

can I get a certificate of authenticity on your sources and prove that they actually have documented evidence that they have historical accuracy on their claims

Dadnir.5038:

This show how bad is your understanding of the different profession in game.

Please elaborate?
While I understand that all classes provide some sort of support, others do it better than another. I’m assuming you don’t like the order in which I placed things, but regardless of that each armor class does have a class that can focus on heavy healing.

idontnoso.9850:

I would like to thank Anet for how much work they are putting into these specializations. Most people seem to forget that most game developer’s throw their players’ opinions out of the window and just do what they feel is best for everyone. So thank you Anet (yea there’s some things that need to be fixed, but that comes with time).

Next, I’d like to say that I am highly disappointed some of the ranger community, heck some of the overall GW2 community, for just finding any opportunity to QQ when their expectations aren’t met. NEWS FLASH! You didn’t make this game, you don’t own it, and the dev’s don’t owe you anything. If you can’t appreciate the changes that are happening to your specific class, change classes, and if you don’t like any other class you can just play another game. There are plenty of open minded players to keep the community going, plus we don’t need any more negativity in these forums. Unless your posts are constructive, please refrain for adding any more BS to the long trail of poo that is the ranger forum.

I can’t fight stupidity with more stupidity, so it’s time to educate you people about what is going down with the druid. (I’d like to state that I am not an expert in any of these fields, all it took was for me to go to Google and do some research) Yea, its that kittening easy

Now to address the druid:

It seems like most people don’t see the connection between the term “druid” and “celestial”, and other are just angered that the druids is healing oriented. Well, I’m here to tell you all that there is a connection and that the druid being a healer is thematically appropriate.

Let’s start with the definition of “Celestial”:
1. of, relating to, or suggesting heaven or divinity
2. of or relating to the sky or visible heavens <the sun, moon, and starts are celestial>
3. otherworldly, eternal
Example of Celestial: Starts, planets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies
Used in a sentence: The late afternoon sunlight gave the room a celestial glow

In other words, celestial has everything to do with nature. “Nature” itself has nothing to do with JUST plants and animals. Nature is anything that is natural or not man-made. Thus celestial does in fact fit the theme of a natural druid/ranger.

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/celestial

Now, lets go to the history/definition of “Druid”:
“In ancient times a Druid was a philosopher, teacher, counselor and magician, the word probably meaning ‘A Forest Sage’ or ‘Strong Seer’. In modern times, a Druid is someone who follows Druidry as their chosen spiritual path.”

In other words Druidry is a religious following that revolves around nature.

During Druidry training, “you are taught thirteen rituals in addition to the eight Druid seasonal ceremonies. These rituals help to attune you to the natural word, to rhythms of the earth and moon, the sun and stars”

Source: www.druidry.org

Thus Druidry does NOT only include a connection with Earth’s nature but also celestial nature (stars, sun, moon, other planets, the galaxy).

This is also why having a dps oriented Druid just does not fit. A Druid is a religious figure, almost like a priest. If anyone has ever played other MMORPGs, they will know that a priest is generally a healing/protection based class. As a result, the Druid’s overall healing theme fits perfectly.

I totally agree with you here on the connections. The common complaint is that Druid does not fit Anets lore of druid. Frankly I could care less. Aside from the whole celistal side of things, staff it’s self is thematically correct with druid. I think a lot of people are just getting bent out of shape over the celestial portion because its connected more to other types of lore.

Actually his vision doesn’t even apply to real world druids, as least not the original thing. What he is looking at is the modern cultural revival of pagan druidism which has cropped up only in the last thirty or so years, and is heavily bowdlerized and influenced by christianity and the philosophies of the 1970s nature and free love culture commonly monicered as ‘hippies’. There was no dancing around the maypole and flower crowns in real druidism, it was much darker than that.

The term ‘druid’ was originally a title for greek scholars, however that isn’t where we get ‘druidism’ from, that’s where the celts got the name from, at least in theory, no accounting for the possibility that it may just be an etymological coincidence.

And the druids of the celtic peoples of the british isles were neither associated with nature in its biological form nor its cosmic form. Astrological sites like stone henge are thousands of years older than druidism or any people we know of in the british isles, we have no idea who built them but we know they have nothing whatsoever to do with the Celts who created druidism.

Druids were in fact, above all, worshipers of death. Most of what we get from necromancy and witchcraft is in fact taken from the original practices of pagan druidism. They frequently wore masks made of skulls, the term ‘necromancy’ was a seance of the dead druids would perform, cauldrons were one of their most powerful symbols and involved in a great deal of their mysticism. Ravens were sacred animals, swamps were sacred ground, the list goes on and on with nothing connecting them to plant and animal life or the cosmos.

In reality what we draw most of our fantasy tropes concerning the druid from are not in fact related with real world druids at all but from Norse Legends and Nordic totemism, which saw nature as a force man could gain power from, be it from the sea, or the land, or animals.

P.S. I’d put Mesmer as Support Class of the light armor

That’s one point, and it’s not like the mesmer can actually do 3k+ aoe heal every 4 second… Oh! wait! he can! Maybe mesmer can’t aoe cleanse it’s allies… Oh dang he is good at that to… Maybe he can’t support via boons… Oh… well he can…

I wonder for warrior, I mean a warrior only do damage… It’s not like he could heal it’s allies via shout or banner. It’s not like he could grant 25 might stack in a few second. It’s not like he could support it’s team via soft condition. No no a warrior only do direct damage.

… well… whatever…

Please elaborate?
While I understand that all classes provide some sort of support, others do it better than another. I’m assuming you don’t like the order in which I placed things, but regardless of that each armor class does have a class that can focus on heavy healing.

I won’t list every way each profession can suport it’s team mate. In a way, the 2 profession that are laging behind the other profession in this is the necromancer that you dare to put into the light armored support and the thief which still have it’s invaluable stealth feature.

Ojyh.9842:

Your vision of the Druid applies to the real world druids.

You don’t even know that Druids already have a specific lore from GW1 and that’s what people are referring to when they say the Druid spec shouldn’t be so heavily focused on the ceslestial aspect. Not to mention that all the theme we were expecting to see with the Druid was partly present in the Ranger (not the astral stuff) which would have been a great (and probably the only) way to make a strong link between the profession and its specialization. I am curious to know how you can efficiently explain why Rangers could become Druids through the celestial theme !
Also the astral/celestial theme is already very important in Canthan lore.
Mixing those two things kills both of them at the same time.

Before trying to “educate” people you should make sure that you really know what you’re talking about.

Honestly, I don’t mind your argument. You have a valid explanation. Thing is, people on the forums aren’t stating these things. Most of what I’m reading is “what does celestial have to do with nature? We need to see more plants. I wanted more dps”.

You are also right that I do not know how druid/celestials fit in regards to GW1 lore, but why does that have to be such a deciding factor for mot people? People have problems with the “Scrapper” but that’s not why most people don’t want to play it (its mostly because of the AI).

A “druid” practices nature magic, and that includes celestial aspects as well. In my eyes, the druid fits perfectly in terms of an overall theme. But i guess there is an issue with the druid and the connection with GW1 & GW2 (which Anet has disregarded several times before).

Dadnir.5038:

P.S. I’d put Mesmer as Support Class of the light armor

That’s one point, and it’s not like the mesmer can actually do 3k+ aoe heal every 4 second… Oh! wait! he can! Maybe mesmer can’t aoe cleanse it’s allies… Oh dang he is good at that to… Maybe he can’t support via boons… Oh… well he can…

I wonder for warrior, I mean a warrior only do damage… It’s not like he could heal it’s allies via shout or banner. It’s not like he could grant 25 might stack in a few second. It’s not like he could support it’s team via soft condition. No no a warrior only do direct damage.

… well… whatever…

Please elaborate?
While I understand that all classes provide some sort of support, others do it better than another. I’m assuming you don’t like the order in which I placed things, but regardless of that each armor class does have a class that can focus on heavy healing.

I won’t list every way each profession can suport it’s team mate. In a way, the 2 profession that are laging behind the other profession in this is the necromancer that you dare to put into the light armored support and the thief which still have it’s invaluable stealth feature.

I actually said that support (to me) was minor heals and boons. That’s why I didn’t include mesmers, thieves, and warriors into the list. They do have roles in teams, but they aren’t known for their support (No where did I ever say they couldn’t). I’m not disregarding what you said they are capable of, but those classes just aren’t known for their support.

I included the necro there because they have leech share, condi cleans, and amazing abilities that help get downed players back up (they can’t necessarily heal all that well but they save a lot of downed allies).

The way gw2 is made, all classes can help a team, but others do it better. The way I see it, mesmer are loved for stealth and reflects while having access to minor boon share and cleanses. Warriors are loved for might share and heavy dps. Thieves are loved for stealth and heavy dps. They can be geared for support but other classes can still do it better.

As Ojyh and Conncept correctly stated you can’t just simply draw parallels between RL druids and these druids to justify the heavy celestial theme. The theme made kind of sense within european culture with the influence of celestial bodies to its seasons, day/night-cycle, moon induced tides, etc.pp.. But it makes no sense in respect to the druids from GW1. We know about them:
- they live or lived in the depths of the jungle
- they were suspected to worship Melandru, although we can’t be sure
- they transformed themselves into treants
- they became arboreal spirits (those sylvari can summon) after their treant-body died
- their abilities are based on drawing power from the jungle itself

So far not a single glimpse of worshiping something like celestial bodies. Why not expanding their believes to these? After all mooncycles are part of the nature and the greater system and so on. Because it doesn’t make sense for them. It made sense for europeans. It made sense for Warcraft druids, since their religion is based around the moon for good reasons like nocturnalism and the demigod of druidism being the son of the godess of moon. It doesn’t make sense for a tribe within the jungle, you know, a place where you can’t see celestial bodies 99% of the time, where you have not the instruments or capabilities to study these, where are no tides caused by the moon, where are no seasons, where the day/night-cycle is constant the whole year, where nothing in their enviroment really reacts to moons and stars in a way where you say to yourself “whoa, that moon there is something really special to the nature here, lets try to control it”. What they shouldn’t be capable of anyway since they draw their power from the jungle, which of course has no power over the movement of celestial bodies – neither should ANYBODY in Tyria.

Its a deciding factor for me, because I’m a roleplayer and I mind the lore and have to make something logical about anything illogical and inconsistent in the lore.

Amraston.2846:

As Ojyh and Conncept correctly stated you can’t just simply draw parallels between RL druids and these druids to justify the heavy celestial theme. The theme made kind of sense within european culture with the influence of celestial bodies to its seasons, day/night-cycle, moon induced tides, etc.pp.. But it makes no sense in respect to the druids from GW1. We know about them:
- they live or lived in the depths of the jungle
- they were suspected to worship Melandru, although we can’t be sure
- they transformed themselves into treants
- they became arboreal spirits (those sylvari can summon) after their treant-body died
- their abilities are based on drawing power from the jungle itself

So far not a single glimpse of worshiping something like celestial bodies. Why not expanding their believes to these? After all mooncycles are part of the nature and the greater system and so on. Because it doesn’t make sense for them. It made sense for europeans. It made sense for Warcraft druids, since their religion is based around the moon for good reasons like nocturnalism and the demigod of druidism being the son of the godess of moon. It doesn’t make sense for a tribe within the jungle, you know, a place where you can’t see celestial bodies 99% of the time, where you have not the instruments or capabilities to study these, where are no tides caused by the moon, where are no seasons, where the day/night-cycle is constant the whole year, where nothing in their enviroment really reacts to moons and stars in a way where you say to yourself “whoa, that moon there is something really special to the nature here, lets try to control it”. What they shouldn’t be capable of anyway since they draw their power from the jungle, which of course has no power over the movement of celestial bodies – neither should ANYBODY in Tyria have.

Its a deciding factor for me, because I’m a roleplayer and I mind the lore and have to make something logical about anything illogical and inconsistent in the lore.

Makes sense, but why jump to conclusions of there being no connections when Anet hasn’t been given the chance to provide the story? After all it’s their story so they can find a way to tell a story of how the current druids came to be. We just need to wait for a dev post for an explanation, or for HoT to possibly have a story to tell.

idontnoso.9850:

So please don’t post counterproductive topics to this forum. Its hard enough on the devs as it is. They want to hear from us, but only if what we have to say will benefit the overall game/community.

The TL;DR version: “Everyone who has some negative or critical feedback or doesn’t agree with me please shaddup because your opinion is counterproductive. Only echo chamber of approval for whatever is made is acceptable and progressive.”

Which all sounds pretty entitled. and, “the google, you’re using it wrong.”

Its a video game in beta. It’s okay for people to give critical feedback, that doesnt make it a waste of time or counterproductive.

People arent upset that druid is going to be a good healer, they are worried that being only a good healer will pigeon-hole all rangers into a job we didnt sign up for. no one said “aw man the druid can heal thats awful i thought it was gonna be top dps”. they said “aw man druid can basically JUST heal.”

There are multiple archtypes of druids throughout literature. Many people expected a DnD-esque, animals and leaves and barkskin and yellow and green magic because thats what was shown in the HoT druid previews and that is the more traditional RPG druid. What we got was a moonkin, naturally some people love it and some people dont.

Your idea of Support is not the universal state of Support here. Also, it’s dead wrong.

Warriors are only brought along for their insane Support and CC, in any game mode. NOONE takes a Warrior for their DPS, it’s among the lower-end Tiers and only beats out Necro, Non-reflect Mesmers with 1 Phantasm and Rangers with their Pets dead (Maybe). Their Burst damage is decent, but their DPS is deplorably low compared to Ele, Thief, Guard or Engi. They’re just the easiest to get right (And doesn’t have 30+ steps in their rotation like Engi does).

Furthermore, Might is a Boon, so Might-sharing is definitely Support, think we can agree on that. Considering that Might-Sharing and Banners is the chief reasons to bring a Warrior into Dungeons, it’s quite obvious that Warrior is a Support Profession.

Now, Thief is there for Stealth, Blinds and Weakness. They’re no longer taken for DPS, since they’ve fallen behind Staff Ele due to the changes to Critical Strikes.

Necros have among the best Spike Heals in game at the moment, but their Support is nowhere close to Mesmers. Necromancers are solely an Attrition Profession with a lot of Soft and Hard CC, and while they lack sustained DPS they do have very good AoE Spiking capabilities with Wells as well as Loads of area Denial. This is the reason they’re unwanted in Dungeons but invaluable in a Zerg Backline. But they still lack GREATLY in the Support category.

Mesmers… where to start?

Mesmers, along with Warriors, Guardians and Elementalists, are among the Chief “Support” professions among PvE and WvW (In PvP, they’re a Burst Profession primarily.)
Their access to 100% uptime on Projectile Defense, Boon Stripping and Stealth gives them some insane Supportive capabilities. Heck, they’re the only profession with a Stealth Skill that has no Target limit (Veil), so they too are pretty irreplacable in WvW at least. In some dungeons, a Mesmer can even replace the Guardian if Blinds are covered and Stability/Cleanses aren’t frequently needed.

idontnoso.9850:

Heavy:
Healing Class: Revenant
Support Class: Guardian
Kinda Support: Warrior

Medium:
Healing Class: Ranger (druid)
Support Class: Engineer
Kinda Support: Thief

Light:
Healing Class: Elementalist
Support Class: Necro/Elementalist
Kinda Support: Mesmer

Laughed at this part.

Do you really know classes well enough to say things like these?

Heavy:
Warrior: Main offensive support class + partial healing support (shout)
Guardian: Main defensive support class + partial healing support
Revenant: Can’t comment yet because the design is not finalized.

Medium:
Ranger: Sub-par offensive support + potentially healing support in the future.
Engineer: Main offensive support + partial healing support (Heal turret spam)
Thief: Utility support

Light:
Elementalist: Main offensive support + main healing support + some utility support
Mesmer: Utility support
Necro: Sub-par defensive support and sub-par healing support.

Using other classes’ example to justify ranger being the main healer doesn’t make sense because there’s not much of a pattern in all tier of classes to begin with.

Raven.9603:

idontnoso.9850:

So please don’t post counterproductive topics to this forum. Its hard enough on the devs as it is. They want to hear from us, but only if what we have to say will benefit the overall game/community.

The TL;DR version: “Everyone who has some negative or critical feedback or doesn’t agree with me please shaddup because your opinion is counterproductive. Only echo chamber of approval for whatever is made is acceptable and progressive.”

Which all sounds pretty entitled. and, “the google, you’re using it wrong.”

Its a video game in beta. It’s okay for people to give critical feedback, that doesnt make it a waste of time or counterproductive.

People arent upset that druid is going to be a good healer, they are worried that being only a good healer will pigeon-hole all rangers into a job we didnt sign up for. no one said “aw man the druid can heal thats awful i thought it was gonna be top dps”. they said “aw man druid can basically JUST heal.”

There are multiple archtypes of druids throughout literature. Many people expected a DnD-esque, animals and leaves and barkskin and yellow and green magic because thats what was shown in the HoT druid previews and that is the more traditional RPG druid. What we got was a moonkin, naturally some people love it and some people dont.

Precisely this. I sometimes miss my boomkin, but that doesn’t mean I want it in GW2. It doesn’t fit in here. Different magic, different lore, different druid.

OP’s argument is the same “ooh ooh planets are nature” equivocation fallacy and it seems to be the only argument for this Star-spangled Death Shroud Strap on of an elite.

I like the idea of healer form, it was just done in a way that looks terrible and drops the ball completely on the whole “ranger is the pet class, we want you to work with them” rhetoric the Anet has been flogging all this time. The players have given countless really good methods of fixing pets, many of which could have been used with druid to great effect. Instead of fixing anything, we’ve now got two class mechanics at the same time which have literally nothing in common with each other and a DS which has nothing at all in common with the rest of the class in any way aside from two spells, one which is a space-plant they have even finished yet and the other is just some hippy-new-age naming.

Sorry OP, your facts about druids are generally correct but don’t apply at all here and your assertions about player motivations are compeltely wrong and actually quite offensive. You’ve shown that you don’t understand the aesthetics of the class or it’s lore, you don’t understand the concept of themes or genre and most sadly, that you don’t understand your fellow players.

idontnoso.9850:

I actually said that support (to me) was minor heals and boons. That’s why I didn’t include mesmers, thieves, and warriors into the list. They do have roles in teams, but they aren’t known for their support (No where did I ever say they couldn’t). I’m not disregarding what you said they are capable of, but those classes just aren’t known for their support.

I included the necro there because they have leech share, condi cleans, and amazing abilities that help get downed players back up (they can’t necessarily heal all that well but they save a lot of downed allies).

The way gw2 is made, all classes can help a team, but others do it better. The way I see it, mesmer are loved for stealth and reflects while having access to minor boon share and cleanses. Warriors are loved for might share and heavy dps. Thieves are loved for stealth and heavy dps. They can be geared for support but other classes can still do it better.

Well let’s review these minor heal and buff for each profession then (not taking into account rez skill sinca all profession have some and blast finisher except for Engi which have a dedicated trait) :

heavy profession :

Revenant/herald : easy access to regeneration. Most efficient way to heal come from ventari by dragging behind you a healing stone. No passive way to heal out of the boon regeneration. Minor access to party heal via staff and shield.

Guardian/dragonhunter : perma access to a passive way to heal around him via virtue of resolve. Party heal via mace auto attack. Good access to regeneration. Symbole heal. Elite signet passively heal every 10s (active heal to 100% allies). Aegis heal.

Warrior/Berserker : Shout heal, banner grant regeneration, one of the banner skill heal. (I get that it’s not impressive but actually that’s already a pretty impressive output).

Medium armor :

Ranger/Druid : ranger staff heal allies, Whar horn give regeneration, celestal form (that’s for the weapon set). Moa can heal/regen, Invigorating bound. Healing glyph, healing spring and water spirit. Shout are supposed to grant regen to allies.

Thief/daredevil : steal skill healing seed because that’s something you steal to mordrem. Venom share and leaching venom (most efficient way to leech life IG). Shadow refuge.

Engineer/scrapper : good access to regen. heal on blast. Elixir gun and mortar. healing gyro. (well that’s most of it, pretty poor indeed)

light armor

Elementalist/tempest : Water and water overload with soothing mist. good access to regen. Heal on staff water auto attack + 2 healing water field. heal on dagger(MH and OH)/scepter. heal on frostbow auto attack. heal when you apply an aura. Healing shout.

Mesmer/chronomancer : easy access to perma regen. Well of eternity. restorative mantra (3k+ heal every 4 second). Healing prism.

Necromancer/Reaper : easy access to regeneration. Well of blood. Vampiric aura, life for death and transfusion. Signet of vampirism and Blood bond.

All in all pretty much all of them can output interesting healing support. (Though some are clunkyer than other). But in all honesty mesmer’s restorative mantra ain’t far from the revenant draging it’s stone with him.

Sigh druid actually means other names to, they where not religious that is the modern pagan/druid stuff you see today, they never worshiped but only connected/respected, and understood to them it was natural existence. And by insulting others by accusing people of qquing is not helpful or constructive and no one will listen, it is an immature phrase as a whole and people really should try to stop using it. And everyone is going to have different opinions, not everyone has to like the direction the druid is going, and people have a right to express there thoughts as long as its not rude and if its constructive. I really think you do think your in the right here tc. Now I dont have a full opinion on the druid yet I like it, but we have not seen all the balance changes yet, I am sure we can use some of the druid stuff into dps specs to, personally I find the astral stuff cool. But I do not know much about the guild wars 1 druid lore.

wolfyrik.2017:

Raven.9603:

idontnoso.9850:

So please don’t post counterproductive topics to this forum. Its hard enough on the devs as it is. They want to hear from us, but only if what we have to say will benefit the overall game/community.

The TL;DR version: “Everyone who has some negative or critical feedback or doesn’t agree with me please shaddup because your opinion is counterproductive. Only echo chamber of approval for whatever is made is acceptable and progressive.”

Which all sounds pretty entitled. and, “the google, you’re using it wrong.”

Its a video game in beta. It’s okay for people to give critical feedback, that doesnt make it a waste of time or counterproductive.

People arent upset that druid is going to be a good healer, they are worried that being only a good healer will pigeon-hole all rangers into a job we didnt sign up for. no one said “aw man the druid can heal thats awful i thought it was gonna be top dps”. they said “aw man druid can basically JUST heal.”

There are multiple archtypes of druids throughout literature. Many people expected a DnD-esque, animals and leaves and barkskin and yellow and green magic because thats what was shown in the HoT druid previews and that is the more traditional RPG druid. What we got was a moonkin, naturally some people love it and some people dont.

Precisely this. I sometimes miss my boomkin, but that doesn’t mean I want it in GW2. It doesn’t fit in here. Different magic, different lore, different druid.

OP’s argument is the same “ooh ooh planets are nature” equivocation fallacy and it seems to be the only argument for this Star-spangled Death Shroud Strap on of an elite.

I like the idea of healer form, it was just done in a way that looks terrible and drops the ball completely on the whole “ranger is the pet class, we want you to work with them” rhetoric the Anet has been flogging all this time. The players have given countless really good methods of fixing pets, many of which could have been used with druid to great effect. Instead of fixing anything, we’ve now got two class mechanics at the same time which have literally nothing in common with each other and a DS which has nothing at all in common with the rest of the class in any way aside from two spells, one which is a space-plant they have even finished yet and the other is just some hippy-new-age naming.

Sorry OP, your facts about druids are generally correct but don’t apply at all here and your assertions about player motivations are compeltely wrong and actually quite offensive. You’ve shown that you don’t understand the aesthetics of the class or it’s lore, you don’t understand the concept of themes or genre and most sadly, that you don’t understand your fellow players.

Appreciate the comment.

I’m not trying to attack the people who discuss why they hate the druid when they provide good reasons. This post was mostly for the people who are too hell bent on pure forest-y nature and dps type rangers/druids.

If you read my other comments, I’ve changed a lot of what I’ve said based on what more people have been posting. Regardless I still stand behind my last comment.

If you provide Anet with a valid complaint of there being no connection between GW1 & GW2 druid lore, and the involvement of celestial abilities I stand behind you. As of recently, that has been brought to my attention and I agree completely. On the other hand, this post is for the people who don’t want a healing druid or don’t see how the celestial abilities related to an overall druid.

Things that I agree that goes against the druid is that:
1. It’s too much healing to the point where it makes it seem like all players are forced into being healers when using a druid specialization
2. It doesn’t form a union with ranger and pet
3. It doesn’t follow the GW1 lore of celestial beings and druids

I’m just tried of the countless new posts that just talk about how someone’s personal expectation weren’t met.

I mean, someone just posted on the forum discussing what they wished the “Druid” would have been like, and even made their own specialization. With great explanation and reasons behind their animosity. Posts like that, I have no problem with.

Nothing is going to be changed/cleared up if all the ranger community does is complain without explanation. Instead, people need to explain why they are mad at so it can be properly addressed by the devs.

Ryou.2398:

Sigh druid actually means other names to, they where not religious that is the modern pagan/druid stuff you see today, they never worshiped but only connected/respected, and understood to them it was natural existence. And by insulting others by accusing people of qquing is not helpful or constructive and no one will listen, it is an immature phrase as a whole and people really should try to stop using it. And everyone is going to have different opinions, not everyone has to like the direction the druid is going, and people have a right to express there thoughts as long as its not rude and if its constructive. I really think you do think your in the right here tc. Now I dont have a full opinion on the druid yet I like it, but we have not seen all the balance changes yet, I am sure we can use some of the druid stuff into dps specs to, personally I find the astral stuff cool. But I do not know much about the guild wars 1 druid lore.

Edited, thx for feedback.

Things that I agree that goes against the druid is that:
1. It’s too much healing to the point where it makes it seem like all players are forced into being healers when using a druid specialization
2. It doesn’t form a union with ranger and pet
3. It doesn’t follow the GW1 lore of celestial beings and druids

Good thing that we agree on that because while the 3rd point is not really a issue, point 1 and 2 are mostly the reason why people rant. Simply, Druid in this form does not fit as a specialization for the ranger profession. It’s like a necromancer spec without shroud.

idontnoso.9850:

Ryou.2398:

Sigh druid actually means other names to, they where not religious that is the modern pagan/druid stuff you see today, they never worshiped but only connected/respected, and understood to them it was natural existence. And by insulting others by accusing people of qquing is not helpful or constructive and no one will listen, it is an immature phrase as a whole and people really should try to stop using it. And everyone is going to have different opinions, not everyone has to like the direction the druid is going, and people have a right to express there thoughts as long as its not rude and if its constructive. I really think you do think your in the right here tc. Now I dont have a full opinion on the druid yet I like it, but we have not seen all the balance changes yet, I am sure we can use some of the druid stuff into dps specs to, personally I find the astral stuff cool. But I do not know much about the guild wars 1 druid lore.

Edited, thx for feedback.

I appreciate the edit, but almost is still off man, if you understood the things they did you would see.

idontnoso.9850:

I would like to thank Anet for how much work they are putting into these specializations. Most people seem to forget that most game developer’s throw their players’ opinions out of the window and just do what they feel is best for everyone. So thank you Anet (yea there’s some things that need to be fixed, but that comes with time).

Next, I’d like to say that I am highly disappointed some of the ranger community, heck some of the overall GW2 community, for just finding any opportunity to when their expectations aren’t met. NEWS FLASH! You didn’t make this game, you don’t own it, and the dev’s don’t owe you anything. If you can’t appreciate the changes that are happening to your specific class, change classes, and if you don’t like any other class you can just play another game.

I’d like to state that I am not an expert in any of these fields, all it took was for me to go to Google and do some research Yea, its that kittening easy

Now to address the druid:

It seems like most people don’t see the connection between the term “druid” and “celestial”, and other are just angered that the druids is healing oriented. Well, I’m here to tell you all that there is a connection and that the druid being a healer is thematically appropriate.

Let’s start with the definition of “Celestial”:
1. of, relating to, or suggesting heaven or divinity
2. of or relating to the sky or visible heavens <the sun, moon, and starts are celestial>
3. otherworldly, eternal
Example of Celestial: Starts, planets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies
Used in a sentence: The late afternoon sunlight gave the room a celestial glow

In other words, celestial has everything to do with nature. “Nature” itself has nothing to do with JUST plants and animals. Nature is anything that is natural or not man-made. Thus celestial does in fact fit the theme of a natural druid/ranger.

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/celestial

Now, lets go to the history/definition of “Druid”: (there’s different variations but I’ll refer to this general druid concept)
“In ancient times a Druid was a philosopher, teacher, counselor and magician, the word probably meaning ‘A Forest Sage’ or ‘Strong Seer’. In modern times, a Druid is someone who follows Druidry as their chosen spiritual path.”

In other words Druidry is a spiritual following that revolves around nature.

During Druidry training, “you are taught thirteen rituals in addition to the eight Druid seasonal ceremonies. These rituals help to attune you to the natural word, to rhythms of the earth and moon, the sun and stars”

Source: www.druidry.org

Thus Druidry does not only include a connection with Earth’s nature but also celestial nature (stars, sun, moon, other planets, the galaxy).

This is also why having a dps oriented Druid just does not fit. A Druid is a spirtual figure, almost like a priest (sorta). If anyone has ever played other MMORPGs, they will know that a priest is generally a healing/protection based class. As a result, the Druid’s overall healing theme fits perfectly.

Finally, each armor group has a healing based class:
It seems that most people haven’t noticed Anet has given each armor group (heavy, medium, and light armor) a class that specializes in heavy healing, and ranger is the medium healer.

So please don’t post counterproductive topics to this forum. Its hard enough on the devs as it is. They want to hear from us, but only if what we have to say will benefit the overall game/community.

Overall Conclusions (Based on Discussion):
Druids (in game) don’t totally mirror real druids (especially in relation to GW1). Anet has not yet provided an explanation for how the current druids came to be considering the differences between druids in GW1 vs GW2. We just wait for an explanation from HoT (hopefully).

Thank you so much for this post. Truly we need more people like this in MMORPGs in general, but more specifically, in Guild Wars 2. For the past day, all I have heard, are a bunch of players saying how DRUID is RUSHED, or HEALING BOT, or is just WROGN in general.

It upsets me. I dont like the TEMPEST at all, nor do I like the Daredevil. But im not going to bash the class, or put it down. I will give constructive feedback, and even throw in mature sound opinions. Not some raging salty nerd tantrum like most have done in the ranger community.

SO once again OP, thank you for making this post. @Irenio please read this post, it truly is uplifting among the negative comments.

Ryou.2398:

idontnoso.9850:

Ryou.2398:

Sigh druid actually means other names to, they where not religious that is the modern pagan/druid stuff you see today, they never worshiped but only connected/respected, and understood to them it was natural existence. And by insulting others by accusing people of qquing is not helpful or constructive and no one will listen, it is an immature phrase as a whole and people really should try to stop using it. And everyone is going to have different opinions, not everyone has to like the direction the druid is going, and people have a right to express there thoughts as long as its not rude and if its constructive. I really think you do think your in the right here tc. Now I dont have a full opinion on the druid yet I like it, but we have not seen all the balance changes yet, I am sure we can use some of the druid stuff into dps specs to, personally I find the astral stuff cool. But I do not know much about the guild wars 1 druid lore.

Edited, thx for feedback.

I appreciate the edit, but almost is still off man, if you understood the things they did you would see.

Think I got it this time. I left it as a general idea of what a druid is based on the website. If you have a better example based on your personal knowledge, just post it and I’ll edit the main post.

Aomine.5012:

idontnoso.9850:

Heavy:
Healing Class: Revenant
Support Class: Guardian
Kinda Support: Warrior

Medium:
Healing Class: Ranger (druid)
Support Class: Engineer
Kinda Support: Thief

Light:
Healing Class: Elementalist
Support Class: Necro/Elementalist
Kinda Support: Mesmer

Laughed at this part.

Do you really know classes well enough to say things like these?

Heavy:
Warrior: Main offensive support class + partial healing support (shout)
Guardian: Main defensive support class + partial healing support
Revenant: Can’t comment yet because the design is not finalized.

Medium:
Ranger: Sub-par offensive support + potentially healing support in the future.
Engineer: Main offensive support + partial healing support (Heal turret spam)
Thief: Utility support

Light:
Elementalist: Main offensive support + main healing support + some utility support
Mesmer: Utility support
Necro: Sub-par defensive support and sub-par healing support.

Using other classes’ example to justify ranger being the main healer doesn’t make sense because there’s not much of a pattern in all tier of classes to begin with.

Mostly true, but engineers have poor support compared to most support professions. They just have insane DPS if rotated perfectly with zerker or sinister gear. However, they still tend to lose out in dungeon slots because they can’t bring ice bows.

As for GW druid, we have no idea whether or not they had any celestial connection. All we know is that they were an order that went into the Maguuma Jungle and became its protectors, eventually giving up their physical forms. That’s it. There were some celestial beings in Factions, but we don’t know if they had any connection to the Druids or not. If anything critics should be asking for clarification, instead of confidently asserting that there is no connection.

I, along with many others, expected a plant based nature druid from what was shown to us at the initial expansion announcement. While well aware design changes happen, I can’t help but be very disappointed by the change in thematic direction this elite specialization took. All of the current mechanics could have been implemented within the thematic framework originally presented

Simply disappointed

asweknowit.4798:

I, along with many others, expected a plant based nature druid from what was shown to us at the initial expansion announcement. While well aware design changes happen, I can’t help but be very disappointed by the change in thematic direction this elite specialization took. All of the current mechanics could have been implemented within the thematic framework originally presented

Simply disappointed

Honestly, I don’t mind the theme. In real life, nature often had a strong astronomy component. Stars were used to track seasons, which heavily influenced animal behavior and plant growth. I’m more concerned with their emphasis on healing. Dedicated group healing has no place in the game as it is now, so from a PvE standpoint, Druid’s only hope is that HoT PvE content turns every part of the last three years’ meta on its head. I’m not exactly confident that that will happen.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

asweknowit.4798:

I, along with many others, expected a plant based nature druid from what was shown to us at the initial expansion announcement. While well aware design changes happen, I can’t help but be very disappointed by the change in thematic direction this elite specialization took. All of the current mechanics could have been implemented within the thematic framework originally presented

Simply disappointed

Honestly, I don’t mind the theme. In real life, nature often had a strong astronomy component. Stars were used to track seasons, which heavily influenced animal behavior and plant growth. I’m more concerned with their emphasis on healing. Dedicated group healing has no place in the game as it is now, so from a PvE standpoint, Druid’s only hope is that HoT PvE content turns every part of the last three years’ meta on its head. I’m not exactly confident that that will happen.

I hope it does. The zerker meta has made PvE quite lack luster when all you need to do is stack in a corner and cleave everything. I hope there are new and interesting mechanics that make this more difficult, and bosses/events that require team support in the form of heals/boons.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

asweknowit.4798:

I, along with many others, expected a plant based nature druid from what was shown to us at the initial expansion announcement. While well aware design changes happen, I can’t help but be very disappointed by the change in thematic direction this elite specialization took. All of the current mechanics could have been implemented within the thematic framework originally presented

Simply disappointed

Honestly, I don’t mind the theme. In real life, nature often had a strong astronomy component. Stars were used to track seasons, which heavily influenced animal behavior and plant growth. I’m more concerned with their emphasis on healing. Dedicated group healing has no place in the game as it is now, so from a PvE standpoint, Druid’s only hope is that HoT PvE content turns every part of the last three years’ meta on its head. I’m not exactly confident that that will happen.

Currently I’m planning to maintain a longbow dps spec, using the druid celestial form traits. I can’t foresee needing more healing than what is provided from the specialization mechanic. Will see how it works next weekend.

I would prefer if the staff skills were more condi focused than healing…… too much healing on this.

asweknowit.4798:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

asweknowit.4798:

I, along with many others, expected a plant based nature druid from what was shown to us at the initial expansion announcement. While well aware design changes happen, I can’t help but be very disappointed by the change in thematic direction this elite specialization took. All of the current mechanics could have been implemented within the thematic framework originally presented

Simply disappointed

Honestly, I don’t mind the theme. In real life, nature often had a strong astronomy component. Stars were used to track seasons, which heavily influenced animal behavior and plant growth. I’m more concerned with their emphasis on healing. Dedicated group healing has no place in the game as it is now, so from a PvE standpoint, Druid’s only hope is that HoT PvE content turns every part of the last three years’ meta on its head. I’m not exactly confident that that will happen.

Currently I’m planning to maintain a longbow dps spec, using the druid celestial form traits. I can’t foresee needing more healing than what is provided from the specialization mechanic. Will see how it works next weekend.

I would prefer if the staff skills were more condi focused than healing…… too much healing on this.

I agree with you there. The staff/druid in general almost completely revolves around healing (there’s a few traits here and there that don’t) but the overall specialization is too heal-y based. While I love being a healer, I can foresee myself getting tired of it at some point and wishing there was some leeway in the specialization were I can make the druid focus on something other than healing.

Ranger Pre Specialization Reveal: Why doesn’t anyone want us!? Why do they always want Elementalists and Guardains! We need support!

Ranger Post Specialization Reveal: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO SUPPORT? I WANNA SHOOT ARROWS!

Make up your mind people, this is arguably the best thing to happen to the class and you’re all complaining?! Yes, Ranger at its core and Druid both need a LOT of work. But this is a amazing direction for the class. Jack of all trades and the master of heals. “Support” and “Control” outside of boon stacking in pve has been neglected as long as I can remember, actual dedicated support and with the break bar, dedicated control will be a thing. I am sure this is what Anet is going for in PvE.

As far as PvP is concerned, Druid Beastmaster is going to be God. Is that a Dagger thief spaming 1? Glyph of…. uh, the one that does damage Lets just CC them and the root them with a root. Are you in a attrition match with a scumbag Ele? Celestial Form: You stand no chance mortal! As I have become one with the skybox now watch in horror as I go back to full hp! Also, Beastly Warden with the Wyvern’s F2 or Smokescale’s F2…

Bringing me to our final point. The Pet’s AI will never be perfect. But you must learn about your pet and work with it as a team to ensure the dumb AI finds its mark. Druid and GS and traits give us enough control to help the pet do so. I agree with the points on animations, stats and whatnot all needing tweaks but potential is there now, and Anet said they were looking into it.

Its going to take some time, I expect the first month to be chaos but we haven’t even seen BW3 yet, and I’m sure the tweaking will start there.

Also, Ya’ll Need Malandru.

idontnoso.9850:

Ryou.2398:

idontnoso.9850:

Ryou.2398:

Sigh druid actually means other names to, they where not religious that is the modern pagan/druid stuff you see today, they never worshiped but only connected/respected, and understood to them it was natural existence. And by insulting others by accusing people of qquing is not helpful or constructive and no one will listen, it is an immature phrase as a whole and people really should try to stop using it. And everyone is going to have different opinions, not everyone has to like the direction the druid is going, and people have a right to express there thoughts as long as its not rude and if its constructive. I really think you do think your in the right here tc. Now I dont have a full opinion on the druid yet I like it, but we have not seen all the balance changes yet, I am sure we can use some of the druid stuff into dps specs to, personally I find the astral stuff cool. But I do not know much about the guild wars 1 druid lore.

Edited, thx for feedback.

I appreciate the edit, but almost is still off man, if you understood the things they did you would see.

Think I got it this time. I left it as a general idea of what a druid is based on the website. If you have a better example based on your personal knowledge, just post it and I’ll edit the main post.

One of the most striking characteristics of Druidism is the degree to which it is free of dogma and any fixed set of beliefs or practices. In this way it manages to offer a spiritual path, and a way of being in the world that avoids many of the problems of intolerance and sectarianism that the established religions have encountered.
http://www.druidry.org/druid-way/druid-beliefs
https://prezi.com/mphawtwhhd3a/the-celts/ the bottom part
https://books.google.com/books?id=ldF340rfFCMC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=druids+do+not+worship&source=bl&ots=FoTgnH0Sio&sig=sTIPwt7IPDXcINoCDUFMtaekfi4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CE4Q6AEwCGoVChMItfP4hrmVyAIVi86ACh043wBz#v=onepage&q=druids%20do%20not%20worship&f=false
There is plenty more info out there if your interested I hope this helps.

Ojyh.9842:

Your vision of the Druid applies to the real world druids.

You don’t even know that Druids already have a specific lore from GW1 and that’s what people are referring to when they say the Druid spec shouldn’t be so heavily focused on the ceslestial aspect. Not to mention that all the theme we were expecting to see with the Druid was partly present in the Ranger (not the astral stuff) which would have been a great (and probably the only) way to make a strong link between the profession and its specialization. I am curious to know how you can efficiently explain why Rangers could become Druids through the celestial theme !
Also the astral/celestial theme is already very important in Canthan lore.
Mixing those two things kills both of them at the same time.

Before trying to “educate” people you should make sure that you really know what you’re talking about.

There’s a similar thread in the lore forum about this, but the basic gist is we know next to nothing about the GW1 druids. There’s nothing in lore that states that they couldn’t have had celestial emphasis as well. They might have even started out as disciples of Canthan celestial practices, they were human after all.

As someone said earlier in another thread, the animations feel like the class was rushed and giving some shroud with a bit of twilight texture effect was probably the only thing they had enough time to make hence “Celestial Avatar” “Astral Form” “Super Power Ranger”
Also there are those on the front page:

Welcome, friends, to the reveal of the ranger elite specialization, the druid! As a longtime ally of nature, the ranger can now channel the strength of Tyria itself after tapping into the primal forces of the Maguuma jungle.

And Closer to the Stars which is a direct reference to the Canthan version of the Ascension (Weh no Su).

Let’s hope there’s an actual tie in the jungle.

Aylpse.6280:

Ranger Pre Specialization Reveal: Why doesn’t anyone want us!? Why do they always want Elementalists and Guardains! We need support!

Ranger Post Specialization Reveal: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO SUPPORT? I WANNA SHOOT ARROWS!

Make up your mind people, this is arguably the best thing to happen to the class and you’re all complaining?! Yes, Ranger at its core and Druid both need a LOT of work. But this is a amazing direction for the class. Jack of all trades and the master of heals. “Support” and “Control” outside of boon stacking in pve has been neglected as long as I can remember, actual dedicated support and with the break bar, dedicated control will be a thing. I am sure this is what Anet is going for in PvE.

As far as PvP is concerned, Druid Beastmaster is going to be God. Is that a Dagger thief spaming 1? Glyph of…. uh, the one that does damage Lets just CC them and the root them with a root. Are you in a attrition match with a scumbag Ele? Celestial Form: You stand no chance mortal! As I have become one with the skybox now watch in horror as I go back to full hp! Also, Beastly Warden with the Wyvern’s F2 or Smokescale’s F2…

Bringing me to our final point. The Pet’s AI will never be perfect. But you must learn about your pet and work with it as a team to ensure the dumb AI finds its mark. Druid and GS and traits give us enough control to help the pet do so. I agree with the points on animations, stats and whatnot all needing tweaks but potential is there now, and Anet said they were looking into it.

Its going to take some time, I expect the first month to be chaos but we haven’t even seen BW3 yet, and I’m sure the tweaking will start there.

Also, Ya’ll Need Malandru.

Lol going to start saying that “Yall need Malandru”.

If we only consider PvP I have no issues with the Druid. It will in fact be OP when in PvP. But if you think about PvE the Druid’s only special nytch is condi removal and strong heals. I love being a healer, but only have access to healing traits make the Druid make me feel like I HAVE to heal.

A lot of things are going to be fixed with the Druid coming into our lives, but now we are going to start running into problems we would haven never thought to run into since the ranger has always been mid/low tier.

idontnoso.9850:

Appreciate the comment.

I’m not trying to attack the people who discuss why they hate the druid when they provide good reasons. This post was mostly for the people who are too hell bent on pure forest-y nature and dps type rangers/druids.

If you read my other comments, I’ve changed a lot of what I’ve said based on what more people have been posting. Regardless I still stand behind my last comment.

If you provide Anet with a valid complaint of there being no connection between GW1 & GW2 druid lore, and the involvement of celestial abilities I stand behind you. As of recently, that has been brought to my attention and I agree completely. On the other hand, this post is for the people who don’t want a healing druid or don’t see how the celestial abilities related to an overall druid.

Things that I agree that goes against the druid is that:
1. It’s too much healing to the point where it makes it seem like all players are forced into being healers when using a druid specialization
2. It doesn’t form a union with ranger and pet
3. It doesn’t follow the GW1 lore of celestial beings and druids

I’m just tried of the countless new posts that just talk about how someone’s personal expectation weren’t met.

I mean, someone just posted on the forum discussing what they wished the “Druid” would have been like, and even made their own specialization. With great explanation and reasons behind their animosity. Posts like that, I have no problem with.

Nothing is going to be changed/cleared up if all the ranger community does is complain without explanation. Instead, people need to explain why they are mad at so it can be properly addressed by the devs.

That’s fair, I admit that I have been more than kitteny about the some of the things we’ve seen.

Mostly it’s because I just feel incredibly let down. After three years of waiting for my favorite classes to get some useful abilities that bring them out of the bottom three places in the game (ranger, engi, necro) especially after so many of us spent so much time in the CDIs sorting the problems through discussion and what do we get?

Lore-breaking, half-baked incomplete elites that see Anet utterly and completely failing to learn from mistakes of the past. Bad trait placement, worthless traits, traits which actually detract from different game modes. The opportunities to fix ranger and ranger pets for all ranger players, which were supposed to be so high on Anets agenda, utterly absent as Anet present an elite which completely ignores the pet mechanic alltogether. Ranger is now the only class with two competing class mechanics and we have no idea why.

For me, it’s only too easy to understand why people are uspet.

I don’t think it’d be too much to ask for someone to step forward and explain why they had to completely ignore everything that we’ve said and discussed together over the last three years. Was it a mechanical issue? Time? Did they try Aspects at all and found it couldn’t be coded? Did they try to have a druid-form which affected the pets but found it couldn’t work?

Don’t even get me started on the ahem thinking, behind adding more Ai utilities to the game, especially on Engineer.

[/rant]

arkealia.2713:

As someone said earlier in another thread, the animations feel like the class was rushed and giving some shroud with a bit of twilight texture effect was probably the only thing they had enough time to make hence “Celestial Avatar” “Astral Form” “Super Power Ranger”
Also there are those on the front page:

Welcome, friends, to the reveal of the ranger elite specialization, the druid! As a longtime ally of nature, the ranger can now channel the strength of Tyria itself after tapping into the primal forces of the Maguuma jungle.

And Closer to the Stars which is a direct reference to the Canthan version of the Ascension (Weh no Su).

Let’s hope there’s an actual tie in the jungle.

Thank you so much for this information. It should help clear things up with people who read this post.

I think Anet was going for a slightly different slant on the nature theme:

there’s tonnes of lore that could support a nature based class and a celestial based class… I think they were drawing on the GW1 Factions nature/spirit model as their inspiration (come on.. the Revenant has Shiro!)

You guys are missing the obvious attempt to shoehorn Canthan lore into the game (aka… cantha confirmed..)

Ironwill.5389:

I think Anet was going for a slightly different slant on the nature theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FpY2KQbeQ0

there’s tonnes of lore that could support a nature based class and a celestial based class… I think they were drawing on the GW1 Factions nature/spirit model as their inspiration (come on.. the Revenant has Shiro!)

You guys are missing the obvious attempt to shoehorn Canthan lore into the game (aka… cantha confirmed..)

That doesn’t make any sense, tho either. Druids were a different group from the canthan celestials. If it is supposedto be celestial based then this isn’t a druid. It’s a canthan Weh no su.

It’s like creating an elite spec for thief which uses a greatsword, wears a tartan kilt and runs into battle with shouts as a new utility and an Elite skill called “stitch this, pal!” then naming the spec “Samurai”.

wolfyrik.2017:

Ironwill.5389:

I think Anet was going for a slightly different slant on the nature theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FpY2KQbeQ0

there’s tonnes of lore that could support a nature based class and a celestial based class… I think they were drawing on the GW1 Factions nature/spirit model as their inspiration (come on.. the Revenant has Shiro!)

You guys are missing the obvious attempt to shoehorn Canthan lore into the game (aka… cantha confirmed..)

That doesn’t make any sense, tho either. Druids were a different group from the canthan celestials. If it is supposedto be celestial based then this isn’t a druid. It’s a canthan Weh no su.

It’s like creating an elite spec for thief which uses a greatsword, wears a tartan kilt and runs into battle with shouts as a new utility and an Elite skill called “stitch this, pal!” then naming the spec “Samurai”.

You have no idea whether or not the Druids tapped into the celestial realm. You know that the Canthans tapped into it, but the Druids are a complete mystery at this point. They may have discovered it independently, or it may have been introduced to them by one of their number who had been to Cantha…we have no way of knowing.

We know that the druids went into the jungle and become spirits, that were like oakhearts. At what point did they get to cantha and start practicing a totally different type of magic? It makes no sense. That’s like saying maybe the aztecs weren’t all sun-worshippers, some of them could have gone to visit Japan, therfor we’d be ok to design a new aztec that wears a kabuto, fights with a katana and drinks sake.

Sure it could have happened, but it’d would still look out of place. Druids used druid magic, that’s why they were druids. If they started using canthan magic, they’re not druids anymore, they’re canthan spirit users. If this class is using celestial, then it’s a celestial. If it’s a druid, it should use druid magic.

I don’t play on my necromancer because I want to be able to juggle the elements of fire, air earth and water, so why on earth would I play a druid, so that I can use canthan celestial power?

A lot of people in this thread are talking about GW1 druids as if the celestial theme absolutely does not fit with them. I find this funny seeing as we know NOTHING about the druids of GW1 as far as their beliefs, rituals, and magic is concerned.

All we know is they were worshipers of Melandru who left Kryta and eventually shed their mortal bodies to become spirits. There is nothing there that says they only used plant and animal magic. Nothing at all. Not one scrap of lore. So how can you tell me they absolutely did not utilize celestial magic when there is no lore that says they didn’t?

Druidism in GW1 is a massive blank spot. The GW2 druid gives us an idea of what sort of magic they might have used before shedding their bodies. There is no lore that says the GW2 druid is wrong. There is no case to be made about lore conflicts.

wolfyrik.2017:

We know that the druids went into the jungle and become spirits, that were like oakhearts. At what point did they get to cantha and start practicing a totally different type of magic? It makes no sense. That’s like saying maybe the aztecs weren’t all sun-worshippers, some of them could have gone to visit Japan, therfor we’d be ok to design a new aztec that wears a kabuto, fights with a katana and drinks sake.

Sure it could have happened, but it’d would still look out of place. Druids used druid magic, that’s why they were druids. If they started using canthan magic, they’re not druids anymore, they’re canthan spirit users. If this class is using celestial, then it’s a celestial. If it’s a druid, it should use druid magic.

I don’t play on my necromancer because I want to be able to juggle the elements of fire, air earth and water, so why on earth would I play a druid, so that I can use canthan celestial power?

No, you’re saying that “because Europeans used the wheel, the Chinese could not have.” The study of astronomy is not limited to just one continent. Thus, it is unlikely that discovery of the celestial realm would be limited to Cantha. In fact, in real life, every culture, across the entire world, studied astronomy extensively. Believing that anything tied to the stars and planets must be Canthan is a ridiculous assumption with no basis in rationality or fact.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

wolfyrik.2017:

We know that the druids went into the jungle and become spirits, that were like oakhearts. At what point did they get to cantha and start practicing a totally different type of magic? It makes no sense. That’s like saying maybe the aztecs weren’t all sun-worshippers, some of them could have gone to visit Japan, therfor we’d be ok to design a new aztec that wears a kabuto, fights with a katana and drinks sake.

Sure it could have happened, but it’d would still look out of place. Druids used druid magic, that’s why they were druids. If they started using canthan magic, they’re not druids anymore, they’re canthan spirit users. If this class is using celestial, then it’s a celestial. If it’s a druid, it should use druid magic.

I don’t play on my necromancer because I want to be able to juggle the elements of fire, air earth and water, so why on earth would I play a druid, so that I can use canthan celestial power?

No, you’re saying that “because Europeans used the wheel, the Chinese could not have.” The study of astronomy is not limited to just one continent. Thus, it is unlikely that discovery of the celestial realm would be limited to Cantha. In fact, in real life, every culture, across the entire world, studied astronomy extensively. Believing that anything tied to the stars and planets must be Canthan is a ridiculous assumption with no basis in rationality or fact.

That’s not what I’m saying at all. You’ve completely misunderstood the point. What I’m saying is that each type of magic is it’s own style, it’s own aesthetic. I haven’t once denied that people have the ability to learn, infact my first example describes an aztec going to japan. This is a game, not real life and being a game we expect to see certain features in the characters. Stories and games don’t work like real life, we need distinct groups so that we can better ideintify distinct ideas.

As I said, I don’t play a Necro so that I can use Elemental magic. That’s not the same as saying that some real life version of a necro couldn’t learn elemental magic. Nowhere near what I’m saying. The problem is that at the point the necro starts using elemental magic instead of Necormancy, it’s an elementalist, because this is a game with identifiable, distinct ideas.

Druids use Nature magic, Celestials use celestial power.

No basis in rataionality or fact? What are you even yammering about? this is a game. Not reality, not fact. I never said that “anything to do with stars” that’s a ridiculous straw-man you’ve invented with no basis in rationality or fact.

Rationality is the conformity of structure within a belief or narrative. If somemthing conflicts with it’s established, known structure it becomes irrational. In the case of Druid and GW2 we have a clear established idea of structure surrounding nature magic. The ranger is a prime example of it, with the Spirit utilities which harken back to the GW1 nature magic lore. We have nothing about druids using celestial power. Celestials use Celestial powers. These are a seperate, specific group. Just as Destroyers don’t use plant magic and Risen aren’t made of Ice. Sure You could make up an excuse that a necromancer could learn Elemental magic, but in this game in order for it to have any weight, you’d have to make an elementalist, then RP it as a necro. Because it’s a game. In this game druids use nature magic. In this game, Celestial magic is named specifically, it is it’s own unique, specific school of magic belonging specifically to celestial magic users, based specifically in Cantha. That’s what you’re calling assumption? Specifically stated game lore? You have a strange idea about what the word ‘assumption’ means and even weaker grasp of what ‘rationality’ and ‘fact’ mean.

This new celestial form is a contradiction conflicting with the previously established narrative. It is by very definition; irrational.

Another good example of something that isn’t rational is a person defending a game, a work of fiction, from valid criticism about breaking it’s own established narrative, by attacking the critic as irrational.

It’s a game White-knight. Get a grip.

Ironwill.5389:

I think Anet was going for a slightly different slant on the nature theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FpY2KQbeQ0

there’s tonnes of lore that could support a nature based class and a celestial based class… I think they were drawing on the GW1 Factions nature/spirit model as their inspiration (come on.. the Revenant has Shiro!)

You guys are missing the obvious attempt to shoehorn Canthan lore into the game (aka… cantha confirmed..)

So where is my astral martial arts class dang it?

wolfyrik.2017:

That’s not what I’m saying at all. You’ve completely misunderstood the point. What I’m saying is that each type of magic is it’s own style, it’s own aesthetic. I haven’t once denied that people have the ability to learn, infact my first example describes an aztec going to japan. This is a game, not real life and being a game we expect to see certain features in the characters. Stories and games don’t work like real life, we need distinct groups so that we can better ideintify distinct ideas.

As I said, I don’t play a Necro so that I can use Elemental magic. That’s not the same as saying that some real life version of a necro couldn’t learn elemental magic. Nowhere near what I’m saying. The problem is that at the point the necro starts using elemental magic instead of Necormancy, it’s an elementalist, because this is a game with identifiable, distinct ideas.

Druids use Nature magic, Celestials use celestial power.

No basis in rataionality or fact? What are you even yammering about? this is a game. Not reality, not fact. I never said that “anything to do with stars” that’s a ridiculous straw-man you’ve invented with no basis in rationality or fact.

Rationality is the conformity of structure within a belief or narrative. If somemthing conflicts with it’s established, known structure it becomes irrational. In the case of Druid and GW2 we have a clear established idea of structure surrounding nature magic. The ranger is a prime example of it, with the Spirit utilities which harken back to the GW1 nature magic lore. We have nothing about druids using celestial power. Celestials use Celestial powers. These are a seperate, specific group. Just as Destroyers don’t use plant magic and Risen aren’t made of Ice. Sure You could make up an excuse that a necromancer could learn Elemental magic, but in this game in order for it to have any weight, you’d have to make an elementalist, then RP it as a necro. Because it’s a game. In this game druids use nature magic. In this game, Celestial magic is named specifically, it is it’s own unique, specific school of magic belonging specifically to celestial magic users, based specifically in Cantha. That’s what you’re calling assumption? Specifically stated game lore? You have a strange idea about what the word ‘assumption’ means and even weaker grasp of what ‘rationality’ and ‘fact’ mean.

This new celestial form is a contradiction conflicting with the previously established narrative. It is by very definition; irrational.

Another good example of something that isn’t rational is a person defending a game, a work of fiction, from valid criticism about breaking it’s own established narrative, by attacking the critic as irrational.

It’s a game White-knight. Get a grip.

That’s your problem: you believe that Druids have firmly established lore. They don’t. We don’t know a kitten thing about Druid magic, and your assumption that it has anything to do with a Ranger’s Nature Magic is just that: an assumption.

wolfyrik.2017:

That doesn’t make any sense, tho either. Druids were a different group from the canthan celestials. If it is supposed to be celestial based then this isn’t a druid. It’s a canthan Weh no su.

It’s like creating an elite spec for thief which uses a greatsword, wears a tartan kilt and runs into battle with shouts as a new utility and an Elite skill called “stitch this, pal!” then naming the spec “Samurai”.

You’re assuming that druids haven’t changed since GW1, times and cultures have moved on… in GW1 “weh no su” was a canthan spiritual rite, but it wasn’t locked into a role/profession (every class in GW1 could do it).

Who’s to say a druid didn’t go to study at a canthan temple? Who’s to say your druids 200 years in the past are even the same druids in GW2 today? Who’s to say the druids of today aren’t an offshoot of a Kurzick or Luxon priest sect (they trained animals too). Who’s to say an oakheart spirit didn’t travel to cantha, talk to all of the priests there and share their knowledge.

Your argument is set by a rigid interpretation of the past… Things change… engineers started as being based on char war technology, but the scrapper is now using asuran tech for their gyros…

wolfyrik.2017:

This new celestial form is a contradiction conflicting with the previously established narrative. It is by very definition; irrational.

Your interpretation is rigid at best and faulty at worst.

It follows the games lore as closely as it’s able (can’t have PCs shedding their mortal bodies and becoming immortal spiritual beings a la Prophecies maguuma druids) and yes, it even slightly dips into the RL realm with druids and astrology.

But more over, it’s a call back to the lore from Cantha where powerful beings became celestials. It’s a mix of things, since druids won’t be exclusively human.

The canthan lore is more open ended to that and so it’s been incorporated.

It’s not strictly violating the lore so much as borrowing from both thoughts to come up with something tangible that players can play with.

There’s nothing already established that makes this “wrong”. It’s different, a new tangent in the lore to support the new elite specialization.

Fans of the game lore should honestly be thrilled they’re throwing in some cool Canthan lore incorporation.

wolfyrik.2017:

Another good example of something that isn’t rational is a person defending a game, a work of fiction, from valid criticism about breaking it’s own established narrative, by attacking the critic as irrational.

It’s a game White-knight. Get a grip.

Your own criticism isn’t above reproach. How do you justify attacking a fellow critic with your over played ad homenim?

“Doesn’t agree with me? Must be a white knight.”

This is the hallmark of a weak argument and an emotional attachment to the discussion at hand.

Something is or is not so, regardless of what side that falls on. Sometimes the players are right and sometimes Anet is right.

When at the end of the day, as you said, it’s a game. You’re being persnickety over some video game lore, so obviously you care a little more about it than the average bear.

And that’s totally fine. Me too. Most of us here do. But why is the discussion so important to you that any dissenting thought must be answered with hostility?

You’re quite a pro at irony there.