Guild Wars 2

I know Druid is going to be a huge supplementary to current builds, but I have doubts about support builds built around the elite specialization.

Water Fields vs. Druid Heals

Water Fields
-No cap on the number of times it can be blasted
-No cap on the number of people that can blast it
-No cap on the number of heal due to no cap on number of people that can blast it
-Most commonly used water field [Healing Rain]: 450 radius

Druid’s Skills
-Heal skills are capped to 3-5 targets
-Radius of druid heal skills: 120-360 radius

Anyone else think otherwise? Please explain how druid heals will be needed when there are more efficient ways of group healing.

How about the fact that druids can provide water fields? In addition to their direct healing abilities.

Druid heals are ranged targeted at least

Druid will get water fields as well. Also, not everyone may have their blast finisher ready to use in every water field.

Range is a big concern though. For support skills, all of them, a radius of less than 300-360 is too small.

Tidal Surge in CAF is a mobile water field that will also heal ~5-6k base. The difference between the fields/stuff that produces other group healing and the Druid’s Skills is that the Druid doesn’t require as much group coordination, it can simply burst heal people.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Druid will get water fields as well. Also, not everyone may have their blast finisher ready to use in every water field.

Range is a big concern though. For support skills, all of them, a radius of less than 300-360 is too small.

Druid having water fields isn’t the point. It seems a waste that we have so many healing skills when we can plop down one water field [Tidal Surge] that is sufficient enough to heal everyone up.

Water fields are vastly superior for wvw, as far as raids go. This might not be to case if players are forced apart, making druid healing more viable.

Anyone here ever run wvw with a good Guardian back when tomes were a thing? Re grouping to blast water fields did not negate the usefulness of your tome. Having the extra healing can be a game changer especially if you are up against a group that punishes you for stacking.

kiwituatara.6053:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Druid will get water fields as well. Also, not everyone may have their blast finisher ready to use in every water field.

Range is a big concern though. For support skills, all of them, a radius of less than 300-360 is too small.

Druid having water fields isn’t the point. It seems a waste that we have so many healing skills when we can plop down one water field [Tidal Surge] that is sufficient enough to heal everyone up.

Remains to be seen when the expansion hits I guess.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Anyone here ever run wvw with a good Guardian back when tomes were a thing? Re grouping to blast water fields did not negate the usefulness of your tome. Having the extra healing can be a game changer especially if you are up against a group that punishes you for stacking.

I played support guardian in wvw for a long time, and yes water fields negated anything I could do, as people who got picked off was because of their failure to use active defenses and were spiked killed. Healing won’t help against spike kills.

kiwituatara.6053:

Water Fields
-No cap on the number of times it can be blasted
-No cap on the number of people that can blast it
-No cap on the number of heal due to no cap on number of people that can blast it
-Most commonly used water field [Healing Rain]: 450 radius

Water fields do have limits.
-Only 5 people can interact with a field
-Not everybody has multiple blasts. 1 blast / player would be good blasting.
-1 Blast heals 1300 for 5 ppl. If you get 5 blasts in heal is about 7k to 5 players.

I guess youre thinking about wvw raids? I used to hardcore play a cleric guard in raids. while water fields are simple to use without any cap on blast finishers, being able to crank out 15k aoe heals reactively in a few seconds without coordinating 5-6 blast finishers always made a huge difference.

that being said, water fields were much more effective for larger raid groups (20+), whereas cleric guards were more effective for smaller roaming parties (5-10 people). as the amount of potential blast finishers increases in a raid group, the greater the potential of the water field.

this point is moot though because the druid will be able to crank out huge reactive heals in addition to having a water field. I’m actually much, much more worried about our LACK OF STABILITY. we should be using unity glyph, so no SotP sadly.

Coinhead.7591:

-Only 5 people can interact with a field

you are confused. 5 people simultaneously (virtually impossible to coordinate), unlimited if staggered, even by a fraction of a second.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Anyone here ever run wvw with a good Guardian back when tomes were a thing? Re grouping to blast water fields did not negate the usefulness of your tome. Having the extra healing can be a game changer especially if you are up against a group that punishes you for stacking.

and this. bear in mind, the tome guards were just topping people up. it worked well for frontline groups heavy on other guards with perma prot. the tome could never replace the burst heal of a water field, rather it’s merely a supplement.

Mcrocha.3891:

Tidal Surge in CAF is a mobile water field that will also heal ~5-6k base. The difference between the fields/stuff that produces other group healing and the Druid’s Skills is that the Druid doesn’t require as much group coordination, it can simply burst heal people.

This.
There are a lot of situations, especially for small havoc groups, that having one person to burst heal an area is much more handy than trying to coordinate blasts in a water field.

For example, if your group is trying to stomp or rez someone that is downed and there is a lot of AoE on the body. Or if you are running from a zerg and someone has fallen behind a bit, being able to spam some 1200 range heals on him might be just enough to help him get back to safety.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a water field added to one of the glyphs though. Glyph of Tides sure as heck sounds like it should provide one.

Kitty.1502:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Anyone here ever run wvw with a good Guardian back when tomes were a thing? Re grouping to blast water fields did not negate the usefulness of your tome. Having the extra healing can be a game changer especially if you are up against a group that punishes you for stacking.

I played support guardian in wvw for a long time, and yes water fields negated anything I could do, as people who got picked off was because of their failure to use active defenses and were spiked killed. Healing won’t help against spike kills.

A NOPE player?? I used to run around with NAGA when everyone was still logging in. You’re right healing won’t stop the spike kills. However if you can keep your party topped off it will take more effort for the opposing players to get the spike kill.

I’m very curious to see if the druid’s healing will work on downed players.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Kitty.1502:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Anyone here ever run wvw with a good Guardian back when tomes were a thing? Re grouping to blast water fields did not negate the usefulness of your tome. Having the extra healing can be a game changer especially if you are up against a group that punishes you for stacking.

I played support guardian in wvw for a long time, and yes water fields negated anything I could do, as people who got picked off was because of their failure to use active defenses and were spiked killed. Healing won’t help against spike kills.

A NOPE player?? I used to run around with NAGA when everyone was still logging in. You’re right healing won’t stop the spike kills. However if you can keep your party topped off it will take more effort for the opposing players to get the spike kill.

I’m very curious to see if the druid’s healing will work on downed players.

How many engagements do you have where it comes down to attrition? 1 out of 5 matches? While I won’t say your point isn’t valid, I will say that those instances are much rarer, and not necessarily worth wasting a slot in the raid to counteract.

mistsim.2748:

Coinhead.7591:

-Only 5 people can interact with a field

you are confused. 5 people simultaneously (virtually impossible to coordinate), unlimited if staggered, even by a fraction of a second.

No. Only 5 people can interact with any field during its lifetime. This is best seen in gvg situations where thieves are dropping smoke fields to stealth 20 man raid team. They need to drop more than one field so that every party can get 2 blasts in.

GW2 wiki also mentions that fields can be used only by 5 people https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

Coinhead.7591:

No.

yes, what I said. the field doesn’t simply become useless after 5 blast finishers lol. you can crank out as many blast finishers as you want, as long as theyre not simultaneous. even if simultaneous, I thought there wasn’t a limit. if staggered, for sure, no hard limit.

You can blast it unlimited times in theory, but those blasts must come from 5 different players. 10 players cannot blast 1 waterfield once. 5 thieves can blast one waterfield quite a few times with shortbow.

correct, that’s what we’ve been saying. so in a large raid group, you can easily get 10+ blast finishers. effectiveness of water fields decreases as raid size decreases.

Not everyone has the coordination to blast water fields. Second, Druid can heal groups of people mid fight without the need to restack and blast.

Hammerguard.9834:

Not everyone has the coordination to blast water fields. Second, Druid can heal groups of people mid fight without the need to restack and blast.

every decent raid group has this coordination. not sure who’s left playing wvw right now, but certainly a year and a half ago, everyone and their grandmas were blasting water fields competently.

that being said, I agree that the heals from the druid will be highly effective. it’s not a matter of mutual exclusivity…people will be running druids AND water fields cuz why not?

No. You said:

“-No cap on the number of people that can blast it”

There is a cap on the number of people that can blast it. It reads right here https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

" Only 5 unique combatants can combo with a given combo field.¹"

And is also easily tested in game.

If you have 1 waterfield and 10 guardians with hammer 2 jumping to it you only get 5 blasts.

Coinhead.7591:

If you have 1 waterfield and 10 guardians with hammer 2 jumping to it you only get 5 blasts.

i’ll try to explain once more. that’s the case if they cast #2 at the exact same time. this is highly unlikely, blast finishers are often easily staggered without much thought.

No. Its just not like that. GW2 wiki says this very clearly. Also you can try it ingame if you want.

For the healer role to realy exist, water fields and healing power scaling must be changed.

I personally believe that there’s room at the table for both Druid healing as well as people dropping water heals.

Druid is an extremely powerful healing spec. It has some limits as far as targeting go, but I the heat of a big fight 3-5 people are probably all you can target in a clump unless you’re stacking. On top of it, they’re free heals that you can spam, and Celestial Shroud is hugely powerful.

That being stated, I don’t know why people are hung up on the concept of ONLY healing when Rangers also have some great damage as well as added DPS and great utilities from their pets.

Honestly all I’m planning to do is decide what whether to have longbow or sword/axe as my go-to weapons setup alongside my shiny new staff, and whether to go marksmanship or skirmishing alongside Beast Mastery and the new Druid trait line.

Don’t get all threatened by water fields, and don’t think that one new spec suddenly makes ranger the ultimate healing profession in the game. Strong? Oh yeah, but please don’t go thinking that other classes are incapable.

In other words, I’d be glad with what you’ve got rather than looking for reasons that someone else might have something just as nice.

We will see in beta weekend.

Coinhead.7591:

No. You said:

“-No cap on the number of people that can blast it”

There is a cap on the number of people that can blast it. It reads right here https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

" Only 5 unique combatants can combo with a given combo field.¹"

And is also easily tested in game.

If you have 1 waterfield and 10 guardians with hammer 2 jumping to it you only get 5 blasts.

Ohhh okay. My bad. That changes everything.

Using Ancestral Grace to jump to the commander and then faceroll CF 1-4 until the bar runs out is going to be much more use than water fields alone.

mistsim.2748:

every decent raid group has this coordination. not sure who’s left playing wvw right now, but certainly a year and a half ago, everyone and their grandmas were blasting water fields competently.

This was also back when stability was worth a kitten in WvW and things like venom-wells didn’t mean you got hit with double digit immobilize on a regular basis.

Re-stacking when the enemy is actively on top of you in a fight that isn’t going your way in the first place is a lot harder.

This goes doubly so in things like lord room fights where not only will squishy backline not be able to dive into the one spot for heals, they may mostly, or all, be dead leaving you with no ele’s to drop fields.