Guild Wars 2

Maybe something like death shroud where you can become your pet and gain access to new skills. I don’t mean inheriting your pet’s basic abilities and f2 skill but instead gaining a more advanced version. The idea is that you’d gain your pet’s stats (imagine being a bear with 50,000 health) and you’d use its health as your own while the real you is just kinda gone for a while. Maybe you’d also get some cool passives based on what class of pet you swap with ex. as a bird you gain super speed and as a feline you gain 100% crit chance on your first attack from stealth.

I’m 100% sure that this isn’t happening but I think it would be a cool way to implement shape shifting.

I’d like an F5 skill that changed depending on what weapon you currently have equipped.

I posted in another thread, but I’ll reiterate. I’d like to see the Druids to be BEAST masters as opposed to PET masters. By this I’d like to have access to 4 pets. Druids can trade the target locking/swapping as well as recall of the current F1-F4 work like other classes summons. Pressing F would swap in the pet which is then replaced by its current “F2 skill.” A possible trait that can go with this could be similar to Ele’s lingering attunement that could temporarily let you have multiple pets out at once.

What I’d like for F5 would definitely be a … I don’t know, let’s call it a
“Master of his profession”.
Upon activating, your next utility abilitiy gain additional bonuses and effects. CD and numbers as such suited for balancing.

1. Trap: Your trap will now disarm the target – rendering them immune to use weapon skills for 3 seconds.

1. Shout: You gain the same benefit of the shout as the targeted pet.
   Protect me will make the pet take 75% reduced damage for the duration and will cleanse 3 conditions on the ranger upon activating instead.
   Search and Rescue will now make your pet revive the downed instantly and apply protection to the target for 3 seconds.

1. Spirits: your spirit will be activated without a cast time and will gain resistance and stability for 4 seconds upon activating. This benefit will last for 2 seconds.

1. Survival: Upon activating your next survival skill you will receive protection and resistance for 2 seconds. Your next 3 attacks steal some health.

1. Signets: Your next signet can be used without going on cooldown.

I’m aware the numbers are potentially powerful or overpowered. The numbers are irrelevant. The idea behind matters.
I know that is nothing but a nice and pretty dream, but let me dream for a bit longer.

Ugh. As long as it isn’t shapeshifting… I really don’t see why that’s so appealing to people, and I don’t see Anet bothering with making it work with all our current traits.

Lazze.9870:

…
and I don’t see Anet bothering with making it work with all our current traits.

Probably because that would be one way to improve the issues that rangers have been suffering for years. In one go.

Just saying.

I rather like that totem idea that’s been floating around where you lose your second pet but gain the ability to merge the pet with your druid to get unique F1-F3 skills, and the mechanic becomes about when to use your pet as a companion and when to use it as a spirit totem for the unique skills.

It’s also possible the pet will start being able to build up a resource that makes the pet stronger as it builds up and can be used for either a more powerful F2 attack or a new F5 attack coming from the druid. That would make for an interesting dynamic where the enemy has to try to anticipate if the druid’s big hitting burst will come from the pet or the druid.

Since druid can wield staff skills will be probably related to staff. Dont have high hopes to be honest. I can only hope i’m wrong.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Lazze.9870:

…
and I don’t see Anet bothering with making it work with all our current traits.

Probably because that would be one way to improve the issues that rangers have been suffering for years. In one go.

Just saying.

That’s not really neither here nor there. But then again, I should have worded myself differently.

Basically, what they need to keep in mind is that we have several traits that proc on pet swap and F2 skills, and then there is traits like Empathic Bond. Whatever they do to our mechanic, these traits still need to work. This is also one of the reasons why our profession mechanic could be less changeable compared to other professions. Our mechanic is vastly different from everyone elses.

A lot of these shapeshiftning ideas and especially mechanics that involve pet stowing that I see people suggest wouldn’t work with these traits. Making a mechanic that makes these traits less usefull is NOT helping the ranger. Making a mechanic that synergies well with these traits on the other hand, that will improve the ranger. I think Anet is fully aware of this and that they will design our mechanic accordingly. Which is good.

@Lazze
Ah, that sounds about right, my bad. Point taken.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@Lazze
Ah, that sounds about right, my bad. Point taken.

Yeah, I should have worded myself differently. I guess all this talk about shapeshiftning is just soooo unappealing to me. I would much rather prefer something like the idea the idea you mentioned above.

In fact, I don’t really care if they don’t do all that much to our mechanic (aside from general AI improvements (I also have this feeling that they’re doing a general pet overhaul that isn’t just AI improvements)) as long as they make the staff and our traits worth it. They’re obviously gonna do something to keep it in line with the other professions, but.. yeah.

I’d like to shamelessly bump my contribution of this thread. I too agree with Lazze’s sentiment about the Ranger mechanic’s backward compatibility. Does anyone have anything to say about my idea? I loved the concept of beta elite Alpha Strike wanted to work around that idea. I had in mind combos such as chaining dog knockdowns into spider cripples into drake breaths into devourer barbs. Anyone else want to see something like this?

Chilly – the idea is fine, but I don’t see a place where could I use it.
I mean – you’d sacrifice most of your ranger damage, all of your defenses and offense – just to be able to use abilities that are going to be used anyways.

If the ability made the ranger disappear or so – that would be too weak and too powerful at the same time. Being immortal for the time being in control of your pet is too much in addition to all the damage soaking abilities and, as well as there is going to be nothing useful in particular you’d do.

Also, you’ll never use it outside of PvP.

I like the merge with pet mechanic and find it most fitting for a druid class.

Perhaps if the “merge” was to add the additional effect from the pet skill to your own weapon skills. ie If you had a Wolf pet, your 2nd skill cripples, the 3rd skill KDs and you fear as well as the wolf when you use F2.
If you swap to Hawk, your 2nd skill inflicts vulnerability, the 3rd applies swiftness to allies and the F2 makes you do two 15s bleeds on your next hit also.

So you keep the pet, and the traits that work with it, but also gain what it has for yourself. Just an idea.

Dojo.1867:

I like the merge with pet mechanic and find it most fitting for a druid class.

Not necessarily. Druidism in the guild wars lore never had anything to do with shapeshifting into animals. We already know that the specialization is related to the established guild wars lore about druids and not the general fantasy druid.

With poison being such a focus with druids I think an f4 taking advantage would be something like this.

F4- devious spores 180 second cool down.
. 1/2 cast AoE 900yard range.
Effect-each enemy affected by poison at the time of casting is rooted in place for 2 seconds. After the 2 seconds spores explode from targets and 300 yard range applying 4 stacks of torment to each affected enemy.(maximum 5 targets effected)

A skill like this would be great and make poison application an important process for the druid.

Whoajaxx the ranger.

I hadn’t even contemplated changed F skills for rangers. I suppose if they squished the pet UI up a bit they could add an F5 skill, perhaps give the pet its own sort of “elite” on-command skill like the F2, but for the most part I’m basically happy with the F skills.

Actually I’m more curious about the staff and utilities. I wonder if we’ll get totems, like the grawl use.

simply, more control.

F1 – Attack, press again, return
F2 – activate F2 skill
F3 – activate non-f2 long cooldown skill (e.g. for a wolf, it would be their knockdown)
F4 – activate short cooldown skill (e.g. for a wolf, it would be their leap cripple attack)

And with that, since druid might be heading away from the whole beastmastery tree, it might be worthwhile to just give them 1 pet, but buffing that pet a bit. so more control, more reason to actually pay attention to your pet, but not enough to be seriously op

I think that our mechanic won’t change at all. Perhaps the staff itself will be a focal point of the profession in ways different from being just a new weapon with strategic and powerful 2-5 abilities.

They have changed the mechanic on the 3 previewed specs, I can’t see them saving the worst for last, so to speak.

Lazze.9870:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Lazze.9870:

…
and I don’t see Anet bothering with making it work with all our current traits.

Probably because that would be one way to improve the issues that rangers have been suffering for years. In one go.

Just saying.

That’s not really neither here nor there. But then again, I should have worded myself differently.

Basically, what they need to keep in mind is that we have several traits that proc on pet swap and F2 skills, and then there is traits like Empathic Bond. Whatever they do to our mechanic, these traits still need to work. This is also one of the reasons why our profession mechanic could be less changeable compared to other professions. Our mechanic is vastly different from everyone elses.

A lot of these shapeshiftning ideas and especially mechanics that involve pet stowing that I see people suggest wouldn’t work with these traits. Making a mechanic that makes these traits less usefull is NOT helping the ranger. Making a mechanic that synergies well with these traits on the other hand, that will improve the ranger. I think Anet is fully aware of this and that they will design our mechanic accordingly. Which is good.

I disagree. Did you not see how Necro vanilla traits interact with Shroud Knight?
Or how Vanilla Guardian traits effect DragonKnight mechanics?

i dont see how pet mechanics cant be folded into transformations skills the same way they did for the two Necro Shrouds.

I hope they will change the stowe button to something “become one with your pet” thing. Some extra stats, maybe new weapon skills and you are the center of the f2 ability

Well, they could just make all pet traits affect you while transformed, the swap ones though?

I do not understand why you guys continue to associate pet and Druid.
There is already the trait “Beastmaster” that improves the skills of the pet. In GW lore, the Druid is likely to be more associated with plants and nature. IMHO it evokes the roots from the ground, bushes, tree, seeds, and poisonous things like that, nothing to do with the pet.

Well as we all saw from the last 3 reveals, pet isn’t going anywhere. Therefore what is Druid gonna do with the pet?

I am pretty sure they already confirmed EVERY spec will more or less (!) change the class mechanic. I think the F2 will do something different than swapping pets and still proc all the pet swap traits though. If we do transform into the pet, pet traits will apply to us.

The actual problem I see with pet merging is that pets just vary a lot in playability. Some still have very flawed/unpolished design since release.

The problem is though, the class mechanics aren’t that different. Chronomancers, gained F5, Dragonhunters have modified Virtues, and Reaper has a different Shroud. Druids probably aren’t going to be losing pets and getting an uber mode by eating the companion. Also, ANet is dead set on keeping the overarching Ranger class a pet-reliant profession. They wouldn’t introduce a system that threw all that out. Ideas I do see being possible are the totem idea as well as the one with a “pet” resource.

Not gonna beat a dead horse, so signing out.

I can’t see them releasing a video with the druid in it, with a pet, and then make the mechanic – no pet. No way.

I think it will be a merge with pet power. Like a necro DS. You press f2 you and pet merge into something else. You attain the HP of the pet and fight as the pet/hybrid until hp is gone. switch back to normal form resuming last hp pool.

I just want to turn into a pig and squeal while running away from people.

keep F1 – F3 ( maybe with a little better respond )
F4 – swap position with your pet, stun break ( nice escape option and maybe gives “guard” a little more use )

Knighthonor.4061:

Did you not see how Necro vanilla traits interact with Shroud Knight?
Or how Vanilla Guardian traits effect DragonKnight mechanics?

i dont see how pet mechanics cant be folded into transformations skills the same way they did for the two Necro Shrouds.

And did you not see what I wrote? I’m not saying it’s impossible to overhaul the pet mechanic and still make it work (I didn’t even touch upon wether it’s possible or not, just different), I’m saying that a lot of the suggestions people are leaving on the forums wouldn’t work.

You can’t even disagree with that, that’s just how it is.

There is nothing wrong about stating the obvious when a lot of people seem to forget that for one, the ranger mechanic is vastly different from the other mechanics and must be treated with that in mind. Death Shroud was already a transformation, the Reaper Shroud doesn’t make any difference to excisting traits’ functionality because the concept is the same.

And two, we already have an established lore about druids in this franchise, and transforming into pets was never a part of that. People seem to ignore that and just look at other games that did similar things with druid-like classes, as if they forget that druids already exist in the lore – and that the only transformation they did was permanently taking the form of nature spirits.

Call me biased for not wanting shapeshifting partly because I don’t like it, but I’m just basing stuff of what we already know and have, lore-wise and mechanic-wise.

Folkwine Del Mark.2367:

I do not understand why you guys continue to associate pet and Druid.
There is already the trait “Beastmaster” that improves the skills of the pet. In GW lore, the Druid is likely to be more associated with plants and nature. IMHO it evokes the roots from the ground, bushes, tree, seeds, and poisonous things like that, nothing to do with the pet.

Exactly. We’ll probably get some sort of a mechanic change just because that’s how specialization will be, but from what we know, speculating about this whole pet transformation thing or anything associated with that is just full out guessing based on little to nothing except from the fact that we have a pet. Not saying people can’t do that, but then don’t end your argument with “it makes sense” or that it’s “most fitting”.

Dojo, don’t forget the cast times.
They are awful.

If they make the druid able to play the pet – I’ll quit the role. That is the worst idea they could possibly implement. There is no environment where you would like to play as your pet instead. None.

Also, the transformations as such do not associate with the Ranger. And they do not fit the druid. They fit the Norn. This is not Warcraft and you shouldn’t think of it as such.

I’ll simply wait and see and hope I won’t get disappointed.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Well as we all saw from the last 3 reveals, pet isn’t going anywhere. Therefore what is Druid gonna do with the pet?

Every class mechanic changed. I hope they will change ours as well

Lazze.9870:

Knighthonor.4061:

Did you not see how Necro vanilla traits interact with Shroud Knight?
Or how Vanilla Guardian traits effect DragonKnight mechanics?

i dont see how pet mechanics cant be folded into transformations skills the same way they did for the two Necro Shrouds.

And did you not see what I wrote? I’m not saying it’s impossible to overhaul the pet mechanic and still make it work (I didn’t even touch upon wether it’s possible or not, just different), I’m saying that a lot of the suggestions people are leaving on the forums wouldn’t work.

You can’t even disagree with that, that’s just how it is.

There is nothing wrong about stating the obvious when a lot of people seem to forget that for one, the ranger mechanic is vastly different from the other mechanics and must be treated with that in mind. Death Shroud was already a transformation, the Reaper Shroud doesn’t make any difference to excisting traits’ functionality because the concept is the same.

And two, we already have an established lore about druids in this franchise, and transforming into pets was never a part of that. People seem to ignore that and just look at other games that did similar things with druid-like classes, as if they forget that druids already exist in the lore – and that the only transformation they did was permanently taking the form of nature spirits.

Call me biased for not wanting shapeshifting partly because I don’t like it, but I’m just basing stuff of what we already know and have, lore-wise and mechanic-wise.

Folkwine Del Mark.2367:

I do not understand why you guys continue to associate pet and Druid.
There is already the trait “Beastmaster” that improves the skills of the pet. In GW lore, the Druid is likely to be more associated with plants and nature. IMHO it evokes the roots from the ground, bushes, tree, seeds, and poisonous things like that, nothing to do with the pet.

Exactly. We’ll probably get some sort of a mechanic change just because that’s how specialization will be, but from what we know, speculating about this whole pet transformation thing or anything associated with that is just full out guessing based on little to nothing except from the fact that we have a pet. Not saying people can’t do that, but then don’t end your argument with “it makes sense” or that it’s “most fitting”.

You are wrong. We know (nearly) one thing about druids. They shift shapes. Druids was a wood (oakhearth) and a spirit form.

Well, I wouldn’t say “They shift shapes” is exactly correct either, more like ‘They shifted shapes’. From human to an oakheart type, then much later to a spirit form. It’s not like they can do it at will, over and over.

McWolfy.5924:

You are wrong. We know (nearly) one thing about druids. They shift shapes. Druids was a wood (oakhearth) and a spirit form.

You’re wrong about me being wrong. Except from leaving out the fact that they shifted from humans to oakhearts as they became closer to the nature before turning into mere spirits, nothing about what I said was wrong. There has never been any established lore about druid shifting frequently back and forth between (the only exceptions being rituals that restore oakhearts spirits to regular oakhearts, but then again, that wasn’t frequent), and there has never been any established lore where this shifting involved animals.

The last part being quit important when speculating about rangers doing some shift-interactions with their pets via the druid specialization. Anet can obviously take the established lore and take it from where it is now to wherever they want by expanding it, thus not ruling out frequent shapeshifting entirely. But from what we know now, mechanic wise and lore wise, shapeshifting as a profession mechanic doesn’t make as much sense as some people want it to do.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skill

Guardian got traps, mesmer wells, necromancer shouts. Imo durid will get stances or minions, and staff will get marks or wards.
This seems to work for me. Imagine warding an enemy in place and calling a couple of ravens to bleed him. Or a jungle wurm working like necro flesh wurm.

Pew, I expect something similar.
Even though I believe that we won’t get a copy > paste mechanism of Necro Wurm. The skills that classes got were pretty much unique.

I was reading this thread, and as conversatiojns developped, some ideas I liked, some less, but one concept did come to mind.

We already have an UI were 4 creatures can be selected. What if these 4 creatures, instead of being brought in separately, would actually comport themselves more like signets?

We could have F1 through F4, and the creatures selected could grant us passive bonuses – think of it just like the virtues the Guardian gets. And when we trigger them, something happens.

Like, maybe with having an Arctodus, you’d get a bit extra power and precision and once you trigger it with the F-key it’s assigned to, an Arctodus is briefly summoned, attacks the target with a couple of powerful swipes, then leaves and the F-key goes on cooldown.

I mean, in the video, we saw an alphine wolf be there and rushing an enemy target. Doesn’t mean it has to always be present to be seen used. Having the pet briefly out doing things for a specific purpose would likely make it feel a lot more useful than people see them as right now – because if they appear, then it’s on purpose, because you want them there to do something specific.

This said… I’m not sure of how much sense that idea makes with the Ranger(Druid) because Ranger is supposed to be a class that’s about high-sustained damage, rather than damage spikes (or so I remember the Devs explaining in the workshops) and triggering all four function keys all at once could very well end up being very DPS spike-y if what the Druid would have slotted are high DPS animals.

@Zoberraz +1
^This is almost exactly what I was trying to say earlier except with at least one pet always active.

In regards to triggering all pets one after another and the ensuing effects, including but not limited to 12might, Beastmaster’s Bond, and 12s of quickness, I talked with Tragic Positive via PM. I suggested a cooldown similar to Ele attunements. And also going off Ele attunements, a possible GM trait could be a revival of the old Alpha Strike elite skill that could function like Ele’s Lingering Attunements to have 2 pets on the field for a short time.

Dont really care actually.
Still prefer to pewpew from afar.

Just hope that they can allow me to control my wolf ’s knockdown, that will do.

i want the current F1 command, better known as “try to hit enemy”, be reworked so it is now a “hit the enemy”

Prysin.8542:

i want the current F1 command, better known as “try to hit enemy”, be reworked so it is now a “hit the enemy”

IKR, well, at least Agility training is a minor in BM now, that should help somewhat.