Guild Wars 2

While i agree with most thing you said here, i still have to point out some things.
Playtests have actually shown, that base ranger condi dps (Skirmish, Survival, Beastmaster) does very significant damage. Condi ranger in vipers gear can put out up to a maximum dps of around 30-34k dmg, according to test from qT. This brings it on par with power thief, dragonhunter and even staff/fa-staff ele (with the ele not having perma swiftness/alacrity). Damage classes in PvE are actually pretty balanced. The problem comes with chronomancers and rev´s inflating the numbers for certain classes, that scale better with their buffs. Sadly people in PUG´s plainly refuse viable builds very often, ignoring the effectiveness they could add to the raid.

To the point with druids: Condi ranger still has very good dps, so i wont really worry about mine. The real problem is, there is no real reason for any commander to take a non-druid ranger in favor of just another necro. Bouncing epidemics in itself is pretty cool and was propably considered to be a tool to support other condi-classes in a larger squad. Sadly epidemic synergises way too good with itself, basically denying condi ranger and engi any raid spot (engi even having very VERY good utility for raiding content).
The dps difference between viper ranger and viper druid is pretty significant, going so far as dropping from the top 4 theoretical dps-classes in pve to one of the lowest. If i am really willing to sacrifice so much dmg in favor of getting healing and buffing utility, just so i even can get a chance to play in a raid, it needs to be reasonably powerfull enough. It´s really going to depend on how far Anet is going to push the base nerfs vs scaling buffs.

Lastly, i am OK with Anet wanting chronos and rev´s to actually use the proper gear to amplify their boon outputs, at least from a balance perspective. If they do so however, they need to buff the base profession enough to make up for the loss of some dps in gear or even allowing for viable dps specs outside chrono and legendary buff-bot.
If they want to really adress the problems they cause in WvW, they maybe should limit the number of targets they can apply these buffs to, nerf it enough that it´s not a problem in PvP and buff other classes to make up some of these losses for themselves on their own. Although i agree that a split between modes is propably the best and long overdue solution.

Sorry for the wall of text ;^)

Minstrel.7615:

Another completely unnecessary nerf. Does anyone at Anet actually play hardcore Druid? Every nerf has been a kneejerk reaction from PvP without any thought to how it affects PvE or the content it was designed for: Raids. I’ve advocated over and over again that Anet needs to stop with trying to balance between three incredibly different game modes. It cannot be done, and let’s face it, you only care about eSports revenue anyway.

Nerfing baseline healing values is obviously going to make all off-heal builds become nonviable, namely Viper’s. Where is the build diversity here? Forcing people to run Magi’s gear to be an effective healer is shoehorning Druid into a Raid-only spec. I don’t think I need to go into details why this is a terrible design and direction.

If you are trying to cull the power creep HoT created (which was clearly going to happen from the get-go), then it needs to be across the board. Ranger has had huge problems that needed to be addressed for 3 years before it was “reinvented” into Druid. If you want to make vanilla classes viable again, Ranger was certainly the worst class the start with, since it flat out needs a rework to be viable in today’s meta. Not only does it have poor DPS options, pets are a function the majority of Ranger mains want to become optional or outright gone. The couple of buffs Ranger are forced to build are not enough to carve out any sort of definitive role, which is why the “Healer” band-aid worked at all.

We as a community need some justification and reasoning for drastic changes like this. The company’s transparency became a hard wall of PR when MO took over, and the players have definitely noticed. New management has finally started to deliver, but the relationship and trust still hasn’t been rebuilt almost a full year later.