Guild Wars 2

I am starting to realize that no effort went into these stances.

And honestly, our elite is an essentially a cheap re-hash of the druid elite glyph.

beast-mode should have no CD. it makes it really difficult to swap pets, which is fundamental to the Ranger’s playstyle.

They won’t put more work into it, chances are they will just remove it all together and ranger will be left with no interesting animations..

Having an animation related to soul-beast is important, it adds a lot of flavor. perhaps it should be a little gentler and less fart. I agree.

Feedback:

- One Wolf Pack isn’t a worthy elite skill. Really.
- Stances seemed a little underwhelming… actually, I don’t believe some of them even did anything..

- The actual mechanic is great. I love the animation and the abilities that you get while in beast mode.

My Experience:

Short Bow skills were enjoyable.

unfortunately, The renegade is NOT the same quality as the other elite specializations…

The first major disappointment, the legend. There are a lot more interesting and iconic characters from Elona that should have been used for this elite specialization.

the second major disappointment, the mechanic. Summoning lame animations that slap the ground and grunt is simply not enjoyable.

This has effected my decision to by the expansion.

So this means we get access to the smoke scales abilities? at least until the OP professions complain and they delete the soul beast from the game that is….

Anyway, my only complaint is:

Dolyak stance and Griffon stance should be renamed.
I have really enjoyed Ranger references to real-world animals.
guess this is minor though. darn psychology…

what I like:

The animations <3 Very Nature-y, Sticking to ranger roots == good

Map: beautiful
Flames of war: It is truly the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Not legendary status.

Cosmic Glider

Chinese Holiday Glider

i hope they call it: ‘The Warden’

biggest problem with CA is that it uses to many ground targeting skills.

especially the auto attack..

I hope the next Elite spec for ranger is like a ‘warden’ there is much lore in the game for it. not sure what the weapon would be though.

Probably not rifle though, ranger is supposed to be nature focused.. not sure if rifle would clash to much or not.

do people really like staff skill number 5?

I do not find it practical to use in any situation

staff skill #2 … idk
staff skill #4 (although it looks cool) doesn’t have much use for me.
staff skill 5… cool Idea.. but I wish it was completely replaced. I never use it.

staff skill #3, is awesome.

I actually am okay with staff skill 1.
But am I the only one who finds no use for staff skill 5?
and staff skill 4 doesn’t seem too useful either…
turns out people don’t really need to be healed that much

rev is a very locked profession.
ranger is probably the most versatile profession in the game.

Instead of health bars, there should be a symbol that appears over allies who could be in use of some healing. the symbol can change color based on how low their health is.

I’m actually okay with smoke-field not being the F2.

Removing AF degeneration would correct many issues with the druid.

quit my ranger? never.
But i am disappointed with how the druid is working. its not fitting with the ranger very well.

Celestial form has a pathetically short duration.

I hate to say it.. but you see all the professions running around with their new elite specialization. unfortunately, almost every ranger I have seen in the jungle still has the ranger Icon… which means that druid isn’t even equipped.

I hate complaining. but the druid isn’t fitting with the ranger.

Its like organ transplant, sometimes the body is unable to accept the new organ.

Hate to complain.

But the druid just isn’t working out so well with the ranger.

-Celestial form is pathetically short.

-if you don’t use staff, you are at a huge disadvantage.

it is very difficult to make a decent build with ranger and druid in pvp. very difficult.

Call the next ranger elite spec the ‘warden’ and focus on high dps.

The AF should not drain by itself… it takes focus off combat while trying to maintain AF.. all for celestial form that doesn’t last that long.

no drain, easy fix.

I am starting to see the Cosmic ray doesn’t work well as a ground target skill.

Lunar impact works well though, the larger radius makes it more reasonable.

Skill 4 and 5 in celestial form feel as if the cast time is to long considering the duration of 20 seconds.

Interesting note.
-A single heal skill will pretty much fill up the AF meter.
-I have yet to be able to fill the meter with any other weapon except staff.
-And the staff animation is seriously getting on my nerves. It makes me not want to use it. which is a shame because it has good skills.

Finally got to play the Druid!

First major issue. The way the staff is held. I really agree with everyone that it should be held like a caster. The hammer style feels horrible :/

It is incredibly easy to fill up the AF with healing. However, it is difficult to do so with damage. This might ruin the synergy with other weapons.

Celestial form was great. I like that it is heal focused. With that said, I think the base glyphs need to be damaged focused. Regardless. the glyphs felt like empty skills to be honest. (except the elite glyph, that was nice)

The seed of life skill needs a prettier flower blossom.

the base glyphs were actually very nature/plant themed. more than I realized. I think the balance between plant and celestial themed skills is perfectly fine. I enjoy both themes very much

Maybe it needs more nom nom nom

Why would anyone want the rangers staff to be close range oriented?
that makes no sense.
-staff skill 3 is a perfect segue into using the glyphs.
-Druid is a caster-style specialization on the RANGER
- lets not copy guardian skills and paste them onto the druid.

If the staff is a long-range weapon like currently, then it’s easier to line up attacks that pass through allies from a distance (which heals them). Let the guardian be guardian, I want to see the druid/ranger use the staff as intended, which is ranged.

If the healing provided by the druid is significant enough, then is there really a reason to add boons? inflating skills with boons is like nailing jello to the wall.

I’d be happy seeing healing that is significant enough to replace boons for a change.
Again, regeneration might make sense for the druid, but anything else would be out of the druid theme in my opinion. This would also protect diversity between the different support classes/builds in gw2

condition cleansing and dazing is an interesting mix. I’d like to see another daze be added to a skill to carry that theme.

nagymbear.5280:

SkiTz.4590:

nagymbear.5280:

Ranger community:
I have to mention the ranger community as well. I think we set a trap for ourselves with Druid as expectations were too high, and a lot of pressure was put on Anet. I think Druid became what most rangers expected it to be and yet I see a lot of negative feedback.

NOTHING in regards to broken pet was done (ranger remains the class with the worst mechanic, which is why anet had to create a new one – cele form)
NOTHING in regards to medicore/subpar DPS
NOTHING in regards to subpar group utilities (frost spirit/spotter STILL the only options)

Thank you for proving my point.

The issues addressed here have nothing to do with druid. They are issues that need to be fixed with the pet mechanic.

druid could probably afford some synergy with the pet, to bridge the two mechanics together. however, its also nice to see ranger get a mechanic that isn’t subject to being hindered by pet problems.

some have suggested that the pet should also enter an avatar form when celestial form is triggered. maybe even get a new pet ability. would this be to powerful?

also, lets keep in mind, that a big fraction of the ranger community want the ability to disable pet. the druid is kind of an even-ground scenario for these to ideas.

The celestial avatar is a good mechanic for the druid. I just can’t justify having an enhanced pet mechanic. The current one just needs polishing.

SkiTz.4590:

nagymbear.5280:

Ranger community:
I have to mention the ranger community as well. I think we set a trap for ourselves with Druid as expectations were too high, and a lot of pressure was put on Anet. I think Druid became what most rangers expected it to be and yet I see a lot of negative feedback.

You don’t know what others expected for druid clearly…

The reason for negative feedback is simple – If you were to tell a lot of rangers when they first created their character, that 3 years down the road, their BEST role is going to be HEALING FOCUSED, a lot of rangers would not have created it.

The negative feedback is simple – ppl didn’t expect to create ranger and later find out their most useful build/role is going to be healing…….

NOTHING in regards to broken pet was done (ranger remains the class with the worst mechanic, which is why anet had to create a new one – cele form)
NOTHING in regards to medicore/subpar DPS
NOTHING in regards to subpar group utilities (frost spirit/spotter STILL the only options)

They got a lot of healing and some PBAoE CC. The only group utiltiy is a bit of super speed (useless, should have been quickness)&stealth (lol engi,mesmer and thief do this better, whats the point????)

So if you expected to become a lovely healer, good for you, druid turned out alright for you.

To put in simplest form – I didn’t main a ranger to become a healing focused class. That’s not what I thought I signed up for.

ranger isn’t a healing focused class even with druid.
every profession is going to get different types of elite specializations as time goes on.

ranger already has dps
they already have a pet mechanic

these things need to be fixed, has nothing to do with the druid.

The elite specializations are supposed to bring a new mechanic and a new play style to each profession.
a dps druid with more pet stuff would have been a huge disaster.

The ranger will most likely get their high damage specialization in the future, just like ele will too.

nacario.9417:

Itll be fun to see how the celestial avatar works on a traditional lb gs ranger, it could basically be like a free third weaponset/semi deathshroud in some ways depending on how effective ur healing is on a marauder amulet. I would def try MM BM druid as the condi clear in WS can be covered with druid, making us less dependant on wilderness knowledge trait for survival skills. Potentially more durable 1v1/onpoint, but we’ll see.

Im also very excited to see the new pets useful/responsiveness

i’m curious about this too. In my mind it feels like it could be a pretty viable build.
I like the druid because we have different options of where to include support/defense skills.

Celestial avatar, glyphs or staff/traits.
this is why id hate to see anet take away healing effects from all the skills.
I do think they could add boons. like regeneration. seems fitting.

That makes sense

Perhaps it won’t deplete. There isn’t that much energy, so it goes by fast when you start using skills.

Chances are it will deplete, there has yet to be a transformation that can sustain itself indefinitely

mistsim.2748:

I also noticed that it is indeed very similar to shroud. I actually like it better. instead of life force, we build another life bar by actively healing ourselves and 4 other people. unlike the necro, avatar’s aoe debuffs are devastating, #3 and #5 being my favourite. Natural Convergence does more dps and has more utility than Undead Shackles and Life Transfer combined. we also get to use our utilities and elites while in avatar which is sick =P

I liked it a lot more than life shroud too. I mean, they called it a celestial avatar and it certainly felt epic. I love the skill bar animations when you enter celestial form. I’ve always wanted form interesting UI on ranger. definitely got it.

It was hard to tell, It kinda looked like it was draining on its own. But it was really difficult to differentiate.

SkiTz.4590:

Shoe.5821:

why do you think a ranger could not be an off-healer?

zealots equipment exist, as does celestial.

staff/bow or staff/sword/x are totally plausible builds

Staff is flat out not useful in 90% of the PvE scenarios…..

The DPS is awful, there is no kind of group utility (other than the stop projectiles on staff 5 and cleanse condi on staff 4).
Cleansing condi is absolutely worthless in PvE. Other classes can actually reflect , thus send back damage/CC to enemy so druid staff 5 is extremly subpar compared to other classes reflect skill…..

Staff maybe useful in raids but as of right now, staff in PvE looks like trash tier since its not a good DPS at ALL. You are gimping yourself and your party for bringing staff .

Some professions got support based, other got offense based specs. druid is not suppose to be dps. and will not ever be. I am sure anet has a whole list of elite specs to release eventually. ranger will get there offensive turn. until then, the ranger WAS ALSO in need of survive-ability. Ranger already has decent dps if traited right, although it could be buffed a little. but thats not what the purpose of the elite spec is.

I think the druid is excellent for long term ranger. It provides a viable defensive option.

you literally don’t even need to bring all the glyphs. This leaves 2 trait lines, two weapons and 5 utility skills. It is the perfect set up to make a DPS build while bringing along the celestial mechanic for defensive use.

if you want to go full on heal you can do that. but this specialization has a lot to offer.
Skill four and skill five in celestial avatar do more than just heal. daze, and immobilize for 5 seconds! ranger has long needed a more decent way to survive. not to mention, entering celestial form gets ride of all pre-existing conditions, thats crazy useful.

druid will see a lot of interesting builds.

keep in mind, and i’m sure, Anet probably has a whole list of elite specs that they plan to release. every profession will probably get a damage focuses spec, a support focused, and what ever else people categorize. this time around, the ranger got a defensive build. reaper for an offensive build. It will all work out. until then, appreciate the druid! it is much needed for us.

Mincsk.6028:

I am disappointed with this Druid as a spec for Ranger. I feel the art and roll would fit better with another base profession. I solo play mostly (not very healer friendly) so I guess I get to use my old Ranger to farm with.

I was hoping for a “fight fire with fire” Mordrem style nature (dps, support) caster using the staff.

Smiles lol

I would say that the theme is actually a pretty good fit for the druid. The idea that the druid is all plants and animals is not really in line with a historical druid.

ranger does have dps. It can be argued that its not so good, but that’s a fit-it-up problem. they shouldn’t have to make the elite spec do more dps just to cover up what the ranger already has access too.

so if you want a dps/support build, you can do that with druid.

build:
celestial avatar (your defensive option)
longbow
another weapon
any utility skills you want, you don’t have to take the glyphs
two additional trait lines to pick from

ranger is arguably the most under-powered profession in the game
the druid will give the ranger a lot more options for builds and play styles.
my opinion.

Taushullu.6180:

Just a quick repost to official feedback thread.
__________________________________________________________________

• Dismisses pet which was supposedly ranger core mechanic.
  • I thought specializations were meant to enhance or otherwise change the profession mechanic? Druid does absolutely nothing for the pet.

Questions that I hope will be answered in beta:

• Is healer all druid can be? Poor synergy with rest of the profession?
• Can Celestial Avatar form be useful without healing gear? Should it be?
• Can enough astral force be gathered just from combat to have enough Celestial Avatar uptime? Is healing from staff a requirement to have enough astral force?
  • Suggestion for Celestial Being: Astral force should also be gathered from pet attacks.

I personally think the pet mechanic needs to be repaired, but not enhanced with the druid specialization. I think its good that rangers are getting the Celestial avatar.

However, your suggestion about pets contributing to filling the celestial energy bar is interesting. maybe a good idea? maybe a horrible idea? I’m not sure

The Druid Reveal:

Celestial Avatar Mechanic:
How is the green energy bar drained? slowly with time or by only using the Celestial skills?

I really think this is a great new mechanic for ranger. I am pleased that they gave us something other than trying to enhance the pet mechanic. The pet mechanic just needs to be repaired, not enhanced. That’d be a waste of an Elite Specialization in my opinion.
one more note: I am not to keen on the idea that many boons should be added. perhaps regeneration or vigor, but protection based boons should be left to the guardian.

Weapon Skills:
( All the animations for celestial weapon skills were very beautiful)

Cosmic Ray - I like that this is a simple skill. It allows the player to only focus on positioning to support their allies.

Seed of Life - I really like the synergy with the trait Verdant Etching. I think this will be a very useful skill in all game modes.

Lunar Impact - The healing aspect of this skill is good. Should It also deal damage to foes? I realized it provides 3 seconds of daze. that seems pretty beneficial, so perhaps no damage addition is required?
- perhaps add the regeneration boon to it? and/or vigor for allies.

Tidal Surge - overall, I like it. Regeneration on allies during the interval of the entire skill might help make it more impactful.

Natural Convergence - I find this skill to be fitting for Celestial form, I like it.

Staff Skills:

Solar Beam - I like the skill, but the animation of the beam was difficult to see in the video. Hopefully it looks like a big beautiful ray of sunshine :P

Astral Wisp- I am happy that the druid got a wisp skill. if anything is added to it, perhaps regeneration for allies that pass through it?

Ancestral Grace - this is a great positioning skill. 1200 range? that is generous. I don’t think a damage component should be added to it. Wisps shouldn’t really being doing damage in my opinion. perhaps regeneration could be a possible additive if something is needed.

Vine Surge - I’ve heard that this skill should get bleed conditions? It might help provide synergy with possible condition builds.

Sublime Conversion - This is a pretty unique skill, i’m interested to try it out in the Beta.
Glyphs in base and celestial form:
a side note: the inverted form of each glyph in celestial form is a great idea.

Glyph of Rejuvenation - This skill and its inverted form is very tactical, I like it a lot.

The remaining utility glyphs feel a little barren. Perhaps this would be a good place to add the regeneration boon. Glyph of Alignment or Equality could probably have something added.
also, I am a little concerned that the cool down may be a little to long for what the actual glyphs are offering. either the CD should be decreased, or the glyphs slightly buffed?

Final Thoughts
I am really excited to play the druid. I think it was nicely designed and has many different uses. It is also very thematically pleasing.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

I tried looking for positives but didn’t find any in the trait lines or the druid mechanic.

Trait line for druid was Amazing.

Lyger.5429:

My feedback:

Druid just needs to make up it’s mind do you want to be a celestial healer or a half-ranger.

I also think they should have put more effort in reworking celestial avatar to working as a substitute for the pet traits. Just as they did with reaper shroud.

It’s nice to have a trait line that isn’t inflated with pet traits. There were some really cool traits to choose from in the druid line.

Keep in mind, you can simply use the celestial avatar mechanic without using all the glyphs. this leave two trait lines, a weapon and 5 utility skills to choose from. The pet will see plenty of play and i’m glad we got a different mechanic that isn’t pet related. Ranger needed more viable options.

Halan.7931:

Could effects in normal non-transformed form be changed to green (staff 2 and 3), or golden-yellow (staff 1)? Use more rangery colors like green, yellow, golden, brown, not the guardian ones (white and blue).

And make seed of life look less disgusting. Currently it looks like "It’s something dangerous that’s going to explode, run away).

It was hard to see the bloom in the reveal video. It looks like a white colored flower bloom? It reminds me of a “moon garden” white petaled flowers that bloom at night, and on a full moon they appear to glow as they reflect moon light.

Very fitting for a celestial themed avatar? I liked it. although it was difficult to see the bloom in detail.

Overall, I really like the design of the Druid, and I especially appreciate the thematic variation between normal druid form and the celestial form.

I have read through much of the forums regarding the Druid and it seems that the main concern is that the base form of the druid doesn’t seem to be as thematically plant based as people would have liked. Of course, when the Druid transforms into the Celestial Avatar, it is only fitting that the celestial theme carries through all the weapon skills and all the celestial form of the glyphs. This is really a cool feature in my opinion, and has some very beautiful animations. I even enjoy the dark blue color scheme. It’s unique. It’s good.

Celestial Avatar Mechanic:
I loved it.
I can already see some possible builds that uses this druid mechanic. if one were to not use the glyphs, it might be possible to have a decent dps build while also having a viable defensive option.
I really think that the druid elite specialization give the ranger a chance to compete against the other professions. Finally.

I love the theme, I love the skills and animations, and I think this is good for the ranger overall.

wolfyrik.2017:

I’m not enjoying the Celestial avatar. I was expecting Merlin but we got Ziggy Stardust fan-fiction. The circling planets would look o.t.t. on skyforge where people play essentially as gods. It’s completely out of place here. Most of the staff skills look and sound like pokemon attacks, rather than nature based magic. Calling planets and stars natural, therefor nature magic, is quite the stretch. It’s like saying that Elementalists should be able to use nuclear weapons, because uranium is an element.

Aesthetically it just looks wrong. Instead of (incorrectly) orbiting planets, swirling leaves or petals would have looked so much better. The odd spark of lightening perhaps. Solar-beam would haev looked fine if it looked like sunlight, but again, even that’s stretching it a bit.

I’ve no idea what they based this elite on, but it sure aint druids. I think one of the devs spent too much time in the Mind, body, spirit section of a particularly bad, woo-shop.

What’s really disappointing tho is the existance of celestial avatar. We needed change to the pet mechanics. I don’t remember a single thread over the last three years where anyone ever asked to get Ranger Death Shroud. Aspects would have been so much better for the class. If HoT is going to be the AoE heavy, tactical position monster that idenio describes, then pets which have no capacity for either, will be worse off than ever. Removing the pet from play, even temporarily for a an increase in power, would have been so much better.

Aesthetically celestial is wrong, lore-wise celestial is wrong, for the established idea of druids in fantasy celestial is wrong and mechanically for ranger, celestial is wrong.

Celestial theme is not wrong. you may not like it, but it is not wrong. Druids historically are very tied to celestial rituals and belief.

there is very little lore about druids from guild wars 1. There just isn’t enough to justify creating a class based off “lore”

Most games ignore this celestial theme for druids, and that is wrong. I am glad anet has highlighted it.

I respectfully disagree. I really like the druid reveal, but I don’t think it should have the addition of protection skills and/or protective boons. Why?

Because the monk was nicely divided into the Guardian, the Druid and the Ventari Legend. The Guardian’s role is protection based, and its probably best to keep that class for that role. The druid is really the only class that provides decent healing. This is exactly what ranger needed because you can go semi- heal with just the Celestial mechanic. you really don’t need to bring all the glyphs. this means that you have 5 utility skills, a weapon, and 2 additional trait lines to pick from. Ranger can finally have a nice mix of damage while having a viable defensive mode.

Ranger can finally compete against all the other over powered classes.

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

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

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

Maybe Druid will make healing fun in gw2?

Mincsk.6028:

asweknowit.4798:

You’re not alone. I was expecting plant based condi dps (poison & bleeds) with high control for support

This would have been my choice. I invested a lot of time on a ranger to play a druid of this style. How was I suppose to know it was going to be a full healing cosmic wizard.

Cosmic wizard? its all how you perceive it I guess. I like to think its the ultimate channel to nature that there possibly can be. and now the ranger has access to it. Whoa Brah

I don’t understand. all 5 glyphs are nature inspired if you look closely. With the glyphs ( except the elite) there are flowers popping out and vines shooting up from the floor. The staff gives us flower walls and more vines, a whisp! which is a forest dwelling spirit, even a bign beautiful ray of sunshine for the auto-attack skill.

Even celestial mode summons those blooms from the ground… with that one trait, every time you use a glyph, you get a flower bloom, you can have a whole flower bed of blooms if you wish.

as for celestial form, and believe it or not, this is a very druidic theme that most games ignore. the ultimate source of nature comes from the cosmos. not to mention, it has some of the most beautiful skill animations I’ve seen.

I am unsure why people are so “disappointed” ranger got very lucky with this elite spec in my opinion.