Guild Wars 2

It may have already been mentioned here, but the glittering wings backpack would be good.
Just have it pop out a few large transparent dragonfly wings in you’re gliding.

Heh.. and ancestral grace is the only reason I use staff at all.

So that’s where all the druid/pet synergy went…

Given how slowly the pet attacks, having allies receive might from both of us should be fine. And I’m not sure about everyone else, but for the most part I’m usually not right beside my pet in combat anyway.

CAF #1 needs to be larger radius and instant. At the moment i never bother using it because it never lands.
When i go celestial form i usually drop #3 run in with #4 hit #3 again then leave and ancestral grace my way outa there.
We have a base to work on with the druid spec and there is plenty of room for improvement with staff skills, CAF and traits. I just can’t help but feel we would be in a much better place if we had all 3 beta weekends. The desire for feedback/improvement/balance seems to have died out since HoT launch.

I’ve been using this skill alot lately, and it works well with whao for might stacking but i had a thought. What if they made it so that when you and your pet attack you grant might to each other and nearby allies? (radius 300)
This wouldn’t be a buff to ranger, we would get no more damage out of it but it would increase our usefulness to the group.
It also fits thematically, you would be strengthening the pack, not just yourselves.

What if they killed off Eir so she could be the revs next elite spec…

I know, but at this point i can either despair or remain stubborn.
So I’m just gonna make suggestions and let them be ignored regardless.

Staff skills

1. should burn and have some sort of aoe, whether its a radius around the target or bouncing between multiple targets.
2. really doesn’t feel like it does much. At this point i don’t know what it needs but i hardly use it at all because it feels lacking.
3. Is prettymuch the main reason i use staff. It is fantastic.
4. Is slow cast slow animation. If it’s going to stay that way it needs to at least pack a punch. Up the damage and make it deal heavy bleeding.
5. is really situational and not often used. I kinda feel like they made it as a way for us to deal with RF without reflect. It would be more useful if it also acted as a boon/condi converter. Convert boons to condis on enemies that run through, and condis to boons for allies that run through.

CAF
I’ve only had the chance to really use it since they stopped the degen and the only thing i don;t like about it is the #1 skill. It has a super small radius and by the time it’s cast the target has usually rolled away.
They should change it entirely, make it an inverted solar beam. Call it lunar ray, target allies (make it so tab would target allies instead of enemies in CAF) healing them and slowing any enemies that pass through the beam.

The longer i play, the more this bothers me.

They should have just changed it from blind to something else rather than chance the icd.
If we want to blind alot we can just roll go for the eyes with birds.
We should be getting more combative options, not more of what we already have.
That said, I also don’t like how heal centric our druid trait line is, yeah it’s a heal based spec but the staff heals, the f5 super heals and nearly all our traits have something to do with heals.
I’m not asking for more damage modifiers, just more options.

I really don’t like that we only got the one beta weekend. It’s put us behind quite a few of the other professions in terms of balance etc. and we could still use some major tweaking.
So lets all treat the expansion launch as our second beta.
Nothing will change the fact that they leave us for last, but if we make enough noise they just might hear us.

given that celestial avatar is our ‘super heal form’ meant for when it all hits the fan i think it should stay that way. rather than a dps form, just have our staff do some solid damage instead.
have solar beam burn and maybe bounce between targets for some aoe.
astral wisp is good but feels a little lacking.
ancestral grace is probably my favourite thing about druid ever.
vine surge would be the perfect candidate for a bleed burst.
sublime conversion is really quite situational so i dont use it much at all except boss fights to give other ranged attackers some regen. having something like cleansing allies who pass through it would make me use it more frequently.

the only thing i really don’t like about CA form is the #1 skill, it has a small radius and takes a second to heal after casting so half the time my targets already rolled away from it before getting healed.

Bump for smoke field on f2.
Let us have nice things!

I feel like SB should reward good play but not demand it to function at a basic level.

1. apply 3s bleed on hit, 2 stacks if flanking. a chain attack would be pretty cool too.
2. needs a rework. it’s a ranged attack that is most effective at point blank range which makes little sense.
   rapidly fire 5 arrows that splinter on impact dealing damage and applying 5s poison around the target, also applies 4s torment if flanking.
3. should be changed to a leap finisher and gain 3s superspeed if used in retreat.
4. cripple target 4s, if target is already crippled apply 1s immobilise and deal bonus damage instead. pets next attack applies 5 stacks of vulnerability.
5. should stay as is but also apply 5 stacks of 5s confusion if it interrupts.

increasing the projectile finisher chance would be great. i find that piercing arrows does hardly anything on sb so i would even trade that for it. change LoYF from pierce to 50% chance projectile finisher on SB skills.
having the old range and/or attack speed back would be nice too.

Red in the ranger forum, tis an exciting time indeed.

Mentioned earlier but I think having solar beam bounce between enemy targets so you could potentially form a lazer beam healing array would be cool. Some people mentioned having it able to target allies, it’s our basic attack so should function primarily as an attack.

The vine surge animation could stay in place for a while crippling and bleeding? anyone who walks through it, acting as a short term soft barrier.

Glyphs feel wierd being all melee range when the staff has high range.
New pets are fantastic except for the slow attacks that have a higher chance of missing. I’d take weaker faster attacks from the pets any day.

I’ll need to take another proper look at the druid info for more.

I’ve seen a few people mentioning making solar beam pierce, but we’ve already got bows that do that, why not mix it up a little and have it reflect off of targets (like a lazerbeam off mirrors) hitting up to 3?
If it bounces right you could end up getting multiple heals on some people from one attack.

The staff should have a few offensively focused skills rather than all heals, the avatar form being a heal bomb I can understand but I feel like that should be an ace up our sleeve for when it all hits the fan. It would also be nice if the pet changed with us and gained some supportive effect.

Personally I like the theme and animations. It’s refreshing and interesting and not at all the horrible rooted in place slow animation vine user we were all dreading.

But I want nice things

Yeah, lets riot until they rework shortbow.
\o/

Hmm well even if we have them as is at 0 seconds then more potent as time goes, cos in a game like this 30 seconds is a long time and planning that far ahead deserves a bit of a reward.
Ugh I forgot about healing spring. It really feels awkward as a trap.

Had some time to think about what changes I would like to see in them.
Have them able to be thrown again, lose this arming time garbage.
Then have them all become more powerful the longer they are in place. This would reward skilful planning but still means you could throw a trap into a group of enemies and offer some support to your team.
Placement duration: 0 seconds – weaker than they are now, then at 10, 20 and 30 seconds they become more powerful either with effects, damage or durations.

Another thought is transitioning fields.
At the end of the traps duration the field it creates would change, creating a new one for 4 seconds?, offering no extra damage but more utility.
Spike trap, the spikes would lower and anyone within its radius would stay crippled. Effect ends on leaving the trap radius of course.
Fire trap, the flames would die out and leave a smoke field.
Poison trap, this one was harder to decide on but maybe an ethereal field? Once they’re poisoned it’s natural that they might start tripping out and seeing purple wavy lines and hallucinations.
Frost trap, would melt into a water field.

With both of these changes traps would become more useful to both us and our team, and they would only be more powerful if played well.

Haven’t been on much lately…
But you can’t cleanse it? That’s stupid.
The CD is timed with pet swaps which is nice since we know that when we swap there is a taunt ready.
So leave that as is but it should act like any other condition.

SB needs some work and range would be a great starting point.

They should make 2 condi cleanse on survival skills baseline, and have the trait add also cleanse nearby allies.
Then boom we aren’t forced to WS for cleanses, we can trait for group utility and poison master also becomes an option.
They could make traps interesting too by adding transitioning fields.
e.g. when flame traps done it leaves a smoke field or ice trap melts leaving a water field. No buff damage wise but I’m sure some clever rangers would make use of the fields quite well.

LoYF should be a shortbow defining trait.
Personally i don’t care about piercing arrows, with such short range we won’t hit much else, it only works well for longbow because of their massive range.
Having given it some thought heres what i think would make LoYF a viable option that could compete with quickdraw.

Reduce SB skill CD 20%
Increase movement speed in combat 25% when wielding SB and gain 3sec of swiftness and vigor after succesful evades while wielding SB
Conditions applied while flanking last 20% longer

Poison master needs a rework for sure, but it may be worth waiting until we experience the new condi stacking to ask for changes. Once we’ve tried them out we’ll know exactly what to be asking for.

LoYF should be reverted to what was shown before, it promoted movement on a movement oriented weapon.
Adding in a second or two of super speed on evade while using SB would make it better.
It’s nowhere near GM worthy at the moment.
The SB itself could use a little love too.

Yeah, keep pointing out the many flaws.
If the stars align a dev might look here and see and understand and do something about it.
Personally i doubt it.

Well shortbow still feels kinda screwed, Light on your feet was looking ok but now it’s stupid. SB should be all about movement and positioning and a small, short damage buff after dodging is wierd and nowhere near GM worthy.
How about reverting it and adding a small movement buff while in combat wielding a SB…
They took sharpening stone away from wilderness knowledge so it’s just back to how it is now?
Ugh
I really feel like they did this half heartedly and any excitement i had for HoT is gone.

Personally since returning to gw2 I’ve found the longbow playstyle kinda boring. pew pewing from max range sounds great but there’s so little action.

Sword getting a little rework would make it more appealing for sure.
I’m just hoping for a little shortbow love. I’ve had plenty of time to come up with a few ideas.
A few of the major issues at the moment is having to flank for the bleed, and the range and attack rate. Now changing all of these things would make it OP, to be honest i’m fine with the current range, even if it will be just over half LB range, but having the old attack rate would be great. As for the bleeds, i understand that this weapon is meant to reward good positioning (harder with lesser range ;p) but the auto, when not flanking seems really rather weak.
How about a very short bleed attacking from the front, even 1 second? and a longer bleed from the side 3seconds (the current) then longest bleed from behind 4.5seconds
SB #2 would be cool if it did something like inflict 2s of torment when flanking. Thats long enough to be noticed and short enough tat it isn’t too strong. Only inflicting max damage if the enemy is on top of you and you manage to dart behind them.
SB #3 and #4. #4 is weak, and i think it should be mixed into #3. Make #3 cripple the enemy when the skill is used in retreat, thus increasing your chances of escaping, and give us a totally new #4.
I’m sure Anet could create a skill with far greater pet synergy as the bleed from your pet is weak to the point of uselessness.
5 as has been suggested should get confusion on a successful interrupt.

Shortbow is probably my favourite weapon to use, it’s far more fun i think than the longbow. And with the baseline improvements for LB on the way i just hope our SB isn’t forgotten.

Given that the longbow is in a nice place at the moment, it should be time to restore the shortbow to its former glory thus making it a viable alternative to the longbow for ranged encounters.

With HoT coming up I’ve been feeling like this could have been a real chance for us rangers to get an excellent class mechanic. Pet’s have been troublesome since day one and while some of us have been able to make it work in most situations, it still has many faults.
From what I’ve read, the druids will be getting an animal companion which really just sounds like a pet rehash. If that’s the case I’m sure i won’t be the only one disappointed.
Anyway, while it’s still early and speculation runs rampant i figured i would share my thoughts on how i would like the druid to be.

Rather than pets or animal companions we get animal spirits. A little spirit floating around us that changes colour depending on which animal we have selected e.g. bear – brown, spider – green, bird – blue. We would keep all the same ‘pets’ and f4 would then be spirit swap.
f2 remains the same but instead of the pet using the skill, the druid does.
f1 would become a spirit skill that changes depending on which colour spirit you are using.
f3 would cause the spirit to use its longest cooldown skill e.g. fernhound spirit would use it’s knockdown skill. This would still have a 40 second cooldown and the target would need to be in melee range to be affected.
Then depending in which spirit we have equipped, our weapon skills gain extra effects. For example GS maul would become a blast finisher only when a bear spirit is active, while swoop would leave a trail of flames when a bird spirit is active.
Each type of spirit would affect 1-3 skills per weapon, making spirit choice an important part of your build.
Some traits would need to be reworked of course, but any that relate to pet swap could simply be changed to spirit swap for druids.

This would allow for more complex builds (death to the bearbows) and allow a mechanic that isn’t running off or dead half the time. It also wouldn’t disregard the current pet mechanics as they would stay with us and fight alongside us in spirit form.
I’m not sure what Anet might have planned for us, but I’ll remain ever hopeful that druids will be worth the wait.