Guild Wars 2

I would love this. I have 5 instruments and I would love to be able to have a “toy box” like tab to keep all of them in. This is something that shouldn’r need any consideration and be added immediately.

Howard Jones here of the Gamernautz. We made a parody video depicting inspired characters of the Super Mario Bros. Video Game. This is our first video in this format and we would like to make more. Tell us what you think! We’ll be looking forward to any feedback.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ventari was not a druid, so I doubt it

He wasn’t a druid, but he was druid like. I know this thread is about ranger druid speculation. But knowing who ventari was (you know planting the pale tree and founding the sylvari race) what sort of skills would he have?

Back on topic, I really hope Anet releases info on the druid skills. But I fear we won’t hear about the druid specialization until all other classes had there turn.

aspirine.6852:

It sure doesnt sound very exiting, staff ranger

Its not a staff ranger, its a druid; big difference. Its like a Guardian becoming a Dragonhunter. What seems un-exciting to me would be chronomancer. Seems to have the least change from a mesmer. Also, just because you spec druid doesn’t mean you have to use a staff. Maybe you like it for added utility skills and some of the traits. Elite specs will add a new layer to creating builds. I look forward to this.

My current build I run bleeds and poisons. I use snake and spike traps, poison master, with double birds. Shortbow as my main weapon choice and a sword plus horn for a boost of speed. I use the signet that grants toughness since I’m mid range the added defense is nice. Plus the 6 second invulnerability. My elite skill is entangle and I use krait as my armor runes. It makes popping entangle a nasty surprise for a group of enemies. I do pretty decent in PvP. I can win most 1v1 and hold out fairly decent on 1v2. I think a condition ranger in PvP catches most people off guard.

rpfohr.7048:

Here is what I speculate. And it isn’t anything too shiny ( except for the unities)

How Druid Functions:

The Druid focuses on supporting your allies and your pet by keeping your enemies CC’d and enabling your pets to hit more accurately.

How class mechanic changes:

While playing as a Druid you gain the ability to train and equip additional pets found in the Maguma jungle! No new button functionality is added but these new pets have abilities that take advantage of the new and creative gameplay coming in HoT.

The utility we will get? Venom’s! Harness the power of nature to soft and hard CC as well as conditions like burning and bleeding

But unlike the Venoms for the thief and sharpening stone for the ranger which inflict conditions on your next X attacks, they will work more like Preparations from GW1 which when activated lets your attacks do X effects for the next X seconds to help keep your targeted foe crippled CC’d and overall miserable!

This is very specific. Plus I feel using something like venoms is more of a thief assassin role. As for a druid playing support I don’t doubt this seeing as how they are making Guardians into rangers with longbow and traps. Only suiting we have rangers take guardians jobs. Joking aside I like a support role, but was hoping a cc condition play style to reflect on my rangers current style would be the route they went in. But as I said previous, I’m going druid regardless. Its actually the #1 reason I started playing GW2 about 3 weeks ago. A friend mentioned it to me and it peaked my interest.

Someone earlier mentioned about not playing a ranger until they removed condition cap. Its a work in progress I hear. And poisons get there own stack. So no more one poison at a time nonsense.

Durzlla.6295:

Harnel.6810:

Regarding the “Religious” aspect of druids, there’s a few things to keep in mind.

The first is that I can almost guarantee we’ll be learning to be druids from the Maguuma Druids, a group of human nature magic users. This is important because they didn’t become the first of some nebulous ‘druid’ concept – their tribe was called the Druids, even before they became one with the land. Their purpose is to slumber as arboreal spirits, and return to the world when the Maguuma jungle is in need; and Mordremoth definitely qualifies there. They achieved a zen state, but I wouldn’t say that’s religious.

The second is that three out of five races are non-religious, one to the point where they’ll punch you in the face if you suggest they’re worshipping something. The last two don’t worship nature – humans worship the gods, and while that might involve Melandru, a good amount of humans don’t even think the gods exist anymore. The norn worship the spirits of the wild, but even then that’s entirely different from worshipping nature. Giving religious overtones to this simply will not work, from a story and roleplaying standpoint.

Sylvari can, as a racial skill, already summon a druid spirit. What the bleeding hell does this mean for druids? Who the hell knows!

The Druids are much more likely to be teaching us druidic skills out of desperation than anything else. Mordremoth is a crazy threat, like all the Elder Dragons are, and spreading around their mojo is likely to be the only way they can see to really protect the jungle. Magic in Tyria is areligious – you don’t have to worship Balthazar to use elemental fire, you don’t have to worship Lyssa or Raven to be a mesmer or thief, and that means there’s going to be no religious aspect to the way druids work. It is, simply put, going to be a skill set for working with magic in a particular way.

Does that preclude the whole “Sun and Moon” concept? Not in the slightest. But it does make it much less likely, especially since the Druid Spirits are focused on the well being of the jungle, not on celestial bodies passing overhead.

When i said religiously dedicated to nature, I didn’t mean they were actually religious, but with how closely connected they are to nature and how they zealously they tend to defend it and the such that it may as well be a religion.

Druids in GW absolutely fit the “religious” theme that druids in almost all games have, and charr and asura could very easily fit into the role as well. Keep in mind that your player character is NOT the stereotypical race character. If that were the case then Necro would be unavailable to norn, and warrior would be unavailable to asura, etc.

Again, keep in mind druids in most fantasy aren’t actual religious, most of the time they wont serve a deity or higher entity in any way, and those that do serve some sort of nature deity but it’s not a mandatory thing. Most of the time druids are just so in tune with nature they gain their magic from it (as do rangers). It’s religious in the same sense that being Buddhist would be religious.

I understand what you are saying. But I was also think religious hysterical too. Real druids what little we knew of them were very religious and made human sacrifices. The only reason we associate druids with nature is because they were of Celtic roots. I don’t even think there is evidence stating true druids were nature loving hysterics. Regardless I am happy with what modern media has done with the idea of a druid. Much more better this way in my mind.

I am feeling crippling bleeds and poisons from the staff spells. If we take anything away from the rangers already nature themed spells, all use vines and root like animations. Healing Spring, entangle, entrap… As Harnel mentioned, the druids of maguuma and this dlc will focus on Mordremoth and plants are what he represents. There’s a pattern forming here. If the staff spells are anything but plant related it will blow my mind.

Edit: I decided to look at the chronomancer being one of the more developed spoilers to get an idea of what the druid spec will acquire. I originally thought it would just allow rangers to equip a staff with those weapon skills and new traits to adjust current skills. The chronomancer has a new healing skill as well as several new utility skills. This opens up new doors to what I had original thought. Even more excited to learn more of what the druid will offer.

Ehecatl.9172:

As others have said it looks like it’ll be a control/support weapon, which I am fine with. I’d like it to open up a bunkerish area denial playstyle using vines and poisonous flowers to punish enemies in the area. What I’m really hoping for are more of out animal spirit skills like Maul or Serpent’s Strike. Those are my favorite ranger skills because of the neat animations.

I hope that staff will be mainly a hybrid utility weapon. That way power builds can make use of it for it’s defenses and crowd control skills and condition builds can use it to stack more bleeds/poison on the target for damage. Sort of like how Entangle is useful for both power and condition users because of how it functions as both a condition stacker and hard crowd control.

It would be pretty epic to lay down some vine fields that stop the enemy from pushing through so you can snipe them with your longbow or stack them full of conditions with your shortbow and the vines themselves.

I have to agree, I am one of the rare condition rangers out there. If my current gear is adequate with the new druid play style it will make me happy happy. Definitely think CC we will see. I would also like to see a vine wall that acts similar to Guardians but maybe bleeds or poisons enemies when they touch it. Playing a druid may be the answer condition rangers have hoped for.

So being a druid as I hear is essentially choosing it in the trait specialization screen and putting points into it. So its not a complete class overhaul like I think some of you have come believe. This being said I don’t think they will gain any additional utility skills and I don’t think weapon skills will change; so you can probably still pull out a longbow with same skills. I do hope however choosing the elite spec will change my proffessikn name from Ranger to a druid.

I hear they are removing the trait to allow Ranger’s Spirits to go mobile. Can anyone confirm this? That being said I think the druid elite spec will allow the ranger to control spirits better as well as field utility with the staff. Not giving them new utility spells but enhancing spirit spells. Regardless on what they can do I plan on at least trying it out.