Guild Wars 2

I don’t think any game should allow you to win vs. 2 equally skilled players. The problem with gw2 however is that you can’t even 1v2 much worse players. (unless they are completely new) Not only that, but even if you outplay your oponent and manage to down 1 of them, as soon as you’re stomped/killed they get back up and your efforts have been meaningless. In other games killing 1 enemy in a 1v2 does at least even the score somewhat, as both teams are down a man for a bit. Sadly I don’t see them ever fixing this. Some downstates should at least be brought down though. (rev is ridiculous)

Do you really think they would make a spec like this for warrior before they made it for rangers? Also, warriors have literally nothing to do with beasts, not 1 skill.

anet dont like it for warior to have nice thing, cant have them ez mode class to be to op

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Ranger uses gs is better. The aa evades :z

Yes but it does kitten damage.

If you prefer greatswords over hammers I’ve heard that selecting reaper also works.

I stopped reading when you started complaining about heartseaker spam.

arnitheking.8427:

remove all classes from the game and replace them with peaceful rabbits

Warrior is well on it’s way. Even other classes admit that it’s bad and our special armor piece for berserker is a bunny helmet.

Tipper.6973:

A tanky spear wielding support archetype would be awesome! Land spears pls anet!

This.

On the off chance that anet decides to allow warriors some magical capabilities, I’d love to suggest either an Earthshaker or Gaia espec. It would use the staff (mostly physically and for melee) and empower it’s attacks with the physical aspects of the earth.

Some basic skill ideas:
Fissure – slam your staff into the ground, creating a fissure that stuns enemies in a line and blocks a path for a short duration.

Dust Devil – spin furiously, stirring up dust and sand to blind and damage enemies. Can move while channeling.

Boulder Toss – launch a boulder at the targeted area, dealing heavy damage and immobilizing enemies.

Gaia Shield – temporarily become as hard as stone, gaining protection and stability for a short time.

I don’t really see that happening. They specifically said they want the warrior to remain a purely physical class and that sounds too mystical. The only weapons left for the warrior are staff, dagger, short-bow, scepter, and focus. I don’t see scepter or focus ever being a thing, and even the other 3 sounds kinda forced.

Personally I hope they aren’t fully committed to introducing a new weapon with each elite spec. I would much rather them make it so that when you choose an espec it just changes the skills of a particular weapon. For instance, let’s just say they added the Barbarian espec and it focused on the greatsword. When you equiped the gs with the barbarian spec, it’s skills would be either completely changed, or heavily altered. Maybe instead of the sword rush (skill 5) you get a long ranged leap. This way we would still get new skills without having to resort to out of place weaponry and strange specs.

The fact that this is our special armor piece makes me so angry I just might go berserk.

Many of the old traits and utilities are absolutely terrible and need to be updated before the pvp season takes off. All classes suffer from this problem, but since my main is currently a warrior, I’ll use it as an example.

The trait thick skin in the defense line is one of the worst offenders. It gives 120 toughness while above 90% health. This is around a 1-2% reduction the first time you are hit… it might as well give you nothing.

As far as utilities go, the “On My Mark” shout is an obvious outlier. Literally all it does is apply 10 stacks of vulnerability to a single target, and it has a 30s cooldown. Like what?

For the sake of build diversity and balance, please work on this anet.

hate.3195:

this build is absolutely for wussies
shame on warriors with rifle
go play ranger, enginner and others wussies class.

It’s fun and hilarious, but I have to say I don’t feel like a warrior anymore.

Arcade.8901:

Well if you ask me ? I know what they could ve done with it watching what they did to others.

They could have implemented Great Axe, not some lazy 2 slot weapon which we don’t even need.

1. Regular attacks with speed of hammer which adds vuln on 1 and 2 hit, and might stack on 3rd combo.
2. Some sort of bull rush attack which would leave a trail which would be a fire field. Knocking down everyone on it’s pass with some evade frame in it.
3. Some sort of whirling attack while still being able to move doing massive damage.
4. Some sort of pulling attack which would graple foes to you.
5. Some sort of outrage attack which would just knock down up to 5 enemies in 240 radius.

They could have played with our weapons so when entering berserk mode they would remain the same but with some kind of upgrade.

100 Blades gain might on hit w/o strength.
Bonus to blade trail so it would apply burn with cripple.
Rush – bonus damage based on a distance traveled.
Whirlwind attack – larger radius + burn stack.

etc etc etc.

alot of wasted opportunities tbh. so sad.

You can’t expect them to alter every skill on every single weapon just for 1 elite spec, that’s way too much time/effort. I honestly was surprised that we got an entirely new burst for every weapon with berserker. (although to be fair several of them are not that different)

When I think of a berserker, I typically think of fast attacks and big crits, and in many ways the berserker delivered on those. After the recent buffs I’m actually pretty happy with the berserker traits, but the utility skills are still horribly disappointing.

Personally I’ve been running with defense over arms and strength. It means lower damage, but without Cleansing Ire you get eaten alive with conditions and immobilize/chill completely shuts you down. I’m still seeing 9k+ crits against most players and don’t really miss the damage too much. The free endure pain really helps with survival, and dogged march/shield mastery isn’t too shabby either.

After these changes I actually feel like the Berserker is a pretty solid spec. What most people are complaining about, or should be complaining about, is the base warrior. It needs a fair bit of work. These changes were welcome in my book though.

Just played about 5 games with this and I must say, i’m rather impressed. It’s fairly effective and insanely fun. Had several 10k ranged crits

I didn’t play the beta, but since release the smokefield never had a blind. It makes your pet avoid all attacks while he’s in it and is great for combos, but that’s it. I specifically remember being confused because it didn’t blind and I was expecting it to.

Most of the elite specs add an entirely new mechanic that the profession didn’t have before, and so unless the utility skills and/or traits are worse, the espec will by default be stronger. If the utilities/traits are worse however, the spec would feel kinda kitteny. Honestly epecs should just be admitted to be better and practically mandatory. The problem is that until they have more especs to choose from, that would kill the small amount of build diversity we have.

I’m guessing for the same reason that Inspiring Battle Standard is in discipline instead of tactics, and burning arrows is in tactics… our support line. Warrior needs complete revamp.

Archon.6480:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Wat?

THE ENTIRE POINT of the test is to test the AI without human intervention. Did you watch the videos?

Please explain how better use of the pet will make it hit moving targets more reliably. Better yet, post a video.

I think you are missing my point. My point is:

Pets are useless without player intervention.

This is by design. If you don’t do anything, they don’t do anything.

That is how they are supposed to work. If you are AFK, they are AFK. Despite the fact they run around and feebly flail at your opponents. Is this the fault of the AI? You bet it is. And they move too slowly.

Is this on purpose? Yes

Is ANet going to change this? I don’t think so

We can’t test the pet by itself, because it is tied to us like a ball and chain. The only test that would be good must include the Ranger doing its best to kill target, as well.

What? How does a player control the pet anymore than telling it to attack its target? Sure there are f2 skills, but otherwise how do we have anymore control over our pets ability to deal damage? If pet auto attacks are not meant to deal decent damage then why does the ranger have such low damage on its skills? Surely a single ability, with a sizable cooldown (pet f2) does not equate to a 25%-30% damage reduction. I think you are maybe just confusing poorly implemented A.I. for intentional design.

Lingering Light for druid from 3s to 12s internal cooldown. By “dealt with” do you mean nerfed mindlessly into uselessness? Guess they were just correcting their initial balance, which was only a measly 400% off the mark.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like giant AoE skills, dazes/stuns/ect., and blocks/evades/ect. are everywhere. Either i’m blown up by people not even focusing me, I’m stunned to death (even with stun breakers), or I get so bored of seeing immune that I just walk away. Also, the damage is out of control. Insta-gibs have become commonplace.

I honestly don’t think they want us having complete flexibility with our stats. (see minstrel removal) It seems the devs feel that certain stat combinations are unhealthy for the the pvp playing field. (which may be true) If this is the case however, it does feel like a lame restriction.

Over nerfing/buffing something and then adjusting it is not a bad thing. In fact it’s a very good thing. Balance is a small moving target and sometimes it requires a few shots to connect. That said, I don’t think the devs are doing a great job at correcting themselves when they miss the mark. Rather than adjusting a few inches to the left, they shoot off in a totally different direction.

Since patch yesterday every time I change zones, finish a cut-scene, ect. action camera is toggled off and I have to manually enable it. Not a huge deal, but it gets annoying pretty quickly.

Wow. I knew pets were bad against moving targets, but I didn’t know they were this bad. If the A.I. is this bad they should really consider removing most of the damage from pets and instead give it back to the ranger. I would personally be okay with them just giving us control over both pet utility skills, and drastically reducing the percentage of ranger damage distributed to pet auto attacks. Thank you for testing this and sharing your results, although it is making me question my choice to main a ranger…

I’m a ranger main and have been playing and loving the druid thus far. That said, I have talked about this trait extensively with my brother and we both came to the agreement that it needs a change. Random blinds heavily diminish skillful play, and having them on such a short cooldown makes fights too frustrating. (feels lame when I win a fight because LL triggered and my pet just happened to blind at an opportune time)

I will agree however that the druid may be relying on this skill as a survival crutch, and nerfing/removing the blind may need to be compensated with something else. Also, the faster astral force gain is definitely something I would like to see remain and possibly even strengthened.

I main ranger and I came here to say how jealous I am of the dragon hunter. I made a guardian to try it out for pvp and ended up having so much fun I played it more than my ranger.

Justine.6351:

mistsim.2748:

are you talking about pve or pvp? druids are quite strong in pvp. there are a few builds that work, many that don’t.

the one adjustment that I necessary for the druid is increasing AF gain rate for condi weapons, like for the axe/dagger + sword/torch builds. druid remains more or less unappealing for condi builds because of that reason.

I’m running pure condi build with druid. I honestly don’t know how people are running power builds with druid.

The staff is useless for condition builds and the only useful trait is possibly ancient seeds? Also, the biggest issue with condition builds is that you basically never get into CA form. (maybe if you use the terribad shortbow) So why wouldn’t you just use a base specialization over druid for a condition build?

Tigaseye.2047:

Traps (not Ranger’s, obviously!) seemed extremely OP in the Beta.

If they still are, they should nerf them, rather than buffing Ranger’s to be equally OP.

Traps alone shouldn’t be able to kill a fully PVP geared (i.e. Soldier’s), level 80 player, in a couple of secs and that is exactly what they were doing.

There was terrible skill lag at the time, so people weren’t able to do a lot of mitigation; but, still, it was ridiculous.

Of course, it could have been an exploit, IDK?

Oh no they’re still OP. I’ve 1 shot many classes with my trap bombs That aspect is not what I’m talking about however and their damage should be lowered. I just mean our traps need at least a stun breaker on them, and they should grant a little more utility. (boons, control, or bit of both)

Been playing dragon hunter and having a blast with their traps. I think it’s a little messed up that guardians have better/more developed traps than the ranger… They give boons on triggering, and one is even a stun breaker. Please rework our traps to be more useful so that I don’t have to switch classes to play a bowman with traps.

vespers.1759:

You know what? This is YOUR fault. I made a post about this on the general forums that was quickly deleted and I got a ban but I’ll repeat it again.

preordering never ever ever benefits the consumer. If you were smart you would have waited for release and actual reviews. Game companies screwing over their players is hardly a new thing in the industry. You preorderers are kittening us all over with your desperation to throw money at game companies. If we all refused to do it maybe we’d get some quality.

So whatever, I’ve heard this sob story too many times. You bought into the hype, gambled, and lost. Cry me a river.

I’m a ranger main and am disappointed with the current state of the druid as well, but please keep things in perspective. We didn’t pay $50 just for the druid class. There is a ton of amazing content to explore and consume, and if you are not having fun at the moment then I don’t think that’s on Anet. This was one preorder I was happy to be part of.

kiwituatara.6053:

Party is over guys lol

The damage nerf was needed. But I don’t like the F2 switch

I like it because now I can set up a nice burst combo, but i’ll miss the on demand blind and stealth. I wish they would make it so we have access to both of our pets utility skills.

Lol that didn’t take long Really though it was a bit broken. I saw mine do 20k to someone with sick’em in spvp.

Shoe.5821:

So zerkers make great druids? :p

Good point actually. Not sure if the engine allows for it, but maybe they could make it work based on the base damage/healing of the skill?

I vote Shaman, with mace as the new weapon.

Auto could be a chain attack with the third strike doing a chain lightning strike.

Second skill could be a purge skill which removes boons from enemies and conditions from allies.

Third skill could be some kinda wind skill that pulls in people beyond 600 range, or pushes them away if they’re close.

For elite mechanic they could temporarily transform into a spirt wolf

For utilities they could have the spirit weapon category, which calls in ancestral spirits to fight for you. (but they would actually be good, unlike the guardian ones)

The biggest problem with astral force gain is that each source of damage/healing grants a flat amount of astral force. This means that skills/weapons that hit/heal in rapid, small amounts generate force much more quickly. (a.k.a Staff auto) Because of this, force gain can never be even remotely balanced for all weapons under the current system. Either things will stay as they are and weapons like the great-sword will be unusable, or the rate will increase and staff will generate force too quickly.

To address this issue, I propose that skills/weapons generate force equal to a percentage of their damage/healing dealt (before reduction) , rather than a flat value.

So for some reason Lunar Impact was reverted back to a 3s daze, but it is not being affected by Moment of Clarity, despite the tooltip clearly showing a 6s daze. The daze lasts 3s with or without the trait.

Rather than make each source of damage/healing grant a flat amount, make the amount gained based on the amount of damage/healing dealt. This way all weapons, heals, and utility skills generate force at roughly the same rate.

Leodon.1564:

However, remaining silent on the issues also gives them even more reason to not attempt taking a stab at whatever issues they can address with Druid.

Sorry if there was a misunderstanding. I wasn’t say don’t give feedback about it, I would like changes asap as well. The OP was basically demanding the devs to address this issue right away, and I was simply pointing out that they have higher priorities at the moment. There is so much rage over this issue (which will be fixed) that people aren’t even enjoying all the amazing new content and buffs to druid. (Glyph of Equality has a stun breaker omg!)

edit: Just realized OP wasn’t the one demanding a response and raging, was a post just below, sorry OP. Asking for communication is fine and I hope we get some

Leodon.1564:

This is generally the attitude Anet has had with Rangers. There is ALWAYS going to be something else that Anet can focus on which is why the class has been so overlooked the past few years. Rangers got dealt the short end of the stick again by having only one beta weekend when Druid needed arguably the most betas due to the complexity and scale of changes. Ask yourself why this is. (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a purposeful decision by Anet considering how unpolished Druid was on reveal.)

You really think Anet has it out for rangers and doesn’t care about them? What sense would that make for a company to have a reoccurring bias against a particular class? That’s conspiracy theory speculation. Lots of others classes have had their own set of issues. Heck, just look at thieves.

As much as I would like answers too, the game just released and they are prioritizing more serious and immediate bugs. They have already said there will be balance changes soon after release to prepare for pvp leagues, so worst case scenario it will be addressed during those. In the meantime there is so much awesome content to explore and partake in, and druid is totally still playable and fun imo.

Huge fan of most of these changes and glad we can run glyphs with decent access to stun break. Aside from sorting out the AF generation as you mentioned, I would like to see some changes made to Glyph of Unity. It’s cooldown was increased, but it still remains a very weak skill. Even with decent power it doesn’t hit as hard as retaliation or confusion, and can be escaped easily. I personally don’t feel like the mechanic fits the druid at all, but if they insist on keeping it they should at least make it reflect 100% of damage dealt to you.

Not sure what devs precedent is regarding patch notes, do they typically release before, during, or after a patch goes live? I need something to tide me over until launch!

Just a flesh wound.3589:

(Tries to think of a suitable poem for the occasion)

’Twas the night before launch
And all through the game
Not a creature was stirring
Not even an AgitatedFox.
The gamers sat by their computers with care,
In hopes that a Dev, soon would be there;
The download was sitting, awaiting the call
With hopes of crashing. The game and us all.

Haha, beautiful!

I’m personally fine with only 4 options per category, as you can only slot up to 3 at any time anyway. Many of the existing ones do need a lot of improvement/reworking however. As for multiple classes sharing the same category, I think it’s fine and smart where appropriate, as long as there are some distinct differences from those of other classes. (ex. Warrior physical skills and Daredevil physical skill feel very different imo) Having structured and familiar categories makes things simpler and more clear, a huge benefit in a game with complex combat.

When an existing category doesn’t make sense however, it’s clear they are fine with adding new ones. (ex. Berserker has new rage skills)

Fluffball.8307:

Uhhh, extremely long story short, we have never really had a “role”. I think that’s why druid is so insanely specific in it’s role.

Listing anything other than that would be a huge thread on it’s own.

Haha fair enough. I’ll be sticking with ranger regardless and am so excited for the druid. I’ve always played support/healers in mmos and now i can finally do that in gw2. Plus druid is right up my alley thematically. Now if ranger could just get shaman espec i could die happy :P

Fluffball.8307:

Toolbox and Khael, it’s because the ranger forum has been swamped with people asking for nerfs to ranger, which has always been objectively weaker than other professions in a lot of ways. We’re all on edge at this seeming campaign of ranger-hate that has inexplicably flooded us.

Ah, that explains a lot. I played at release and then took like a 2 year break. I actually just started playing again last month and so i’ve missed all of that i guess. I can see how that would frustrate people and make them sensitive to the subject. Is there any particular reason why ranger was so weak and is anything being done to change that? (Aside from giving them a semi-unique role)