Showing Posts For Lirale.6437:
Seeing how you got an eye on tha threadt, Irenio, I’ll permit myself to chime in. I’m usually discrete and reserved, and the only times I post is to shine happy rainbow sunshine on a subject, but this time I’d like to share my sadness.
Been maining ranger ever since I started in 2014, not knowing anything about their status as least liked class in the game (I can point you to a very recent user survey of 12 000 players where Ranger barely scrapes a little percentage of votes) but still I love the class and played more than my share of satisfying speed runs in dungeons and high level fractals thanks to great buddies.
Learning the name of my Spec’ scared me a bit. Druid sounded healing and what is healing’s place in GW2’s soft trinity? I saw Wooden Potato’s very pertinent experiment about high-level healing with the elementalist and knew what to expect : sad, unsatisfying role that neither gives credit for the role played or for the monsters slayed. On top of that, our and the Engineer’s spec would be the least play-tested and changed as we got the short stick of the deal and only had 1 weekend worth of chance to speak our mind.
Learning of raids changed my dreadful feelings a little bit. I threw myself at the Druid in BWE3 and had crazy fun despite my fears and despite some very bothersome aspects I’ll touch on later. I felt useful, I felt mobile, I even like staff contrary to a lot of other players. Changes to staff 3 made me very happy as I felt that skill was a big part of what allowed me to shine as a healer and manage my placement on the battlefield.
Unlocking my spec ever since launch made me crazy sad. I was in a though spot in new fractals thinking “If only I had my Druid!” then realized I had a staff lying around in my bags and decided to go for it. Right away I felt the difference in usability compared to BWE3; for such a shoe-horned, limited role of mostly healing, Druid had to excel at it, and now it was… meh. Half-decent damage, half-decent healing, never enough AF to feel useful. So here are my tidbits of constructive criticism :
1- Astral Force should work like Death Shroud. Mechanics are more similar to it; it cannot be compared to Warrior adrenaline which encompasses a single burst in a slot that doesn’t affect the rest of the gameplay; degen is legitimate as we are talking about a separate skill only worth a damage burst.
Entering Celestial Avatar changes all your weapon skills and the way you play. Most of the versatility of the Druid as a Healer comes from the fact that we can burst heal when needed instead of continuous regen like Ventari’s tablet with the Revenant. Gimping our access to CA means we cannot burst when it is needed, or help control the crowd with skill 5 as now we sheepishly save up whatever little AF we have just in case the next damage phase is worst then the one you have now.
2- Animations for the change of skill when entering/leaving CA was long enough that I had the impression for a split second that I could use later skills of my skillbar if the rotating icons weren’t quite there yet, and it isn’t the case. I pressed a few skills for nothing quite a few time because my visual confirmation and reaction quickness was faster than the icon swap and did not reflect actual skill availability.
3- When using Death Shroud 5 as a Necro, if I’m on the verge of being kicked out of Death Shroud I can launch the skill and as long as I respect the tether conditions the skill will resolve normally; CA’s skill 5 will not and with such a shortened duration, the high risk of the skill gets even more disproportionate as I either use it at the beginning of the CA’s form, never at the end or else it will not resolve… Very very annoying and makes a otherwise very great risky skill feel like it is not worth the risk gauging if that little sliver of white will allow it to resolve or not.
4- Weapon restriction still feels quite a bit limiting. I had to swap out of my staff as we entered a fractal level I was used to having the AR for but forgot my staff was just an exotic, thus forcing me back to my sword. My Healing Spring with Call of the Wild burst managed little more than one CA use per Mai Trin’s burn phase. Druid still feels a lot like it’s staff or nothing.
*5- Glyphs- I haven’t had the chance to play around with yet. Having the Glyph of Empowerment shine on top of affected party members was a blessing. In BW3 they felt too short-ranged for any actual use in a fight where mobility is extreme for staff placement, and I still feel like Glyph of Tides should be inverted : pull in when you are in ‘damage’ form and push out when you are ‘protecting omg my pals’ in healer form. Just makes more sense that way as it’s at these time that I jump in the fray to save my melee pals in CA.
Just my two coppers there. On a few quick notes (I’ve blabbered way too much) thank you and whoever is responsible for removing pet targeting in the Jade Maw fractal. I have finally stopped being a super bother with my pet being the target of choice and stowing working in very limited conditions. And now our pets survive PVE fights for real. I am overjoyed and so grateful!
Also, good healing power combination stats are scarce and very costly (looking at you, Zealot) and after spending the better of a year equipping my Ranger in Ascended, I don’t feel like the spec is worth paying for a test set of armor with the stats of my choice considering how poorly it heals now. Druid after launch feels bad at it’s one role; I am not a wealthy player and I am now considering stopping to invest in my Druid as I am afraid to spend hundreds of G’s for a specialization that just won’t work and will be shunned in any organized run (Scale 100 fractals are already easily completed without good healing, and that was my only other hope beside raids…). Druid can only be good if using the most optimal healing power build now, and I don’t think I can afford it.
I really really want to love Druid. Please? Pretty please please?
Personally, I almost do nothing but PVE and have been doing GM ever since I started playing back in 2014 so it should be obvious how close to my heart it is. However, isn’t all this commotion about the first week of missions being random PVP and WVW a bit too much?
After all, the devs have clearly explained that this is only for the first week and that as soon as HoT rolls in you can remove PVP and WVW from your guild mission slots for the week after and any week behind it. How is a one week loss of mission worthy of all this clamor?
Plus, as PVE guilds you are in a strong position : PVE guilds will have tons of devoted players available during mission time to push for claiming of your Guild Hall as soon as week one of the expansion by doing the expedition. Why not canalize your guild’s energy in that if you really can’t live without missions for a week?
Not to mention Halloween will be there for tons of RP and labyrinth farming if it so pleases you. Tons of stuff to do with friends and guildies.
I find it a bit unfair for the devs and wonderful Colin that people get that worked up for barely a week of minor inconvenience that can easily be played around for even funnier group adventures…
First it said I had no network connection, now it says my client has lost connection to the server XD Well, here’s wishing a good night for you and hoping this won’t turn into a long night of bugfix! I’ll see you tomorrow and hopefully try raids XD