Guild Wars 2

I beat all the condi revs i fight cause i outsustain them, reapers are a different story… you just gotta play really smart and evade the condi transfer as well as use druidic clarity wisely.. but hey not many things fare well against condi reaper at the moment.

Personally, i bring empathic bond, druidic clarity, 2 glyphs and signet of the wild for ample CA access. you can still use shouts even without the BM line if you still wanna stack might.

I beat all the condi revs i fight cause i outsustain them, reapers are a different story… you just gotta play really smart and evade the condi transfer as well as use druidic clarity wisely.. but hey not many things fare well against condi reaper at the moment.

Personally, i bring empathic bond, druidic clarity, 2 glyphs and signet of the wild for ample CA access. you can still use shouts even without the BM line if you still wanna stack might.

hope i dont get crucified by the masses who claim CAF can’t be obtained at all ever but here goes…

pick some aoe regen trait/s and equip signet of the wild.. make sure both tick as much as possible i.e. stuff is getting healed. attacking also helps, especially attacks that hit multiple times.

i’ve been able to have CA up off coolown ( in pvp)

cheerio

its a beam that passes through foes not an aoe ability, tooltip states number of targets: 5.

its working as a blast finisher

looks like someone is salty about one of the most inferior condi builds in the game roflcopters

Too many issues, unless you are a hardcore archer/nature/celestial theme fan, don’t bother.

It is the weakest prof in the game, it gets nerfed every time anything for it is useful then that thing gets pushed aside and never looked upon again or they rework it into something totally different that works and then then nerf it again.

if this prof were to ever be anywhere near on par with others it would soon get shafted again, too many of us here have had fun for short whiles when the prof was useful only to have a precious mechanic if not most of them destroyed or turned into something else that doesn’t work for our play style anymore, then to get our hopes up again and the cycle continues.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

hellsmonument.4852:

…I shelved my ranger after June 23rd specialization patch when they killed condition survival ranger…

Wat?

Condi Ranger is pretty good, its even better now after the 23/6 patch and it is likely even better again with Druid, even if you do not use the CAF at all. Although you could without much trouble since you’d be using TU. In fact, its probably one of the only decent builds working with it now.

Not sure what game mode you’re referring to but for me it’s PvP specifically. making empathic bond and survival of the fittest impossible to combine made condition pressure a big problem after the patch, whereas it used to be one of the things we were good at. That, in addition to the reduction in base HP by ~2000, conditions stacking and everything hitting immensely harder than before made it very hard to sustain any sort of damage in team fights when targeted by more than one player. While other profs have teleports, stealth, elixirs, mobility skills and invulns on low cooldwns the condition survival ranger has no way to mitigate damage nearly as effectively as anything else and would have to turn around and run away to disengage. It could also not apply condition pressure as effectively as anything else (e.g. mesmer, guardian, engineer, necro) and was thus pushed out of PvP almost entirely.

This build now faces the same kind of problems except everything else is even stronger.

after much hope and rigorous testing in BWE3 it seems that we got the small buffs we requested in return for the whole mechanic of the spec to be gated, heavily nerfed and almost completely inaccessible in PvP.

I shelved my ranger after June 23rd specialization patch when they killed condition survival ranger, i had my hopes up for druid and BWE3 showed some promise.

I have now quit ranger for good. I guess they need a model profession for how not to build other professions, but I can now use my skills on something that actually contributes to my party and has more utility than ranger will in 50 balance patches- Revenant.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

There’ve been some changes to Druid staff, glyphs, traits and Celestial avatar skills.

One change I can mention is that Ancestral Grace will now end as soon as you reach your destination rather than having to wait out the animation. We weren’t able to do this before with point-based movement, but an awesome programmer threw together a way for us to script it in.

As Belzebu calls out: You’ll have to check out the rest of the changes on the 23rd!

That sounds like a lot of changes, I feel very positively about this since it means you must have taken our feedback seriously, kudos to you.

Knighthonor.4061:

chronometria.3708:

The elite specs should be able to work with several playstyles, with the talents tailoring them to whatever style your character works best with. The necro reaper, for example, can work for a condition based style, or a power based one, or even a hybrid of the two, allowing all sorts of necromancers to pick it up without having to change their specs too much.

The Druid is apparently only good for people who want to heal and heal super well. People simply want it to offer build diversity, so that people who are primarily dps can take it and, say, concentrate on the control aspect rather than the healing one. Or heck, give it an ability to do a little healing whenever it does damage and people would probably be ok with that.

But there are other ways to diversify a Druid build than just DPS. How about another support build or a tank build. Why does everything have to always be about dps, simply to be considered “diverse”?

Bingo

a lot of this talk about ruining build diversity because the trait line is too healing oriented etc.. overly dramatic. It feels like people just wanna stay longbow/greatsword berserker forever and have more cool stuff to go with it. Condi ranger builds will most likely not go into marksmanship cause there is very little utility for a condi build in that trait line. It just so happens that power builds are now viable with all ranger trait lines, but this was not always the case.

We have a new tool to play with – a healing spec, now we have to start thinking about a third option to add to the old condi or power duo, and a whole bunch of other combinations that could make a healing build better, that looks like more diversity to me, not less. Instead of thinking only about how this new trait line complements your specific playstyle and how you can diversify IT, think how it’s going to complement the class and the game as a whole.

the heals are already big.. to see a 5-10% increase with 900 healing power is silly, this was clearly going to be changed eventually.

I will provide feedback on the hammer and traitline, seeing as the gyros have been covered very extensively, from a PVP standpoint

Hammer

1.Autoattack chain: Autoattack needs a bit of a damage buff, as it stands it is less effective than toolkit autoattack, which is almost never used . There is also a bit of lag between the autoattacks, as opposed to the toolkit #1 where the chain is fluid. Lastly, the +damage scales very poorly with additional power from might stacks, why is that?

2.Electro whirl: executes only one whirl finisher when I think it was supposed to be two, the damage and cooldown on it are both very good, reflect does not work for the entire duration of the whirl ?

3.Rocket charge: You’re almost bound to miss one of the hits, particularly the second one, which goes off in a totally different direction to where your target is , even if it is stationary , it also seems quite sporadic in which direction this skill will send you flying. As a result, it is hard to land most of the burst or combo finish with this reliably in hammer #5 since the lightning field on it is quite small. When giving chase , there seems to be a pause before you can move again after you land your final leap, which is counterproductive.

4.Rocket charge: the casting animation is 1 3/4 seconds but the block duration is 2, also this only blocks frontal attacks, perhaps that is intended, otherwise solid skill.

5.thunderclap: given this is pretty much our only stun in a supposed ‘lockdown’ build, perhaps it should last a bit longer. otherwise its a solid skill, i wish it was more reliable to combo finish in it with #3

overall: generally an ok weapon, the damage on anything but the autoattack is good. some polish is required in terms of mechanics to make this a viable weapon.

traits:

minor traits: function gyro does not work so reliably but this was covered in earlier posts, impact savant’s offensive component is lackluster given the only stun we have is on hammer 5.. or shield or supply crate… either way these are very short stuns and 25% increase is not much at all, perhaps change this into stun and daze durations, or up the stun duration %.

adept traits: These get the job done and seem to be well thought out.

master traits:Rapid regeneration values are a bit low, they also dont seem to go up with the addition of healing power. e.g. 470×3 hp every time you get super speed on 10sec cd is akin to one leap finisher in a water field…which is sort of ok but not really that rapid. swiftness value is lower than backpack regen, nothing too powerful. the other two traits are great.

GM traits: Adaptive armor is really powerful. Final salvo seems ok for those who use gyros but I am not sure how impactful it is especially when you can pick one of the other two. perfectly weighted seems fine.

Comprehensive feedback FOR IRENIO from a veteran ranger’s sPVP perspective

staff

1. solar beam: The healing for this is quite low and should see a substantial increase, alternatively perhaps add an additional defensive component, e.g. short duration weakness on application or a short (1-2s regen application in an aoe around you)

2.astral wisp: This skill is not very helpful in PVP since unless your ally is literally inside the target they won’t be receiving much healing from it, it should see a radius increase. Overall the skill is lacking something, this would be a good place to introduce some pet synergy but this would have to also be in synergy with other traits, e.g. your pet’s next attack causes a 1s daze OR your pet’s F2 skill cooldown is slightly reduced.

3.ancestral grace: Love this skill, however maybe not for its particular intended function… this is a huge leap, it allows me to rotate between points and sometimes go for a quick decap and I’m back in the fight in no time, the healing on it is good and the blast finisher is good. people here have suggested to make this a short evade, i think that’s fair, but it is already quite powerful.

4.vine surge: clunky skill, this has great functionality but the mechanism is far from making it comfortable to use, you wont provide great support to your allies if they are immobilized around you and you can shoot a straight line to maybe help one of them, leaving the rest stranded, this should be a ground target AoE. offensively the 1 second immobilize is just too short and thus bad.

5_sublime conversion_: the principle design is alright, but could see some improvement. This skill acts as a water field but that is not listed in the tooltip. the healing on the projectiles could be increased by 50% to make it good, alternatively perhaps increase the duration of this field.

glyphs:

glyph of rejuvenation: the amount healed by this glyph is low compared to ‘we heal as one’ or troll unguent, the small radius does not justify the relatively small allied healing component. this does not make it a desirable healing skill.

glyph of alignment: 3s cripple and 3s weakness are frankly quite silly and in no way justify the utility slot for this skill, we have access to 4s weakness on short 5 sec CD F2 abilities from birds , or protective ward, why would anyone take this glyph ?. The celestial avatar form of this glyph is good- the healing is a decent amount and so is the condition removal- perhaps a radius increase is in order though.

glyph of equality: the 2s daze is ok, but this could use something more- perhaps make it a stunbreaker out of celestial form as well as in celestial form. there is no universally applicable stunbreaker glyph after all, and we need one. the celestial form version of it is decent, but once again could use a radius increase.

glyph of empowerment: I don’t see a situation where this would be worth a utility skill, it needs some % damage and duration increase to be viable, the radius is acceptable for its purpose. the celestial avatar form would have very niche uses in PVP, i don’t see a bunker guardian and a druid or two druids bunking a point happening and even then, 6s of increased outgoing healing is still only 6 seconds.

glyph of the tides: I like the knockback, but again this seems to be missing something. This is not a bad glyph but the celestial form is rather lacking, it seems that more thought went into making these two skill forms polar opposites but for what reason?

glyph of the unity: low cooldown, that’s good, but the damage is really poor, also the healing in celestial form is kinda poor considering the 1-5 skills can keep your party quite healthy, overall, i don’t see this glyph being a good elite skill at all.

celestial avatar skills: I don’t have much to add here, this is exactly as you described in the druid POI, it turns the druid into a healing powerhouse, and does so with style. the additional daze, slow, condi clears, water field, blast finisher (that is currently not working as a blast finisher btw) are just what we needed, USEFUL TEAM UTILITY, the ability to contribute to our team with more than just putting some traps on a sidepoint and bursting into a dance of evasion til we drop or shooting people from far away until we have to turn around and disengage is just what we need.

druid trait line:

celestial avatar minor: overall good mechanic, something fresh that rangers needed in my opinion. I would opt for increasing the contribution of damage or condition damage towards building astral force, or instead, maybe taking damage could contribute too. increasing outgoing healing as you heal and healing yourself are good synergistic contributions.

druidic clarity/cultivated synergy/primal echoes: i think cultivated synergy is not a very competitive choice considering the amount of heals the druid has. primal echoes would be good IF staff skills 1,2,4 and 5 were improved a bit. the daze makes a nice addition for proccing ancient seeds, druidic clarity is good for an adept trait.

celestial shadow/seed of life/ natural stride: For celestial shadow, from a PVP perspective, if you and your allies are fighting for a point it might not be a good idea to grant them stealth (which prevents capture point contribution) every time you leave avatar, this makes it a less than optimal option for PVP. seed of life is great, as a trait, now, if only glyphs were worth using. Natural stride is a fantastic option, something rangers have needed for a long time.

grace of the land/cosmic wisp/ancient seeds: I think grace of the land wins the cup, its simply great. Cosmic wisp is not bad but not so great, the positioning requirement makes it a bit hard to make the most out of with your allies running around but this should see better use on side point fights. Ancient seeds- effectively entangle, maybe it should benefit from wilderness knowledge bonuses too ? this is a powerful trait, but the means to trigger it to keep in line with the low cooldown requires us to use a staff with primal echoes and glyph of equality or maybe a greatsword or a shortbow. but staff synergy with condition builds is not that great as it stands, and a large component of this trigger trait is bleeding. So overall, taking this trait imposes too many restrictions on us, and we can be of more help to our teammates with the other two.

synergy of the druid with other specializations:

Wilderness Survival: Wilderness survival and druid synergy is quite impressive, unfortunately we may be pigeonholed into this (as has been the case since the specializations patch) due to requiring utility skills with condition removal and a ‘low’ CD stunbreaker. troll unguent generates the most astral force out of all the healing skills and is on a low cooldown with the wilderness knowledge trait. it also heals for a large amount and cleanses conditions. Quickening Zephyr serves for quickness stomps, has good synergy with going into celestial avatar and it is also a stunbreaker. We lack a glyph with a reliable stunbreaker to give up lightning reflexes… and with a healing power oriented build it would seem that we need signet of stone and multiple stunbreakers to handle big bursts.

Marksmanship: call of the wild adds a support component that the druid might benefit from but the real deal here is moment of clarity, this synergy makes glyph of equality and lunar impact incredibly strong, but lets not rush into conclusions, We don’t have to Nerf As One just yet. Perhaps the increased amount of stability other professions are getting with their new specializations are perfectly good counterplay for this. also, celestial avatar form is not that easy to build up, as we know. But if this does get toned down, i would recommend moment of clarity to be toned down a bit rather than everything daze-related in druid across the board- this will not be productive to redefining the role of rangers in PVP at the current state.

Sincerely Yours,

Lupus/ General Allenby
Ranger/Engineer
EU

i second that, ever since i got stuck in that match… i got out eventually but now my queues wont pop up since 12 hours

-very glassy- low hp, low toughness
-poor condition removal
-power does not scale particularly well with weapon choices
-condition damage will be the main source of damage but condi damage in this build is low
-not much use for crit chance with no on-crit conditions

overall yeah, looks like a great build if you wanna roleplay a rampager ranger but frankly you will be a liability to your team, if that matters.