Guild Wars 2

snow.8097:

i can not understand what is wrong with a part (a PART not all meanwhile) of the ranger community
i just started reading here 10min ago and already read suggestions to buff CA#1/2, making the avatar form almost permanent and that the druid is “useless”
Its mental, the druid is one of the most overpowered specs in pvp
And thats not just my opinion, its the opinion of a lot of high class pvp players
U need atleast 2 players and a long amount of time to kill a decent druid, while our pets can do a good amount of crits (5K pet crit in a defensive healer build is just too strong)
The druid will be nerfed, thats for sure, maybe less healing for the druid itself and more for the allies

The problem with your reasoning is that you are only thinking in the aspect of pvp (even though you’re right in that aspect). In pvp yea, druid is strong. OP, no, but it is strong.

In PvE, on the other hand, its not that great. We are still in a zerker meta (imo), and druid healing seems basically pointless. Heals are hard to land, ppl die faster than you can sustain them, AF is so slow to generate to continually sustain allies, and more. So in a sense of PvE, the druid needs some work. But in PvP its great. The hard part here is finding a balance where the druid works and is balanced throughout all aspects of the game.

I just hope raids fix this or make these issues more obvious to the devs.

Overall, Druids are in a good spot, but they can still be improved (not made stronger just cleaned up). My BIGGEST issue is that the druid overshadows the ranger, and now I feel like I HAVE to use the druid. So the standard ranger needs more fixing than the druid.

Is it just me or has SD been nerfed? I’ve tried a full zerker SD build for PvP and I just can’t kill fast enough for how squishy I am. Its really disappointing imo. Unless my build just sucks. Dunno

One cool thing I could think of for Seed of Life is either having a trait where, when it explodes, it attaches itself to allies who were in the area of affect and have it explode on them (maybe working on allies and enemies of 5 max targets, 2-3 second delay after attached to target with a maybe a 5 second IC?)

Or having the seed leave behind a pollen field that applies regen and/or clears conditions after the initial explosion. I think these would be awesome additions to the abilities.

The same thing could possibly be applied to Cosmic Ray where it leaves maybe a 2-3 second water field behind after it hits the ground, or leaves a healing aoe on the ground (like a guard) that remains on the ground until CA ends. Or have it leave behind like a “med kit” in the form of a seed that allies can pick up afterwards if they missed the initial heal.

Hey people, so I’m a solo roamer or a havoc squad player, and I need some suggestions on good druid builds. Most of the builds I’ve found work with large zergs, and that’s just not my cup of tea. I don’t mind any play style (I’m pretty versatile).

But, generally, solo roaming builds are usually very versatile where its a decent balance between dps , survivability and mobility.

Atm, I play a CC LB/GS druid, and its alright, but its not that trustworthy (especially when I run up against thieves and mesmers). So I need something new.

Any and all suggestions will be appreciated.
Thank You!

Morwath.9817:

Why build that can’t kill anything 1v1 but stall, who can’t take point away from you if you defend it, shouldn’t be able to survive 1v2?

Its a play style. I use to do it a lot where I would just decap the enemies’ point and just hold it on my own. This forces your opponents to waste 2-3 players for just 1 of your players. Taking a lot of pressure off the rest of your team. A bunker class seems pointless, but it can do amazing things for your team that don’t show up on the score sheet.

It is also good if a lot of enemies are attacking a single point, so you can hold them off for a long amount of time thus depriving them of points.

Honestly, PvP isn’t just about killing people. The overall objective always trumps kills (to a certain extent). But with the way the game works now everyone just seems to be better off being a glass cannon and killing people off points instead of being smart about the way they play.

Honestly, it’s not just bunker guardian that are the only the issue. To me, the power creep has hit ALL bunker classes/builds. Usually, if someone is a full blown tank, then they SHOULD be able to survive. Yet, I’ve run into times where the amount of sustained dps on me by a single player was WAY to high for me to handle for no reason what so ever (this usually comes from thieves and mesmers). Also with the major buff to conditions, it is now nearly impossible to sustain one’s self against more than 1 player for almost any amount of time.

I remember, one upon a time, when engineer bunker was a thing (not that kittenty cele rifle turret build). There was a time when, if I ran into a bunker on my own, I knew I needed to abandon the cause of trying to kill them because it wasn’t going to happen unless I had an ally with me, and even then it was difficult for 2 people to kill a person who ONLY focused on survival. Or if I ran the build, I could juggle around two players on my own for a good amount of time before my team mates came to my help.

Now its TOO easy to kill a tank/bunker. All people want to do its see big numbers and players going down. But there are those players that focus on survival, sustaining the team, and ACTUALLY PLAYING THE OBJECTIVE.

These power creeps in dps and conditions have made it more rewarding to just be a glass cannon that could at least kill someone as a result, than to sustain themselves. Since now a tank can’t even really sustain themselves against a single player some times.

Its honestly not a l2p issue. In some 1v1 encounters it may be, but two players of equal skill are fighting and someone can sustain a much higher amount of dps than the other can sustain themselves, there is a major issue there.

Diovid.9506:

idontnoso.9850:

Yes, this is only one particular situation, but with the nerf to dungeons necros are going to be needed a lot more fo hard CCs to break breakbars and to counter boons in this particular situation.

Even in those cases, it seems highly doubtful to me that necros are more useful than mesmers.

All we can really do is wait and see with raids and fractals before we really see if the meta has shifted in a different direction. Since I’ve also seen that stacking is ALMOST pointless now that there are some enemies that wont stand still. HoT hasn’t really been out long enough for people to test new things out. Everyone is still stuck in the old meta and are busy testing to see if they can still use it, and yes it is still quite useful but when more and more people run into more difficult content they may begin to realize that there may be other methods to make specific encounters easier/faster.

I can’t say for sure, but I’m very hopeful to say the least. The encounter I had last night was what made me realize that things may be changing, but certainly not enough to say “necro is the new meta.”

Dadnir.5038:

Diovid.9506:

Viable? Sure. Optimal? Far from it. That hasn’t changed.

^ This.

Nothing changed for the necromancer. The dps wasn’t the issue that restrained the necromancer from being wanted in dungeon.
The necromancer’s issue have always been the poor support it give in a game were the only thing you want is fury, might, stealth and aegis.
Poison field and dark field which are the necromancer’s everything are more of an hindrance to the party than a blessing.
The necromancer is still poor at dodging hard hitting attacks.
The necromancer still lack the mobility tools needed for “fast run”.

The necromancer is strong by himself and a party make him even stronger. But the necromancer do not make it’s party stronger and that’s the major issue.

Not saying that you’re wrong, but you’re also not right. Last night I ran a level 50 fractal on my ranger, until I realized that the Mist lock was “Critical Hits give enemies a random boon.” No one in my team had anything to counteract that mistlock or to do something to make it easier, except my alt necro.

I switched to my necro and made sure I gave him everything possible to counter boons. In this case i was EXTREMELY useful, on my own, in the group.

Yes, this is only one particular situation, but with the nerf to dungeons necros are going to be needed a lot more fo hard CCs to break breakbars and to counter boons in this particular situation.

I havent seen more instances, yet, but I have high hopes that people will be needing the necro more often now.

Don’t forget dungeons are basically useless game modes now (unfortunately). So fractal and raids are going to be where people really consider the pro of each and every class.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the that aoe and cleave damage reduction for pets and minions only work in a pve environment. I’ve had my frost spirit just sit in a wyvern’s flames like it was nothing. So I feel like spirits are in a decent place in PvE, although it would make things SOOO much better if they followed the ranger or if their cd was reduced if picked up or recalled or w/e so they can be re-summoned more often. But if they are killed then they should have the full cd. (something similar to engineer turrets).

But I don’t think the damage reduction is applied in PvP so in that sense they are still extremely useless. 1. you need to be in the area you want them to stand, 2. they will still get killed by players who don’t even notice they are there, 3. there is no punishment for people killing them (like turret explosions), 4. it’s a nuisance to have to kill them and re-summon them if you have to relocate, and 5. their active ability takes too long to activate.

So PvE wise, they are ok. PvP/WvW wise, they are still not worth using imo.

So I activated the scrapper specialization while I was in HoTM, but it didn’t unlock the achievement or give me the weapon. While I am a scrapper now and I am progressing in the specialization, the game doesn’t acknowledge it in terms of achievements so I can’t get anything scrapper related unless I make another engineer…. (everything has been fine with my other specializations though)

Honestly, I feel like “Sic, Em” is really awesome! Yea, it’s bugged (I think) where command skills interrupt it’s overall dmg multiplier, but there are ways around it. Just f2 to to deal dmg and/or force enemy to attack pet with taunt and then pop “Sic, Em” for easy dmg.

Usually, I save “Sic, Em” for mesmers and thieves who are running low on health. For mesmer is pretty obvious when they are going to pop a stealth via Mass Invisibility (which is usually their go to final escape/reset stealth). Look for them raising their arm up with a distorted aura around them. Pop “Sic, Em” and see how confused they look when they realized you just stopped their stealth and eff up their entire rotation. This usually results in their death. For thieves, it’s a bit tricky considering its tough to anticipate their stealth. If I ever see a Shadow Refuge, I swap pets and use f2 on top of the SR to forge the thief to hit my pet and get out of stealth (via taunt). I wait for their reveal to go away, and then “Sic, Em” again to stop another stealth. OR I just wait till their running a bit low on health and just “Sic, Em” for good measures.

As for “Search and Rescue” I ONLY run this trait in fractals or when teaching people how to run dungeons. It’s a great tool to maintain dps while also providing support to a teammate who downed. This is also helpful in the sense that it keeps you our of harms way while rezing a downed ally.

Overall, the shouts really got a much needed buff with the “Resounding Timber” trait. I usually run full shouts + 1 signet (depending on the situation).

PvP: WHaO, Signet of Renewal, Protect Me, Guard, Strength of the Pack
PvE: WHaO, Signet of Stone/The Wild (or Search and Rescue), Sic Em, Quickening Zephyr, Strength of the Pack
WvW: WHaO, Signet of Stone/Renewal, Sic Em, Guard, Strength of the Pack

Combine these shouts with Trooper Runes and Resound Timber and you can deal with almost any condi build out there plus have constant regen and swiftness.

Don’t knock the shouts till you REALLY try them.

Can you be on the ranger team for Anet? plz!! +1

If you know they are a trapper ranger, all you need to do is stay ranged. The downside to their ability is that it relies on the enemy being on top of the trap. So if they are a trap ranger and they are sitting on a point that probably means that that point is stacked with traps and you should just stay away from close combat. If you have a pet, all you need to do is make the pet go in first, and activate the traps themselves, and then you go in for the kill. If you can’t range or you don’t have a pet, then you better have some condi cleans cause that’s the strength of the build, and is just something that you need to deal with/accept as a counter towards your specific build .

Glad this was reposted +1

Nicknobreak.7543:

Maybe a heal skill that works like, “The lower the health of your pet, the more it is healed for” or would that be no feasible?

I don’t believe so, the issue is having a dead pet especially in a PvE situation where enemies kill the pet in an instant, or just having the pet soak up all the conditions in the game. Yes, reviving will NOT COMPLETELY solve that issue but it will allow rangers to have more control over their downed pet instead of just waiting forever to have them come back only to just die again.

The main issue is that we rely on having our pets alive for A LOT of our utility skills, and when they are dead, those skills become useless. So a dead pet makes the ranger a lot less viable on a team or solo. Where as other classes don’t have that issue. We can’t stop a mesmer from making clones, we can’t stop an engi from using their toolbelt, we can’t stop warriors from using adrenaline, we can’t stop a necro from enter DS, we can’t stop ele from changing elements, we can’t stop a thief from stealing, but everyone can stop a ranger from using their pet.

Holland.9351:

OGDeadHead.8326:

If not on a healing skill, could be put on Search and Rescue to give that skill a bit more value.

I think it would go well on Protect Me. Both because the skill desperately requires a living pet and it fits thematically where the pets rushes to the Ranger’s aid.

Also, 60 second cooldown seems more fitting that putting it on a heal with a 20s cooldown.

I agree with your cd idea. That’s why I didn’t make the heals instant revives. The only way I can think of it being balanced is by having heals have a reduced healing effect on the downed pet or to just have the heal reduce the overall time it will stay dead.

OGDeadHead.8326:

If not on a healing skill, could be put on Search and Rescue to give that skill a bit more value.

Problem with that is that some rangers will have to waste that skill just to revive the pet and then get stuck with a long CD and a wasted overall ability of not having the pet go to revive someone. So if someone actually goes down after the pet revives, you won’t be able to activate it again to have them go to their target.

Having it as a heal would kinda make more sense since the CD is shorter. Unless SaR gets a CD reduction. So, if pet revive is connected to a heal, the ranger will have to notice their pet is down, try to revive it manually through heals, and then use SaR to save their comrade. Or, if you’re running solo, you can just revive your pet when you’re in a tight situation, and not run SaR which will be useless when you’re alone either way.

Unless this is fixed in less than 24 hours, then everyone’s speculation on the devs being classists will be confirmed.

I try not to think about it but the fact that a skill that benefited the rangers more than other classes was taken away in such a short amount of time, it leads most people to speculate as much. No to mention the issue itself was dealt by devs that do not even specifically work with the Rangers, made things even worse.

Rangers finally got something that set them apart, that wasn’t really game breaking, and just because no other classes had it or people couldn’t deal being killed by a ranger it was taken away in an instant. While other classes such as mesmers, eles, and warriors were allowed game breaking skills and combos for months. Eles were able to sustain high stacks of burning while being tanky. Mesmer had high stealth duration and other damage mitigation abilities without having to sacrifice power. Warriors had Rampage making them basically kill anything in an instant. Yes, these matters were resolved but it took Anet months to finally address the issue.

Now there’s an issue that ONLY effects rangers, and if it’s not fixed soon then it will be obvious that most devs favor the majority of other classes over the Rangers.

Since the WHaO fiasco, I thought we should get something else that makes some of our skills more useful while simultaneously building a stronger connection between pet and ranger. If Anet is capable of adding a new ability to an old heal, who’s to say they can’t do it again?

So why not add a pet revival to one of our skills/heals? (someone else proposed this idea on another post but I thought it deserved it’s own topic)

So what are the benefits?
-The ability to revive (or maybe reduce the death time of) a pet.
-It would be active so a ranger needs to be smart with the ability
-It slightly fixes some of the problems we are currently having with pets being instantly killed in almost any game mode.
-It forces enemies to pay more attention to our pets (instead of either just ignoring them completely or just killing them fast and then focusing on the ranger).
-It will build stronger synergy between the Druid and it’s pet. As it stands you cannot heal a downed pet, so adding a revival ability will end that issue and thus build up on more celestial energy because reviving = healing.

I can’t necessarily see a down side. Post any if you think of one
Maybe just a second WHaO issue, but it can’t be as strong as that (even though WHaO wasn’t even game breaking)

Possible Skills that can get it:
-Troll Ungent (reduces the cd of downed pet with each heal tick)
-Healing Spring (gradually revives pet while downed pet is in the healing spring)

We really need this to make the ranger more viable. As it stands, we are the only class who’s unique class ability (the pet) can be countered by any class. All it takes is running in a circle or killing the pet, and anyone can do that. Every other class’s unique ability can only be countered by specific skills/abilities.

Most people who claim it’s OP either are not rangers or are just too use to the weaker form of WHaO. Honestly, it needs this buff. It was ok with the last buff, but it still wasn’t THAT great. Almost every heal in this game has a special gimmick, but WHaO’s only gimmick was it heals you and your pet….that’s it. So now it has another purpose that makes it a lot more than a heal. It makes rangers all that more important and dangerous. Most people just don’t know how to deal with that idea.

arkealia.2713:

As someone said earlier in another thread, the animations feel like the class was rushed and giving some shroud with a bit of twilight texture effect was probably the only thing they had enough time to make hence “Celestial Avatar” “Astral Form” “Super Power Ranger”
Also there are those on the front page:

Welcome, friends, to the reveal of the ranger elite specialization, the druid! As a longtime ally of nature, the ranger can now channel the strength of Tyria itself after tapping into the primal forces of the Maguuma jungle.

And Closer to the Stars which is a direct reference to the Canthan version of the Ascension (Weh no Su).

Let’s hope there’s an actual tie in the jungle.

Thank you so much for this information. It should help clear things up with people who read this post.

Aylpse.6280:

Ranger Pre Specialization Reveal: Why doesn’t anyone want us!? Why do they always want Elementalists and Guardains! We need support!

Ranger Post Specialization Reveal: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO SUPPORT? I WANNA SHOOT ARROWS!

Make up your mind people, this is arguably the best thing to happen to the class and you’re all complaining?! Yes, Ranger at its core and Druid both need a LOT of work. But this is a amazing direction for the class. Jack of all trades and the master of heals. “Support” and “Control” outside of boon stacking in pve has been neglected as long as I can remember, actual dedicated support and with the break bar, dedicated control will be a thing. I am sure this is what Anet is going for in PvE.

As far as PvP is concerned, Druid Beastmaster is going to be God. Is that a Dagger thief spaming 1? Glyph of…. uh, the one that does damage Lets just CC them and the root them with a root. Are you in a attrition match with a scumbag Ele? Celestial Form: You stand no chance mortal! As I have become one with the skybox now watch in horror as I go back to full hp! Also, Beastly Warden with the Wyvern’s F2 or Smokescale’s F2…

Bringing me to our final point. The Pet’s AI will never be perfect. But you must learn about your pet and work with it as a team to ensure the dumb AI finds its mark. Druid and GS and traits give us enough control to help the pet do so. I agree with the points on animations, stats and whatnot all needing tweaks but potential is there now, and Anet said they were looking into it.

Its going to take some time, I expect the first month to be chaos but we haven’t even seen BW3 yet, and I’m sure the tweaking will start there.

Also, Ya’ll Need Malandru.

Lol going to start saying that “Yall need Malandru”.

If we only consider PvP I have no issues with the Druid. It will in fact be OP when in PvP. But if you think about PvE the Druid’s only special nytch is condi removal and strong heals. I love being a healer, but only have access to healing traits make the Druid make me feel like I HAVE to heal.

A lot of things are going to be fixed with the Druid coming into our lives, but now we are going to start running into problems we would haven never thought to run into since the ranger has always been mid/low tier.

asweknowit.4798:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

asweknowit.4798:

I, along with many others, expected a plant based nature druid from what was shown to us at the initial expansion announcement. While well aware design changes happen, I can’t help but be very disappointed by the change in thematic direction this elite specialization took. All of the current mechanics could have been implemented within the thematic framework originally presented

Simply disappointed

Honestly, I don’t mind the theme. In real life, nature often had a strong astronomy component. Stars were used to track seasons, which heavily influenced animal behavior and plant growth. I’m more concerned with their emphasis on healing. Dedicated group healing has no place in the game as it is now, so from a PvE standpoint, Druid’s only hope is that HoT PvE content turns every part of the last three years’ meta on its head. I’m not exactly confident that that will happen.

Currently I’m planning to maintain a longbow dps spec, using the druid celestial form traits. I can’t foresee needing more healing than what is provided from the specialization mechanic. Will see how it works next weekend.

I would prefer if the staff skills were more condi focused than healing…… too much healing on this.

I agree with you there. The staff/druid in general almost completely revolves around healing (there’s a few traits here and there that don’t) but the overall specialization is too heal-y based. While I love being a healer, I can foresee myself getting tired of it at some point and wishing there was some leeway in the specialization were I can make the druid focus on something other than healing.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

asweknowit.4798:

I, along with many others, expected a plant based nature druid from what was shown to us at the initial expansion announcement. While well aware design changes happen, I can’t help but be very disappointed by the change in thematic direction this elite specialization took. All of the current mechanics could have been implemented within the thematic framework originally presented

Simply disappointed

Honestly, I don’t mind the theme. In real life, nature often had a strong astronomy component. Stars were used to track seasons, which heavily influenced animal behavior and plant growth. I’m more concerned with their emphasis on healing. Dedicated group healing has no place in the game as it is now, so from a PvE standpoint, Druid’s only hope is that HoT PvE content turns every part of the last three years’ meta on its head. I’m not exactly confident that that will happen.

I hope it does. The zerker meta has made PvE quite lack luster when all you need to do is stack in a corner and cleave everything. I hope there are new and interesting mechanics that make this more difficult, and bosses/events that require team support in the form of heals/boons.

Ryou.2398:

idontnoso.9850:

Ryou.2398:

Sigh druid actually means other names to, they where not religious that is the modern pagan/druid stuff you see today, they never worshiped but only connected/respected, and understood to them it was natural existence. And by insulting others by accusing people of qquing is not helpful or constructive and no one will listen, it is an immature phrase as a whole and people really should try to stop using it. And everyone is going to have different opinions, not everyone has to like the direction the druid is going, and people have a right to express there thoughts as long as its not rude and if its constructive. I really think you do think your in the right here tc. Now I dont have a full opinion on the druid yet I like it, but we have not seen all the balance changes yet, I am sure we can use some of the druid stuff into dps specs to, personally I find the astral stuff cool. But I do not know much about the guild wars 1 druid lore.

Edited, thx for feedback.

I appreciate the edit, but almost is still off man, if you understood the things they did you would see.

Think I got it this time. I left it as a general idea of what a druid is based on the website. If you have a better example based on your personal knowledge, just post it and I’ll edit the main post.

Ryou.2398:

Sigh druid actually means other names to, they where not religious that is the modern pagan/druid stuff you see today, they never worshiped but only connected/respected, and understood to them it was natural existence. And by insulting others by accusing people of qquing is not helpful or constructive and no one will listen, it is an immature phrase as a whole and people really should try to stop using it. And everyone is going to have different opinions, not everyone has to like the direction the druid is going, and people have a right to express there thoughts as long as its not rude and if its constructive. I really think you do think your in the right here tc. Now I dont have a full opinion on the druid yet I like it, but we have not seen all the balance changes yet, I am sure we can use some of the druid stuff into dps specs to, personally I find the astral stuff cool. But I do not know much about the guild wars 1 druid lore.

Edited, thx for feedback.

wolfyrik.2017:

Raven.9603:

idontnoso.9850:

So please don’t post counterproductive topics to this forum. Its hard enough on the devs as it is. They want to hear from us, but only if what we have to say will benefit the overall game/community.

The TL;DR version: “Everyone who has some negative or critical feedback or doesn’t agree with me please shaddup because your opinion is counterproductive. Only echo chamber of approval for whatever is made is acceptable and progressive.”

Which all sounds pretty entitled. and, “the google, you’re using it wrong.”

Its a video game in beta. It’s okay for people to give critical feedback, that doesnt make it a waste of time or counterproductive.

People arent upset that druid is going to be a good healer, they are worried that being only a good healer will pigeon-hole all rangers into a job we didnt sign up for. no one said “aw man the druid can heal thats awful i thought it was gonna be top dps”. they said “aw man druid can basically JUST heal.”

There are multiple archtypes of druids throughout literature. Many people expected a DnD-esque, animals and leaves and barkskin and yellow and green magic because thats what was shown in the HoT druid previews and that is the more traditional RPG druid. What we got was a moonkin, naturally some people love it and some people dont.

Precisely this. I sometimes miss my boomkin, but that doesn’t mean I want it in GW2. It doesn’t fit in here. Different magic, different lore, different druid.

OP’s argument is the same “ooh ooh planets are nature” equivocation fallacy and it seems to be the only argument for this Star-spangled Death Shroud Strap on of an elite.

I like the idea of healer form, it was just done in a way that looks terrible and drops the ball completely on the whole “ranger is the pet class, we want you to work with them” rhetoric the Anet has been flogging all this time. The players have given countless really good methods of fixing pets, many of which could have been used with druid to great effect. Instead of fixing anything, we’ve now got two class mechanics at the same time which have literally nothing in common with each other and a DS which has nothing at all in common with the rest of the class in any way aside from two spells, one which is a space-plant they have even finished yet and the other is just some hippy-new-age naming.

Sorry OP, your facts about druids are generally correct but don’t apply at all here and your assertions about player motivations are compeltely wrong and actually quite offensive. You’ve shown that you don’t understand the aesthetics of the class or it’s lore, you don’t understand the concept of themes or genre and most sadly, that you don’t understand your fellow players.

Appreciate the comment.

I’m not trying to attack the people who discuss why they hate the druid when they provide good reasons. This post was mostly for the people who are too hell bent on pure forest-y nature and dps type rangers/druids.

If you read my other comments, I’ve changed a lot of what I’ve said based on what more people have been posting. Regardless I still stand behind my last comment.

If you provide Anet with a valid complaint of there being no connection between GW1 & GW2 druid lore, and the involvement of celestial abilities I stand behind you. As of recently, that has been brought to my attention and I agree completely. On the other hand, this post is for the people who don’t want a healing druid or don’t see how the celestial abilities related to an overall druid.

Things that I agree that goes against the druid is that:
1. It’s too much healing to the point where it makes it seem like all players are forced into being healers when using a druid specialization
2. It doesn’t form a union with ranger and pet
3. It doesn’t follow the GW1 lore of celestial beings and druids

I’m just tried of the countless new posts that just talk about how someone’s personal expectation weren’t met.

I mean, someone just posted on the forum discussing what they wished the “Druid” would have been like, and even made their own specialization. With great explanation and reasons behind their animosity. Posts like that, I have no problem with.

Nothing is going to be changed/cleared up if all the ranger community does is complain without explanation. Instead, people need to explain why they are mad at so it can be properly addressed by the devs.

Amraston.2846:

As Ojyh and Conncept correctly stated you can’t just simply draw parallels between RL druids and these druids to justify the heavy celestial theme. The theme made kind of sense within european culture with the influence of celestial bodies to its seasons, day/night-cycle, moon induced tides, etc.pp.. But it makes no sense in respect to the druids from GW1. We know about them:
- they live or lived in the depths of the jungle
- they were suspected to worship Melandru, although we can’t be sure
- they transformed themselves into treants
- they became arboreal spirits (those sylvari can summon) after their treant-body died
- their abilities are based on drawing power from the jungle itself

So far not a single glimpse of worshiping something like celestial bodies. Why not expanding their believes to these? After all mooncycles are part of the nature and the greater system and so on. Because it doesn’t make sense for them. It made sense for europeans. It made sense for Warcraft druids, since their religion is based around the moon for good reasons like nocturnalism and the demigod of druidism being the son of the godess of moon. It doesn’t make sense for a tribe within the jungle, you know, a place where you can’t see celestial bodies 99% of the time, where you have not the instruments or capabilities to study these, where are no tides caused by the moon, where are no seasons, where the day/night-cycle is constant the whole year, where nothing in their enviroment really reacts to moons and stars in a way where you say to yourself “whoa, that moon there is something really special to the nature here, lets try to control it”. What they shouldn’t be capable of anyway since they draw their power from the jungle, which of course has no power over the movement of celestial bodies – neither should ANYBODY in Tyria have.

Its a deciding factor for me, because I’m a roleplayer and I mind the lore and have to make something logical about anything illogical and inconsistent in the lore.

Makes sense, but why jump to conclusions of there being no connections when Anet hasn’t been given the chance to provide the story? After all it’s their story so they can find a way to tell a story of how the current druids came to be. We just need to wait for a dev post for an explanation, or for HoT to possibly have a story to tell.

Dadnir.5038:

P.S. I’d put Mesmer as Support Class of the light armor

That’s one point, and it’s not like the mesmer can actually do 3k+ aoe heal every 4 second… Oh! wait! he can! Maybe mesmer can’t aoe cleanse it’s allies… Oh dang he is good at that to… Maybe he can’t support via boons… Oh… well he can…

I wonder for warrior, I mean a warrior only do damage… It’s not like he could heal it’s allies via shout or banner. It’s not like he could grant 25 might stack in a few second. It’s not like he could support it’s team via soft condition. No no a warrior only do direct damage.

… well… whatever…

Please elaborate?
While I understand that all classes provide some sort of support, others do it better than another. I’m assuming you don’t like the order in which I placed things, but regardless of that each armor class does have a class that can focus on heavy healing.

I won’t list every way each profession can suport it’s team mate. In a way, the 2 profession that are laging behind the other profession in this is the necromancer that you dare to put into the light armored support and the thief which still have it’s invaluable stealth feature.

I actually said that support (to me) was minor heals and boons. That’s why I didn’t include mesmers, thieves, and warriors into the list. They do have roles in teams, but they aren’t known for their support (No where did I ever say they couldn’t). I’m not disregarding what you said they are capable of, but those classes just aren’t known for their support.

I included the necro there because they have leech share, condi cleans, and amazing abilities that help get downed players back up (they can’t necessarily heal all that well but they save a lot of downed allies).

The way gw2 is made, all classes can help a team, but others do it better. The way I see it, mesmer are loved for stealth and reflects while having access to minor boon share and cleanses. Warriors are loved for might share and heavy dps. Thieves are loved for stealth and heavy dps. They can be geared for support but other classes can still do it better.

Ojyh.9842:

Your vision of the Druid applies to the real world druids.

You don’t even know that Druids already have a specific lore from GW1 and that’s what people are referring to when they say the Druid spec shouldn’t be so heavily focused on the ceslestial aspect. Not to mention that all the theme we were expecting to see with the Druid was partly present in the Ranger (not the astral stuff) which would have been a great (and probably the only) way to make a strong link between the profession and its specialization. I am curious to know how you can efficiently explain why Rangers could become Druids through the celestial theme !
Also the astral/celestial theme is already very important in Canthan lore.
Mixing those two things kills both of them at the same time.

Before trying to “educate” people you should make sure that you really know what you’re talking about.

Honestly, I don’t mind your argument. You have a valid explanation. Thing is, people on the forums aren’t stating these things. Most of what I’m reading is “what does celestial have to do with nature? We need to see more plants. I wanted more dps”.

You are also right that I do not know how druid/celestials fit in regards to GW1 lore, but why does that have to be such a deciding factor for mot people? People have problems with the “Scrapper” but that’s not why most people don’t want to play it (its mostly because of the AI).

A “druid” practices nature magic, and that includes celestial aspects as well. In my eyes, the druid fits perfectly in terms of an overall theme. But i guess there is an issue with the druid and the connection with GW1 & GW2 (which Anet has disregarded several times before).

Dadnir.5038:

This show how bad is your understanding of the different profession in game.

Please elaborate?
While I understand that all classes provide some sort of support, others do it better than another. I’m assuming you don’t like the order in which I placed things, but regardless of that each armor class does have a class that can focus on heavy healing.

I would like to thank Anet for how much work they are putting into these specializations. Most people seem to forget that most game developer’s throw their players’ opinions out of the window and just do what they feel is best for everyone. So thank you Anet (yea there’s some things that need to be fixed, but that comes with time).

Next, I’d like to say that I am highly disappointed some of the ranger community, heck some of the overall GW2 community, for just finding any opportunity to when their expectations aren’t met. NEWS FLASH! You didn’t make this game, you don’t own it, and the dev’s don’t owe you anything. If you can’t appreciate the changes that are happening to your specific class, change classes, and if you don’t like any other class you can just play another game.

I’d like to state that I am not an expert in any of these fields, all it took was for me to go to Google and do some research Yea, its that kittening easy

Now to address the druid:

It seems like most people don’t see the connection between the term “druid” and “celestial”, and other are just angered that the druids is healing oriented. Well, I’m here to tell you all that there is a connection and that the druid being a healer is thematically appropriate.

Let’s start with the definition of “Celestial”:
1. of, relating to, or suggesting heaven or divinity
2. of or relating to the sky or visible heavens <the sun, moon, and starts are celestial>
3. otherworldly, eternal
Example of Celestial: Starts, planets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies
Used in a sentence: The late afternoon sunlight gave the room a celestial glow

In other words, celestial has everything to do with nature. “Nature” itself has nothing to do with JUST plants and animals. Nature is anything that is natural or not man-made. Thus celestial does in fact fit the theme of a natural druid/ranger.

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/celestial

Now, lets go to the history/definition of “Druid”: (there’s different variations but I’ll refer to this general druid concept)
“In ancient times a Druid was a philosopher, teacher, counselor and magician, the word probably meaning ‘A Forest Sage’ or ‘Strong Seer’. In modern times, a Druid is someone who follows Druidry as their chosen spiritual path.”

In other words Druidry is a spiritual following that revolves around nature.

During Druidry training, “you are taught thirteen rituals in addition to the eight Druid seasonal ceremonies. These rituals help to attune you to the natural word, to rhythms of the earth and moon, the sun and stars”

Source: www.druidry.org

Thus Druidry does not only include a connection with Earth’s nature but also celestial nature (stars, sun, moon, other planets, the galaxy).

This is also why having a dps oriented Druid just does not fit. A Druid is a spirtual figure, almost like a priest (sorta). If anyone has ever played other MMORPGs, they will know that a priest is generally a healing/protection based class. As a result, the Druid’s overall healing theme fits perfectly.

Finally, each armor group has a healing based class:
It seems that most people haven’t noticed Anet has given each armor group (heavy, medium, and light armor) a class that specializes in heavy healing, and ranger is the medium healer.

So please don’t post counterproductive topics to this forum. Its hard enough on the devs as it is. They want to hear from us, but only if what we have to say will benefit the overall game/community.

Overall Conclusions (Based on Discussion):
Druids (in game) don’t totally mirror real druids (especially in relation to GW1). Anet has not yet provided an explanation for how the current druids came to be considering the differences between druids in GW1 vs GW2. We just wait for an explanation from HoT (hopefully).

Druid Complaints I Agree With:
1. Druid is TOO healing based where players seem to have no way to avoid going through the healing route.
2. The New specialization seems to ignore our class’s pets. Nothing really connects with the pet.
3. Where does GW1 celestial themes connection with these new Druids?

Thz.7569:

Evolved pets perhaps.

To me, it appears to resemble a reptile. Maybe it’s hinting at new pets that the ranger will receive?

My best advice is to run a balanced power type build. Too much offense is a no no against mesmers since they can just kill you so much faster. Next you also need to make sure you run “Sic Um”, BUT don’t just think its an instant win with that utility. You need to anticipate “Mass Invisibility” with is obvious skill animation. Why? Cause most mesmers use MI as a last escape skill. All their other invisibility skills don’t last as long as MI. SO once you see that MI animation, hit “Sic Um” and watch them run for their lives. Or, if they are a kittenty mesmer, just use “Sic Um” when their health is running low to ensure that they don’t run away.

I honestly do prefer the name “Forge” over “Scrapper”, but it wouldn’t make sense to be honest.

Most of us expected the new specialization to revolve around fire which made a TON of sense with the name “Forge”, but it doesn’t.

According to the post, the specialization revolves more around electricity and stunning. Which wouldn’t really make sense as Forge.

The name could have been better, but at least its no Dragon Hunter. xD

As the topic states, it seems like it is nearly impossible to fight while outnumbered. I know it is still possible (I mean I’ve still been able to do it), but I can only do it when I’m up against ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE players. Even if I’m up against two decent players, its still almost impossible to sustain myself long enough to survive while still dealing enough damage to keep them on their toes, and it usually results in a death or just me outrunning them.

I remember watching a TON of outnumbered videos on youtube by a lot of great players, and they were able to survive even when against other pretty good players. Yet, now it seems like those days are in the past.

All I see now are duels, even matches, or fights against pretty weak players. The closest I’ve been able to do fights while outnumbered is kinda have 1v1 duels where I’d run into another enemy almost right after my fight. But outnumbered fights are almost impossible now, even if I’m running a pretty tanky build.

Any ideas why this is? (I feel it has to do with condi stacking) Or are there some of you who are still fighting well against the odds?

PS: the only classes I feel are slightly unaffected are thieves and mesmers. Their ability to teleport and stealth makes them pretty good contenders when against the odds. But its still difficult to be focused while playing these classes.

Hello!

It seems that when a player is downed and under the effects of stealth, enemies are still given the option to stomp them.

Luckily, the stomp does not work but it does make it so the enemies know the location of the downed player thus making it essentially impossible to rally.

I tested this out already in a pvp setting and it does in fact keep occurring.

Hope this is of some help

Just tested it out with a friend.

It does occur, and I’ll post it up in the bugs.

I’ll just leave this post here so people are aware of the bug.

Vornollo.5182:

Ehm, no… Enemies will only get the ‘Stomp’ text overlay if they can see you. This means that for example, you can use your #2 to get into a Shadowrefuge that was put there by a teammate. As soon as you ported into the refuge, the ‘Stomp’ text will be simply gone, until you come out of stealth.

Same goes for the downed #3. As soon as you pop that, your enemy will see absolutely no ‘Stomp’ tag until you come out of stealth.

Now, a player may be able to determine your location even if you are in stealth by simply running around, spamming their #1. If you hit a stealthed target, your Auto Attack Chain will progress even if you can’t see what you’re hitting.

It could be that you were unlucky to have encountered a bug, but it never happened to me personally. It should work how I stated above.
If other people had this happen though, that’d be a bad bug that they should resolve asap.

I don’t play a thief, so I’m actually benefiting from this bug.

And yes, how you described it is how it SHOULD work, but its not working that way as far as I can see.

If a thief is downed while they are in stealth, the enemy is still given the stomp option (the stomp won’t work), but they will know exactly where the thief is sitting so they just need to melee that location to stop the rally.

Just trying to help ppl out

Hey just stating that I think I might have found a minor-ish bug and would just like to confirm it with the community.

I believe that when a thief is in a downed state and in stealth, players are still given the option to stomp them but the stomp does not work.

Just stating this cause its an easy way to know where a thief is if they downed while in SR, and then the enemy could just melee the area where the stomp icon appears.

Please confirm?
Thank You!

+1

I love my ranger hands down. But its true. I rolled a warrior and I would just auto attack and still do more than my ranger could, and I put in some effort I would do double. Its sad really.

Anet either needs to buff up all the low tier classes to be a match for the all powerful warrior, eles, and guardians. Or they need to give them a massive debuff.

But as far as I know, nothings going to happen. Its always 3 steps forwards for the high tier classes and 1 step forward for everyone else.

Shadow Phage.9084:

I’d rather spirits do something interesting, besides give increased damage, give prot, give burn, give swiftness, etc.
Bring back things like:
Tranquility
Frozen Soil
Muddy Terrain
Predatory Season
and the pinnacle of amazing spirits….
Edge of Extinction

Tranquility: make boons expire faster
Frozen Soil: can’t revive downed/dead players
Muddy Terrain: no speed buffs
Predatory Season: reduced healing
EoE: don’t change a thing.

Those sound awesome but it seems that those abilities only benefit in a PvP/WvW based environment. As a result rangers will still remain non-beneficial in in a pve setting.

Plus if those abilities were given instead, spirits would need to get a major overhaul in terms of their health and toughness along with mobility vs. stagnancy because they would then become major targets by enemy players.

As the the title states, I feel that this is a must for the ranger’s spirit skills. The spirit skills themselves are great, I can’t complain about what they are capable of, but they are still useless imo because they can’t move or last in a fight.

Rangers lack in support for most pve content. Our best/most reliable ability is “Spotter.” But that doesn’t even compare to the amount of undeniable support that guardians, warriors, or eles have. Rangers have the capability of providing this support, but its blocked off by poor execution of this ability, aka the Spirits.

Spirits are great, in theory, but they just don’t survive long enough to spread their love to our players. Anytime I’m in a dungeon, I have to pre plan where I need to put my spirit to TRY and avoid getting hit. Even then, they end up getting hit and basically dying in an instant. Which is why I just can’t run it sometimes.

So why not make them more like Warrior banners (If you want to stick with the immobile idea). Why can warriors get a form of support that can’t be destroyed, and can be actively moved around when rangers get a form of support that gets destroyed at almost the instant a fight begins and is stuck in a single location? With the way pve works (stacking in corners), there is no way that spirits will survive long enough to be viable in any shape or form.

The things that mostly sparked this idea was seeing the new Revanent using Ventari’s Tablet. Its a mobile (yet clunky) AI that can’t be destroyed. Its main role is support, and it does it fairly well. So why are other classes allowed to have indefinite methods of support while the ranger cannot?

My personal idea would be having spirits are immobile, invulnerable buff locations that plays must actively interact with to receive a temporary buff (somewhat like food stations). Not saying that this is the best way to execute this skill, its just a personal idea so that its unique to the class and not stealing anything away from any other class.

I’m sure there has to be other ways that these abilities can be fixed but, as they are, they are almost completely useless (maybe besides frost spirit). Their ability to get damaged makes them almost completely useless, before it was manageable because they moved but being immobile and vulnerable makes them a liability to the ranger class. Why chose a skill that might survive long enough to buff up the party, when you can just chose a warrior who’s banners will DEFINITELY buff up the party regardless of the situation.

If anyone else as some other ideas or comments, please share.

PS: By no means to I believe spirits should automatically be made immune to damage and mobile, that’s just asking for a nerf. I just believe it needs to become a definite form of support that can’t be taken away other than from a duration timer. Obviously of changes are made, they need to be balanced.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel that the current mechanics with Death Shroud and Lifeforce are way too restrictive, and almost make it feel like we aren’t allowed to use DS a lot. I mean, we start off battles without any LF, and it almost feels like a chore to gather up enough LF unless we are using an axe.

All class mechanics have some sort of requirement to activate (kinda). For example, the thief must have a target an steal from it to gain a steal ability. That’s technically a requirement, but its a pretty kitten simple one.

And what about when we run out of LF? What do we do? We basically can’t use our own ability. If a mesmer runs out of clones, they just have to make more and wait for a cd. Simple. Not for us. Instead we have to wait for a CD (if we still have LF) and we have to find a way to regenerate LF (through attacks or deaths). Now this may not be too much of an issue in a PvE setting where you have trashmobs dying left and right, but in a PvP/WvW setting this is a HUGE problem. With barely any deaths around, we have to completely rely on our attacks to slowly regain LF.

Thus, Necromancers have a much heftier requirement. In order to use our DS, we must gather up LF from dying enemies/the use of abilities that drain Life Force. We also start off PvP battles with 0 LF which makes the beginning of matches extremely difficult.

Here’s My Suggestion
Instead of having to gather up Life Force by attacking enemies/being near dying enemies why don’t Necromancers just have a full Life Force bar 24/7 (sorta). Now it may sound weird at first, but just hear me out.

Instead of having to fish for LF, we should just have a steady stream of LF given to us through a regenerating gauge system. And where the CD of DS depends on how much time you spent in DS form, and can be reduced through traits/attacking to regain LF

Entering DS
Instead of starting off from 0 LF and having to gather it up, why don’t we just have a full LF bar that acts a timer bar instead? Almost like a reverse adrenaline bar.

Lets say our DS has a base duration of 25s (ballpark number) which can be brought up by traiting into Soul Reaping. and it goes down 1s with each hit we endure. Once the time runs out, we have to wait for the LF gauge to regenerate.

Lets say you don’t need the full duration of DS, and you end it early with 10s to spare. Since LF would now be a gauge, the gauge will regenerate from that point on, and thus have a reduce amount of time before DS can be activated again.

LF Regeneration
So you just went through the entire 25s seconds of DS/people dpsed you out of it. Now you need to wait for the LF gauge to regenerate.

I feel that the LF gauge should regenerate at a constant pace, which again can be traited into to increase the regeneration speed. This can be done by having a trait that allows weapons to reduce the lifeforce regeneration speech with each hit (sort of how LF worked before, but LF still regenerates even if you don’t hit someone).

I feel that if this sort of method is implemented, then it would feel like we have complete control over our own class ability, and it would even the playing field when you look at classes that can access their abilities at almost any moment.

Any Other Suggestion/Thoughts?
My biggest problem is with how the CD system would work if this was implemented. I don’t know if we have to wait a base amount of time before we can reactivate DS while regenerating LF/ how long a CD DS, itself, should have in case we didn’t use up all of our LF time.
Comment what you think would be best.

Also, weapon abilities that allow one to regenerate LF would have to be taken our of base and then put into a trait line.

See any holes in my suggestion?

I’d love to hear from the Necro Community on this idea. (considering it may have already been suggested)

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

I dunno, man. There’s a good chance we could be REALLY nasty when outnumbered.

Apply a nice, quick, AoE chill. Go into Reaper’s Shroud, pop your #3 and #2, giving you stability and applying poison.

With the right stuff, you could be taking a LOT less damage, as you could have a 25% damage reduction from your conditions, you could have protection, and you’ll be in Death Shroud. Now, if you spec into it, you gain life force and might when attacking chilled people, and are spreading chills all over the place thanks to ALL THE CRITS you could be having.

And you’ll be healing your plain life bar while you’re at it.

Now, since you have pulsing stability, you’re getting to go to town on the cluster with your nice, tasty AoE-Autoattack… Which generates life force.

That’s… A ton of sustain in death shroud. That scales with the number of enemies attacking you.

The primary problem is going to be those super-fast sorts who run away and plink you from a distance. Reaper is, then, going to be the king of confined spaces where that isn’t going to be an OPTION, and of teamfights where he’ll have the support of his allies to deal with that.

I totally agreed with you there. I will definitely use the reaper when I have my teammates watching my back or if I’m chilling (lol) with the zerg.

Yet, don’t forget that stab is easily removed now with the new stability system. But yea its still helpful. Just not as helpful as most people would assume.

And I’m not saying we need a gap closer. We can take so much damage that we can probably just walk up to our enemies and still be fine.

But there will always be a situation where you NEED to escape. You’re out matched, you’re outnumbered, you are caught off guard, blah blah blah. We can’t do anything about it. We just gotta take it and respawn. Reaper isn’t god mode, where you can assume nothing will get you down, because that’s not true.

So yea, the reaper shines in in certain situation, but not in every situation. Yet if you take the chronomancer into consideration; the chronomancer shines in all settings (PvE, PvP, and WvW).

The reaper still doesn’t make up for our lack of abilities to begin with. It seems hella useful in PvE and or with a good team, but with you’re outmatched or outnumbered. We are still just gonna die because we can’t escape or stop the damage.

I’m not saying we can’t survive enemy attacks. Of course we can. I can do that right now. But any good player knows when they need to disengage. And the necro STILL can’t do that. I’ll probably be able to hold off 3 enemies as the reaper, but what if I see the enemy team closing in (as most player should do). I’m still stuck there. And the new movement ability in DS still still isn’t enough mobility to get me away.

I’m not saying I want to be as fast as thieves or warriors (they already said that’s not how the class plays). I’m saying we need some sort of method of escaping battle or just not getting killed when being focused by large amounts of enemies.

So yea we have a ton of abilities to keep us sustained for a while in decent fights. I’ll assume 3v1 is as best as it will get. Yet, if an entire team is coming, wtf can you do?

First off, I don’t want it to make it seem like I don’t appreciate the changes because I actually do. They fix a lot of issues that we have in PVE setting. That’s it. It doesn’t really do much in a PvP/WvW setting.

So based on the POI, I still believe necromancers are going to be overwhelmed in unbalanced fights (2v1, 3v1, 3v2, etc).

So now, in PvE, you can do a ton of damage, tank enemies, and even help allies by giving them life siphon. AWESOME! Cool….I guess. But that doesn’t help me out when I’m facing actual players.

So they stated that they don’t want the necro to be super mobile or dish out a ton of boons because that’s just not the class type, and I agree with them there. But if that’s there decision, they need to find a way to compensate for it, and DS isn’t the solution to that problem. Instead we need defensive abilities that completely negate damage. A good example for this would be the Guardian class. They are also a pretty slow class but they make up for it with blocks, invuln, and aegis. We STILL have none of that.

They wanted the Reaper to shine in a crowed, but what if it is a crowd of players, and not NPCs? I still think we are inevitably dead. We can pop our DS but it will only delay our deaths ever so slightly.

Lets assume we are in a 5v1 setting in WvW (where shouts will be optimal). Do you think we will still survive? Of course not! Chills will be cleansed, we still have no drastic mobility, and DS will be stripped in an instant. Even if Life Siphons are fixed, that’s not enough to keep us alive. We are just sitting ducks to the overly mobile other classes.

Another situation. You are roaming in WvW or just engaged on a point in PvP. There’s only 1 enemy and you engage. You soon realize that his teammates are closing in. What do you do? You need to disengage, but you can’t. They will catch up to you, and overwhelm you. Dead.

You’re running in WvW and an enemy zerg notices you. Can you run away effectively? No! Swiftness can only get you so far against the movement saturated classes such as the warrior or thief. So they will engage you, slow you down long enough for the zerg to arrive, and you are just run over. Dead.

While these offensive shouts are good, they don’t save our kitten when we are in a sticky situation against REAL players. As DS will only “double” (lol jk) your health by so much. So if I have 20k health, and DS gives me another 15k then I have a “total” of 35k health (not to mention that 15k of that health will be constantly ticking down). Yet I have 4 players with me in their sights. Each dealing a ton of damage. That’s not going to save my life. Dead.

2v1 seems manageable, but then our shouts are hindered with the lack of targets. As a PvP/WvW player I honestly feel like I’m not going to be using the shout traits. They don’t provide enough survivability to make me want to use it. I don’t want to invest in a skill that will work SOME of the time as opposed to all of the time.

I can go on and on about this, but I’ve stated my main points:
We can’t disengage, or negate damage in any shape or form.

And bringing up the DS card is not the way to go with this anymore. Its honestly sad to think that people think DS is enough to help someone survive the onslaught of 4-5 other enemies.

Warcry.8914:

I just don’t see it, especially with Chronomancers on the horizon. On one hand you have fears – a condition that makes enemies run off in random directions and on the other you have stuns which leave enemies in place. Wouldn’t you rather have an enemy rooted to the ground and unable to attack rather than chasing someone especially as melee?

Don’t get me wrong, having extra CC is always great but without providing much else, Necros will still have to fight for their spots in premade parties.

I think you have the breakbar concept a bit off. See the CCs won’t actually effect the boss. By that I mean that if we fear a boss, it won’t run away from us as if going under the effects of fear. Same thing with stuns from other class such as the engi or mesmer. Instead, CCs will lower a second bar under the boss’s health bar (this is the break bar). Now, CCs will lower this bar until is reaches 0. Once that happen, it is considered broken. I believe that the necro’s fear will actually lower this bar significantly faster than other classes because fear may be considered the strongest CC in the game. So I’m guessing that 1 fear may =2-4 soft CC from other classes. If this is somewhat true, then there may be a new spot for necros in PvE because we will be breaking the breakbar more quickly than any other class (I hope).

Again this is just a theory, but I feel that it makes sense.

Warcry.8914:

But is it enough when Engineers can spew out tons of knockbacks to go through that break bar while providing might and lots of blast finishers? What about Mesmers that can lob interrupt and stuns back to back all the while providing quickness and reflects?

I agree with you there. Yet, if Anet does make fear the top CC when encountering a breakbar, we will still be better than all of them. Its still not confirmed tho, and I don’t know how much better it will be. But its something to hope for.

So I’m noticing that a lot of people are worries that necros will still be excluded from the meta of GW2.

It seems that most people were hoping that Anet would give necros some sort of team support that will make the necessary or just more useful for PvE, but that seems to not be the case with the offensive shouts.

THAT’S OK THO!
Everyone forgot that Anet is giving bosses a breakbar, and according to Anet different CCs will effect the breakbar in different ways. This was because they didn’t want spamable CCs from classes such as the thieves to outshine CCs that actually take a long time to cast. If I recall correctly, I believe that Fear will be considered the strongest form of CCs in the game, and may then effect the breakbar more dramatically.

In case some of you have forgotten, or just unaware, the breakbar is a new defiance system that will be given to every boss. The overall goal is to break the breakbar by throwing out a much CCs are possible. This results in stunning the boss and/or stopping it from going into a stronger phase of the fight. Thus it may become necessary to stop this from occurring during certain boss fights. Otherwise, a team may wipe, or just have a very difficult time surviving .

The necro class is the only class that has the most accessibility to fear. And thus we will be optimal for getting the breakbar as low as possible. Who knows, maybe freezing will also be considered a CC and that will also make us even MORE effective in getting rid of that break bar.

Thus necros may be actually become necessary in HoT for their strong Fear abilities. We may not be able to increase the teams overall damage, but will will be able to prevent everyone from dying.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the best way that Anet will be able to incorporate the Necro in PvE. And I think it makes perfect sense. What do you guys think?

Believe in the Breakbar!