Guild Wars 2

Just read a post that Druid will have the base healing reduced which is totally fine by me!

But I am curious if they will be reworking how healing power scales so that investing will be worth it if we so decide stat for it.

A lot of the time I notice there is barely a difference in not slotting for it unless you fully slot for it which then still isn’t that high of numbers.

Maikky.8526:

Inflames.8026:

Yes, I hated ranger. With passion! I dont know, it never brought anything exciting to the table. Either you sat still and put down traps. Or you pewpewed. Pvp anyway. Feel rangers are more versitile in WVW, specially since they are 1v1 gods!

Not only did I hate playing ranger, but I sort of automatically hated people who played ranger. They had to knockback in pve, they had to pewpew kite you. Anyway.

Ive tried all professions this BWE. Again. I tried Scrapper (main engie) and rev (possible main?) but the thing I enjoyed the most was druid.

I was able to keep myself up through incredible tanking. I healed my allies in small doses. I was a pain in the pooper. I dealt substain damage, so much that I chased some professions away. When the new pets are viable in pvp too! HOLY MOLY!

Just gotta say I’m 100% happy ^^

So basically a non-ranger player is happy because ranger is no longer ranger while people who liked ranger …

can still play ranger.

Nicknobreak.7543:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Thanks for the tremendous amount of feedback regarding the Druid. I’ll be modifying swaths of the druid (and scrapper) to fix bugs and account for your feedback this week and reviewing things like glyphs effectiveness, celestial avatar skill differentiation, astral force charging rates and some of the staff skills.

In general the Celestial Avatar form’s base heals feel a bit too high and heal coefficients didn’t feel rewarding enough to go with healpower stats. The heals themselves seemed to be working at decent values, so I’ll be tweaking the base heals down and coefficients up some in order to better reward selecting healing power stat combos as a druid.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

Seriously, this guy though, AMIRITE? How dang good is he? His especs are clearly head and shoulders above the rest.

Oh my god. Irenio makes my day! He already made my weekend.

Thank you for the repost. I missed this and wouldn’t of found it so soon otherwise.

Wondrouswall.7169:

No. Heck, they even said they were going to save tomes for something else in the future. Guardians next elite spec: Tome Reader. Enjoy.

HAA! that’s great!

I am very interested in how they bring Tomes back. And what weapon will be attached to the spec it comes with. But now I’m off topic…. dang it.

The elite spec expectation – upgrade for each class into God-like status.

Truth of elite specs – Give players different ways to play said classes.

This thread really has no logic.

I wouldn’t trade for a minute.

I actually like my pets. And I like Ranger Bow a lot better. and DH traits are kinda. . . not so good imo. Prefer Ranger’s traps also. I mean the list goes on forever. xD

But I am 100% that Guard would trade DH for Druid though.

Inflames.8026:

Yes! You pretty much experienced the same as me, tho I was saddened I couldnt play much WvW. Still, I got some time to level up a ranger now and prepare it. I already made ascended gear, tho for my “[s]crapper”, but think druid will get my love. Anyway, gearwise did you feel like something was better then other? Valkyrie, celestial? Cleric?
So exciting to finally settle on something.

I tried Cleric first and stuck with it. I should of tried Zealot’s Gear but I didn’t prepare my bank very well. Cleric was a lot of fun just because of how sturdy I felt but my dps wasn’t very good. Luckily I ran with friends and we did well as a unit.

And I’d totally ignore the negative nancy’s above this post. Trend of the internet. Add nothing of constructive to a conversation. Just a whine-and-dash I guess.

The one issue I noticed though is how poorly healing power scales. Toughness seems to be in the same boat. I feel like these are the 2 things I liked stacking as much as possible with Druid because sustain was just so much fun but the result of stacking it in full didn’t seem to have the impact it should. At least imo.

And anyone who thinks “we heal as one” is sufficient enough to keep a pet alive through AOEs is sadly mistaken and probably one of those types that spams “REMOVE PETS FROM RANGER. PERMA-STOW PLEASE” forgetting of course that most of your traits have to deal with your pet. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if they never slotted a single trait to enable the pet to perform better. Sighhh.

While I can’t agree with hating Rangers before. . . It wasn’t my favorite. Something about not being able to take care of my pet properly annoyed me. I would give my healing skill to my pet before myself. I tried to master “return to me” when in aoe rings. Still. . . I could never keep them alive even if I traited fully for them.

When I got on Druid I was a bit overjoyed. Say what you will but the autoattack alone being able to help my pet sustain so I could use my heal skill for myself (sometimes xD) was such a large improvement for me. We took on dungeons, fractals, spvp, and wvw and I can say finally my pet is seeing it’s day in the sun. It makes me love Druid.

Not only this but my way of playing is to support others and I didn’t have options on Ranger. Spirits always seems to die quickly. Not this time. I placed my spirits in the perfect spots, kept them healed as much as i kept my pet healed. It was really fun to me.

Pets aside, being able to give my fellow teammates and friends sustain is a huge deal to me. The fun I’ve had helping small zergs push into large zergs and we end up winning. Helping my friends survive from being downed.

I really am sad to see Beta end. It’ll be 3 whole weeks until I can play that way again.

I really hope they don’t touch my Smokescale. (I named him Peekaboo xD)

I love him so much and he’s so fun. I enjoy his uniqueness and really am glad to see where they are taking pets. I hope to see more pets with their own quirks and perks!

odayaka.5263:

The only time I found myself squishy was when I was getting focused down by more than two people or stunned/immob. I dropped like a rock then. But 1v1 or even 1v2, I could keep myself alive fairly well.

Also that raid healing is ridiculous. At one point during one of the mini bosses last night I was the only one left alive in the raid group.

The healing is fantastic. I really hope it doesn’t get nerfed any. People don’t know how to deal with it yet but I can tell them this. Stuns and knockdowns we’re gone. It’s not impossible to kill a Druid just can’t be done by mashing keys mindlessly.

I really feel like the Mesmer community is just so good at their class by now they make it look stronger and harder to counter (this doesn’t include me. XD I’m still learning).

I fought a few Chrono on my Druid. 1 I couldn’t sustain with full toughness and heals. 2 others, I actually downed them with very little power. This tells me straight away that it’s all about the person behind the keyboard. If it was “OP” or “overtuned” anyone could win with it regardless.

White Devil.3176:

What if the auto looked more like this?

xD!

At least it’s yellow!

I was never squishie on my Druid. But I ran a full heal / toughness build in spvp. And all clerics in WvW.

I was traited for my pet for the most part to be able to taunt, heal, and other tidbits.

I could take on 3 players attacks if I kept myself moving. It helped to have different utility than the glpyhs for that to happen. (IE – lightning reflexes)

But yes, no really damages. But my pet was a beast. It was nice for My “Sir Pickles” to see his day in the sun. His AI is still a bit wonky of course but he’s strong and helps me a ton! xD

I’ll take any radius increase I can get on glyphs! yesyes pleaseplease! xD

Ehecatl.9172:

I would much prefer the caster staff animations. Having come from WoW three years ago I was ecstatic that my character held their staff like one would hold a staff.

Holding it like a hammer just goes back to how WoW casters hold their staff. It’s boring and doesn’t give me that “mystical” feel.

The feel of the stance for the staff takes away from the feel of Druid for sure. Squatting so awkwardly while shooting out of it 2 handed.

Druid has always been one of my more favorites to play in most MMORPGs and seeing the weapon handling animated this way makes me cringe a bit xD

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Keksmuffin.1450:

Did you try to create the worst build possible?

Might not be meta, but it’s fun as hell for PvE I assure you!

Anything can work in PvE.

Heck I have killed stuff while drunk not using any traits in PvE.

Right? PVE is a good place to test skills to see what the do initially but really it boils down to effectiveness elsewhere. Otherwise you’d see sPVP stacking in groups of 5v5 in pure glass and the last to fall wins.

Kinda wanna see that happen now. . . xD

Zanshin.5379:

The dev in charge of the DH doesn’t know anything about guardians.

When I think of guardians I imagine them to be a heavy armored magical class. With spells of protection and boons to boot.

How it got turned into an archer with traps makes me feel confused.

Bow and arrow play can be magical (I like to think of the light arrows from Legend of Zelda xD) but the way they play out for DH takes it far from what I feel like it started out as. We aren’t given any more ways to protect our allies (besides 1 trap . . .) and it doesn’t feel like a Guard anymore.

DH doesn’t add anything to Guard to make me feel like it was expanded on but more taken away from.

Just my opinion really. But as I keep saying everywhere I’m a giant salt cube since we lost our tomes. That was the start of Guardian becoming less of what I thought it was intended and into something it wasn’t meant to be.

And people can say it all day. “We’re in a good place”. But it’s also drab, boring, and lost that special something for a lot of players I know.

Honestly after playing everything else for this beta. . . I just wish for running speed so badly on something called “hunter” (Say what you will about my preferences :P)

If anything this would help with putting down traps in melee range so you can then back up again and use bow.

LB damage payoffs seem a bit out of balance. Long casting times and roots don’t equal the damage output that seems to justify it.

I am trying my hardest to make traps work for me because i feel like it’s more of a l2p this new thing issue but regardless of how much I practice there are seldom occasions I was glad I slotted one in my utility bar. I much rather have shouts / spirit weapons.

Taking off the bow I still don’t find traps to be useful. Anything else in that slot is a much better use of space.

I hate to be a downer but I really tried to enjoy this because I want to come back to Guardian as my main. But with the loss of tomes and this being what we get instead I’m just baffled and disappointed.

Last thing from me will be that the traits have 0 synergy with the core. I can’t say this about any other elite that I’ve played. I find synergy even with Druid (Nature Magic, Beast Mastery. Depending on the mode you play of course). But with DH I find myself doing whatever traits because it’s . . . just not giving me anything to work with.

Either way, good or bad – this is only because of my personal preference and gameplay style and anyone who finds enjoyment in DH isn’t wrong. Just different from me personally.

Nemesis.6938:

seems they had to redo the druid so maybe they didnt have a lot of time? but yeah, the way he holds the staff is weird…moreover, i think all the animations – besides the vine skill (which is quite clunky to use tbh) – the animations look pretty lackluster…. skill 1 looks like a placeholder, 2 is just boring and VERY simple, 3 as well…. and the avatar form looks pretty “cheap” as well…. rather turn him into a celestial bear lol

thats how a solar beam should look like ^^
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150121222632/pokemon/images/2/25/Ash_Sceptile_Solar_Beam.png

YOU GET A HEALS. AND YOU GET A HEALS. EVERYONE GETS A HEALS. xD

Yeah I feel like the Solar Beam should be yellow, sparkley, and wider. Not by much but to give room to have animation visuals actually visible.

Druid feels strong because the heals = large amount of sustain. With full clerics my sustain allows me to take fire from 2-3 players for quite some time. The downside is the fact that I can not do anything much in terms of damage while I give myself this sustain.

What would make other classes feel better would be if investing in Healing Power was a good investment. The scaling is really off. But the same could be said about Toughness as well.

Some of the ways other classes can place their heals isn’t ideal either. If this could ever change would be great but not so sure we’ll see anything like that ever happen.

The way the Druid holds it’s staff and attacks with it is . . . very odd and visually unappealing. It would be great to have this switched to caster stance as idle, and have the staff held in combat to match such.

All the animations on the Druid are beautiful.

MINUS.

The autoattack. It’s plain, boring, and . . . very lack luster. Compared to the rest of the animations this stands out like a sore thumb. Similar to Mesmer Greatsword auto but Mesmer auto at least had detail (bolts of other colors) that made it interesting to look at.

Please spruce up the autoattack so this will look complete and polished!

Other than that Druid is an absolute piece of art! Thank you artists and devs! <3

Solo Druid is probably the most fun I’ve ever had. I don’t have a full suggestion on what to use but don’t listen to people who say there isn’t a need. It’s SOLO. You play how you want!

It’s great as solo to perform as a beast master, taking care of your pet while you both dps and it keeps aggro.

I’ve been able to do most things by myself with druid. 0 problems.

Why is it okay that any other class is strong other than Mesmer?

I can 1v1 people all day on any of my other characters and win and not get 1 word via grief. Win 1 time as a mesmer in pvp and I get whispers about what trash I am.

Any complaints shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore. We’re honest about what needs to be nerfed and what doesn’t. Listening to anyone who “fought one and lost” and ran to the forums to complain. . . just xD

Back to being more pleasant! Chrono makes me feel like I’d finally be more welcome in PVE content other than for a portal-bot. It’s really enjoyable to play so I find it a winning situation for me personally. ^.^

I don’t find them strong but I will say this…

THEY ARE FUN! The way they work has really made me enjoy Druid even more. There’s such a great synergy between how I play and how Smokescale works. I like it so much. I really hope they don’t change them any.

Played Druid for over a day now. . . and I must say it’s a lot of fun!

Some things to think about. The heals on staff 1 with full clerics isn’t that good. I’m getting very low numbers. The damage with decent amount of power is not that good either. I would like to see one or the other improved so it doesn’t feel so weak. Preferably damage to be honest seeing as we sacrifice a lot of DPS going into CF and taking staff as well.

Wisp could really use some damage placed on it.

Glyphs could really use a radius increase. I find myself not using them what so ever because the range isn’t feasible in a lot of situations.

My biggest complaint is actually – how ugly we hold the staff + the animation for the autoattack. It’s plain, and thin. Similar to Mesmer’s Greatsword but at least the greatsword auto had some special effects around the actual beam. This is very plain looking and I really actually just . . . don’t enjoy it.

The rest of the animations are BEAUTIFUL! This autoattack + how you hold and wield the staff has to go. It will look much more polished and complete.

New pets are great and I don’t really have anything on them minus the build up for the attacks on the Wyverns. It’s a bit too long of a “cast time” imo.

Regardless of everything though this is a very fun spin on Druid and I am really enjoying myself. I find myself very happy and enthused with how I can manage my pet now. I feel like a beast master with synergy with how my pet works. Pet protects me, I protect them with healing. It works wonderful with Spirits as well. I can keep them healed while they in return heal or buff me. I feel like this has a lot of interesting play incoming and I appreciate the work that was put into the Druid!

I don’t think it needs a nerf what so ever. I feel like what could be more useful is a buff or change to the vanilla pets. They are in dire need of their own identities and strengths. The condi add on is great but at the same time I feel like they are all still missing that special something.

Noticing the most common issue is that no one opened the chest of goods and has the right stats. I mean. . . that’s gotta be the issue here, right?

Zenith.7301:

Irenio posted on the ranger forums that they’re working on a measure to help ranger pets and minions (which likely involves mesmer illusions) against AoE.

Omg this made my night… I can’t wait until they share what this “something” is!

Dragon Hunter is a Hunter of Dragons. Glint is an actual Dragon. I think it’s fine o.o

I’m having a hard time finding a weapon to swap to that has good synergy with the staff. I feel almost like I’m getting counter productive when I actually swap. Anyone have any tips?

I think it looks fine. I mean it’s not the same as a spell caster’s stance but it makes sense because we actually use the staff to cast the beams where as most casters auto attack comes from their actual hand.

Levetty.1279:

Photinous.4628:

Chrono is pretty OP if you ask me. The ridiculous amount of shatter spamming that is possible with it is over the top.

Are you kidding me, with the massive amoutns of AoE and CC about now its imposible to get clones up to shatter. Go troll somewhere else.

Seriously. This ^

The clone generation isn’t creating spam of shatters against anyone but bad players. . .

So far
Autoattack is feeling good which was my biggest bother when I first tested.

But Karl I wish we could really address the traits for DH. As I go through it I find myself having nothing I even find that useful. I am at the point where the DH traitline most useful trait = being able to actually use the bow. That’s about it.

I really appreciate that you kept burning on the symbol. Everything is starting to feel a lot better playing-wise. I do wish that our LB 5 would get a bit more damage though.

a little more feedback from me because I’m just so excited!

It’s a great feeling to finally have a way to take care of my pet (Staff 1). I always. ALWAYS. use my heals for my pet before myself. I’m so happy to have a way to make my pets sustain better.

The damage is a bit on the low side though. I know it places a regen but at the same time we need something on staff that can contribute to dps a bit better.

Beta just started so I can’t really give much input but

I am in love with my Smokescale pet. It’s the most fun I’ve had with a pet in ANY game I’ve ever played thus far.

Not going to lie. . . when the Guardian tomes were gone I pretty much was too. I picked up Guard because of how I felt when I played it. I didn’t pick it up to be a boon bot. The enjoyment has dwindled for me. If we ever get tomes back I’ll definitely be back though!

Druid looks fun and it reaaally looks like they pick pocketed those tomes quite a bit. I can’t resist and it’ll probably end up being something I play quite often. Plus that +33% speed thing. Mygod. No more tortoise pace. Yay! xD

Then your choices are
1. Wait for them to drop
2. Buy them with gems.

Daddar.5971:

Call it satire, sarcasm., or snark. I plead guilty. My point is: there will be more than 1 way to clear a raid, and only a sociopath sees other players as ‘tools to optimize raid clearing time’. It’s a game. Games are for fun. I’ll have no problem clearing raids with people who have social skills and are not hyper-arrogant control freaks, even if it takes slightly longer.

I lol’d a bit. This is exactly how I think of it as well.

Social skills, good time, can laugh and enjoy took an hour or more > cleared in 20 minutes.

This whole meta thing is silly. I’m gunna play MY main MY way because its MY time.

And people can say “just look for like-minded groups then”
and I say I try. I label my group “Casual, any can join” and I get impatient meta users who start barking orders and calling people names.

When are we gunna remember this is a game and it can be chill and fun?

If my guild told me to not play my main but play something I didn’t like I’d find myself a new guild.

On topic ~ Ele is something I play rarely where as I have a ton of fun playing Mesmer seeing as it’s my main. But I play for FUN not efficiency.

Khisanth.2948:

They are already nerfing SW farming by requiring shovels for guild upgrades …

You noticed that too?

I just sat there thinking to myself. HA. Not getting mine!

xD

Isarii.2804:

CandyHearts.6025:

Etien.4601:

The effort you put in SW justify the farm there. No need for changes at all.

I farmed nonstop for 2 days. I made 40g. (Not my best 2 days lol)

If it got nerfed it would be a dead map. The outcome of what you get there can vary so much. You could get 2 exos from 1000 bags. or 10 exos from 250 bags. It’s luck and hardwork and I see 0 reason to nerf something that isn’t unnaturally rewarding. The reward is just and fine as is.

You either did something horrifically wrong or you aren’t factoring in material drops. I can make 40g in about an hour and a half in the Silverwastes just from the events when using a full liquidation strategy (which I’m totally fine with).

I’m not full on t6 mats and I am also leveling my crafting professions so the income I could receive via mats is MIA. xD

Etien.4601:

The effort you put in SW justify the farm there. No need for changes at all.

I farmed nonstop for 2 days. I made 40g. (Not my best 2 days lol)

If it got nerfed it would be a dead map. The outcome of what you get there can vary so much. You could get 2 exos from 1000 bags. or 10 exos from 250 bags. It’s luck and hardwork and I see 0 reason to nerf something that isn’t unnaturally rewarding. The reward is just and fine as is.

Silverkey.2078:

Well there was this compromise which I liked to making phantasm a one-time attack. They would not be shatterable, they would simply attack once and disappear (while being otherwise unkillable). This would keep the flavor (you would have one pink version of yourself stabbing your enemy) but with something that can actually be balanced (because you can’t base your balance on them attacking more than once).

This would be amazing. It’s exactly what I wish for all the time. Doing dungeons is so frustrating. I’ll be so thrilled I stacked my phantasms up for 3, got my dps going really well. 1 aoe shot and I have to start over. The other classes I play (which I don’t enjoy so it doesn’t happen often) don’t feel like they have to work as hard to maintain DPS. So much could be fixed if phantasms were a quick burst of damage then gone again.

This would open the door for Scepter to bring a lot more to the table, also. No more needing to worry that a phantasm will get overrode.

Please let this happen! ;_;

I always thought the proper fix for anything that is slow – add more damage.
Hammers are slow to swing and in most games I play. The balance for this is that they make up for it by hitting harder than a faster weapon.

When it comes to scepter I don’t want to see it changed into a “condi weapon” only. This would be too limiting seeing as we only have 2 1 hand weapons.

It doesn’t need to be faster. The speed can be workable. It’s the damage that’s applied with scepter that feels the issue for me. When I am swinging slow there is no payoff. Clones don’t make up for my slow DPS, and phantasms are destroyed by the clones making my DPS even lower.

What I would like to see happen is that MS be changed to still include the speed increase but also damage increase as well. It would feel more comfortable to have a slow weapon be slow for a reason. Clones are not enough of a reason when the shatter they would be used for ALSO doesn’t make up for the lack of DPS regardless the mode.

Omgosh I didn’t even think about this.

I really think it would be great if we could! O.O

Redenaz.8631:

It’s going to look different in different locations.

I don’t know how people can play the game and not notice this right away. Every area I’ve ever been in seems to feel different color wise. There are areas that my Grape haired Sylvari goes where her hair is Bright Burgandy. Other areas its like a dark thistle.

Explore the world and find the map you like your weapon’s colors and stay there, I guess? XD

I find all these armor sets fabulous. Stay on topic and stop showing off!

I sit and wait for That Sylvari dress with the yellow top and the leafy skirt.

It has such amazing detail. It’s such a waste that it can’t be worn by players who would appreciate the great amount of effort the artist put forth to make it. It’s nice to see the NPCs wearing it and admire the NPC for how well it’s created but at the same time it also creates a slight frustration for those who wish it wasn’t NPC exclusive.

I would say if this was a singular NPC wearing it and they were meant to be unique; that it would make some type of sense that players can’t use it. But the NPC that wears this dress is literally every where. From the Dream intro / tutorial for Sylvari to the grove to outside the grove wandering around. So it’s “nothing special” in the NPC-world but would be extremely special to players who’ve been staring at it for 3+ years.

This goes the same for all the other pieces we can’t obtain (that I lacked to observe). I’m rather just confused as to why we can’t seen these see any light of day.

A response “Sorry but we do not intend to include these at any time” might cause some salt to scatter about the forums but in the very least we could stop hoping and move on!

Daniel Handler.4816:

The scepter is primarily a condi weapon, and allowing full up time on clones while still shattering is a sustained condi dps increase.

It’s really not. It is a great power weapon as much as it is a condi.

Yes. High ping and low fps. Nothing makes it better.