Guild Wars 2

A smoke field on f2 is far more useful in all 3 game modes then smoke assault. Furthermore, SA behavior is predictable.

I am glad the smoke field is back on F2. Smoke assault is easy enough to manage on auto cast and it is not a DPS loss as the auto cast smoke field was. The damage nerf part is … uh.. whatever

When they put down DH it will become obvious how broken Reaper and Scrapper are. After that Chrono and Druid will get hit.

What people fail to consider is, how Core classes compare to Elites. In most cases, other then Berserker or perhaps Tempest, the Elite is far stronger then the Core.

This is a major issue. Please do not just compare Elites to other Elites, consider the whole picture.

Also, the Celestial amulet is like the Minstrel amulet… ruining the game. I hope for a day when it gets removed or heavily nerfed.

I agree, Revanant hammer is over tuned, especially the auto and the no. 2 skill.

This needs to stay on the front page as it ruins one of the selling points for HoT and that is the precursor scavenger hunt. I hope a dev replies!

Yea, the shaterer crystal is such a PITA. Seriously, change this. This one puts a huge stinker on the whole The Legend crafting experience.

It is not just the sword. The hammer also does way too much damage. You need to understand the Revenant was not able to swap weapons initially and thus every weapon skill was over tuned. People are hitting 5k crits in PvP with the hammer auto attack or 10-15k with hammer 2.

Of course the revenant has 20+ might stacks but that is not too hard to manage considering that herald is a boon bot.

The boring to play argument is kind of invalid here. Having celestial builds for a better part of 2 years has also been boring.

Has anyone completed the zap precursor scavenger hunt? The Explorer Loana event seems bugged and thus I cant seem to get the final item i need. Is there some trick to it?

Is she bugged for everyone? Without here I cant seem to complete the first scavanger hunt for bolt.

Any suggestions?

They should do the same to Celestial. Either heavy nerf or outright remove. It will be healthy for the game.

Why would they ever nerf GoTL? The only way to keep full stacks is if you enter avatar form and when you do you are doing no damage. Sure you might buff the party but its a grandmaster trait that gives added utility to a pretty one dimensional elite spec.

Guys, keep in mind that other classes, especially good PvE classes can support through a couple of different things all the while doing great damage. The Core Ranger and the Druid by exstention are in the bottom half of the damage spectrum and both have very limited unique effects and no boon production.

The thief is quite solid DPS and a stealth bot.
The ele is a huge AoE DPS bot.
Engi is top DPS.
The warrior is a might stacker and provides Empower allies, 2 damage boosting banners.
Revenant is huge DPS and a boon bot.
Guardian and mesmers are reflect and utility bots.

The Ranger so far had only spotter and frost spirit and very limited damage and other utility. With glyphs and GoTL we got a solid boost to our party buffing effects, but it is not on the level that, for example, the warrior does.

On the topic of ancient seeds, I do not know what to say. I understand that it is probably meant to be a reliable proc. However, it could potentially be made into something reliable and not tied to an ICD.

For example:
- cast ancient seeds around yourself when you swap pets
or
- cast ancient seeds when you cast a heal skill
or
- cast ancient seeds when you cast an elite skill

While we are talking about Druid, they also need to rework how seed of life looks and works. The delay makes it very unreliable which is especially notable when you trait glyphs. The detonation timer needs to be removed and the silly ugly animation as well. Remake it into an explosion of flowers or something like that.

There is a difference between a Druid and a bunker guard. The druid just heals, while the guardian provides damage mitigation as well as condition cleanses to the entire team which are a high AoE range and very reliable.

People just see one side, omg druid heals more. Yes it does, but it does not mitigate damage!!

As for the LL nerf, sure it was justified. But it was not nerfed, it was nuked out of viability. Major difference!

The total costs of precursor crafting should be far less then instant buying it off of the TP. It is account bound and it is trophy, event and time gated.

Besides, even if it brings down the price of precursors, it is a good thing. They have reduced gold income.

I am surprised that the nerf is so heavy handed. I was expecting the same treatment as with blinding ashes which got its ICD increased from 5 to 8. But from 3 to 12 and a reduction of the proc duration is just… wow.

Again, something goes from great to worthless.

play a Druid as you would a Core ranger. Take MM and skirmishing but replace BM with Druid.

Berserker, sword axe/LB. Slot heal glyph, empower glyph, daze glyph and frost spirit. Trait the glyphs and take GoTLand. Each glyph cast will give allies a 3% damage, on top of 7.5% from frost spirit and 10% from empower for 6s.

Spotter and regular dps traits in MM.

Smoke assault makes sense to be on auto cast because it is a damage/mobility skill. The smoke field has much more uses and thus deserves to be player controlled. If left on auto cast it will overwrite combo fields, keep the pet out of melee and generally be a DPS loss.

Silly question… how is Druid OP? What is OP about it specifically?

The Revenant has 2 heals though.

No, Celestial form is not fine. It is heavily gated. A healer needs to be able to heal in a pinch and not have to jump through hoops just to do its job. Furthermore, Glyphs have dual functionality that depends on celestial avatar form. There are also 3 traits that are directly dependant on the form as well.

Celestial form is worthless most of the time due to force degen.

I just read the patch notes and got all excited. I entered the game to continue the story and the the poison lore is still there. I tried various things to reset the story but it was no use.

Help?

The burst as an auto cast skill was predicable. It would be used as soon as you entered combat and the pet would be put on the target. F2 right after for the taunt. Now the pet will rarely hit anything and you cant deliver the taunt with it. The smoke field brought us insane utility and it gave us an opportunity to stack stealth before a team fight or in PvE.

The pet is 100% worthless now.

Haha, yet another thing that went from amazing to worthless within 2 days.

Relax, they will probably nerf them by 50% or something.

It is pretty simple, they should either:

- remove astral force degeneration out of combat and keep the CD and low rates

- keep the degeneration and insane the bar filling by an obscene margin. If its gonna be like adrenaline it needs to be available like adrenaline.

The AF generation/degeneration is a complete joke. A healer needs to be able to heal in a pinch and not jump through hoops just to have a small window of healing which is, as it stands, usually when healing might not be necessary.

The staff is a good weapon. The trait line is excellent. The celestial form might as well not exist.

The druid went from amazing to crap tier in a span of 2 weeks. Well done!

The issue with AF degenerating is not just about Celestial avatar itself. It also devalues various traits and the entire glyph family.

For Druidic clarity, Celestial shadow, Grace of the land, and every glyph you should be as free as possible to swap between modes. Otherwise they are worthless.

While the Druid line is quite solid in itself and we can make due without the Avatar form, there is no reason to take Druid over Core at the moment.

Yes, this is a major slap in the face.

Seriously? Jesus freeking Christ…… what the hell are they thinking?

Jesus, no, no it is not too strong. When you are in Avatar form you do zero damage aside from your pet. The Avatar state needs to have a function other then a healing bot.

They have started adding short CD stun breakers. The berserker spec has one as does the daredevil.

I just wanted to bring up a couple of pets that have pretty insane cast times on their f2 skills or RNG associated with the skills. Hopefully it gets put on the radar and maybe we will see a fix to it soon enough.

Jungle stalker

- Mighty roar is a pretty solid skill and is sometimes used but the biggest thing that is keeping it down is the fact that the cast time is a whooping 3 seconds.

A solution would be to reduce it to 1.5 seconds cast time.

Pig family

- There is a pretty big RNG here. Randomly you will get an item to pick up and gain various effects. This, albeit fun sometimes, is pretty unreliable and thus will rarely see play in any serious build or competitive mode.

A solution would be to:
- the f2 places the bundle in the players hands right away
- each bundle is associated with a pet: Boar gets stealth, Pig gets plazma and Siamoth gets the fear skull ( as its the ugliest thing in the game hahaha)

• Whiptail and Lashtail devourer**

- These guys have pretty insane cast times on their skills. One has a 4 second channeling bleed volley while the other prepares for a poison volley 2.5 seconds and then tosses it.

Quite honestly a simple cut by 50% to the cast time is warranted.

Moas

- Well, this is not really so much about the f2 as it is about the really small AoE range of Harmonic cry. Of course the protection duration on blue moa is extremely short considering the 30s CD and could use an increase to 6s.

Perhaps I will add some more later. Discuss!!

Predators affects both ranged and melee damage. The longbow is used only as a part of the rotation, as in you will use barrage and rapid fire and then swap to the sword. There are very few fights where you would use ranged only. And then you can swap to LtW if you like.

A bonus to Predators is that it also increases your pets damage, so it comes out on top even in ranged fights.

the number 4 could use some love. perhaps inflict a couple of torment stacks as well.

Every quickness giving utility is also a stun breaker. And every one has a 60s CD. Only QZ is slotted however, and that is not because it is good on its own. It is quite solid traited but we also do not have anything better to slot.

A solution would be to reduce QZ, Haste and Frenzy CDs from 60s to 40s.

As far as signets go, I feel that SotW would make a good stunbreak. SotH should be remade into a stealth proc.

Protect me must not kill the pet and it should have similar functionality as Armor of Stone cantrip.

As far as traps go, Frost trap could be the defensive one, seeing how it lacks… well everything.

Is it PvE only or will it also apply for PvP and WvW?

1) 3% outgoing healing to allies
2) glyphs apply 3 seconds of regeneration in an AoE
3) 5% outgoing healing to allies
4) glyphs apply 3 seconds of protection in an AoE
5) 10% outgoing healing to allies
6) glyphs apply 3 seconds of resistance in an AoE

Depends on what game mode you are looking at. If you are looking at PvE you have two options.

In old dungeon content and low level dungeons the Ranger is meta. We do not know yet how the Druid will do there. The content is easy and everything is about stacking and using berserker stats.
Compared to the Druid my educated guess is that Core Ranger will be better simply because of damage modifiers. However, there are other classes that are simply better at this and this is why the Ranger is usually not present in dungeons. Mesmer and Necromancer too.

Now, speaking of Druid, you will probably take Skirmishing, Beastmastery and Druid lines in PvE, irrelevant of armor stats taken, you will be a support class. This is not the same as a healing bot mind you. What makes the Druid unique as a support is high innate healing and a lot of unique damage modifiers. You will end up with spotter, frost spirit, glyph of empowerment and grace of the land.

As far as PvP or WvW go, DPS is not as important as the opportunity to deliver said DPS. This is why even DPS builds go with defensive trait lines. There are plenty of possible combinations to run there and you should not look at Avatar form in a one dimensional way. I used it as a pretty big panic button. Also the staff offers a lot of mobility and sustain.

Agreed

The Seed of life is too slow to bloom and remove conditions.

The Druid is a healer specialization. But you do not have to pigeon hole yourself into it as you can build it as a support or damage dealer. It just gives you an option for sustain. You can use it for self or for others.

I have played a DPS druid the whole BWE3 in both pvp and wvw and it worked fine. You can look at Celestial avatar as an oh crapp button and a secondary heal.

Heimskarl, I agree. It all depends on how it affects allies though. Does it affect 4 or 5 of them? I mean if it counts the Druid first and then 4 additional allies then it will be good, but if it does not count the Druid and it affects 5 allies, then it will be amazing.

There is a clear rationale behind grace of the land. It is not simply a damage buff like Frost spirit, banners, Spotter, Empower allies, etc. It is so good because during Avatar form the Ranger does no damage at all. Only the pet does some. This is to keep him relevant during boss fights when you need to keep up with the healing. It can somewhat compensate for the 0 DPS coming out of the Ranger.

Grace of the Land is a PvE trait. The other two are for WvW and PvP.

Glyph is 3% when you look at its overall up time. I am talking about the burn phases. Should have been more precise.

Ele provides damage mitigation and boons. Druid provides healing and non boon buffs.

Uh how is there a lack of synergy? Jesus

This puts us in a great place for support other then healing. 7,5% from spirit, 10% from glyph and up to 15% from Grace for burn phases, along with spotter. WoW!!

It does address quite a lot of our concerns. Also the heal reduction is acceptable for non healer builds, and healer builds will be even better then in BWE3. I am happy.