Guild Wars 2

Now I`m looking at the druid and I see a repeat of this, but that’s not the point I want to make. The angle I am going with is that Arenanet cannot afford to have the druid in this state. Its different to the reaper, or any other class, this time they made an elite spec that was supposed to change the very way the game was played.

What?

I don’t support the celestial form of the Druid since I think that it is a mechanic that can stand alone and have little to no synergy with the Ranger mechanism, the pet. But, even with this opinion, I feel that the druid in it’s shape is already pretty strong (even, to strong). Now, if you talk about the druid as an elite spec that change the way you play the ranger, then yes it’s okay and it’s doing it’s job, there is few things to actually tune and it will probably be done quickly.

But, If you think that Anet create the Druid to change the whole game… Excuse me but no. Anet policy is to not make a profession mandatory for any content. And this policy need to stay.

The druid just add more direct healing support in a profession that was essentially healing via indirect source (pet/spirit/regen). I think the druid spec could have respect more the ranger core mechanism and actually used it to do the same job.

But that’s all, Anet never said : “Druid is your savior! Druid will destroy zerk meta!”. This is ridiculous. How would you be able to destroy a DPS meta with a support spec? Core content will still be faster with a DPS team (aka zerk). Futur content, by an unsought design, have time gated boss (enrage timer) which put non-DPS character even more out of the windows. In the end, support spec will play with glassy gear as soon as the fight mechanisms will be embeded in our mind, simply because the boss always need to be burn down faster.

Staff AA + companion’s might

Is the zerker meta really over?

That’s a pretty good question, Everything in the raid shout to me go zerker, you need one hell of a dps to beat these boss in 8 minutes. On the other hand you also need to survive a bit… I guess zerker will still be king but you’ll also have need of other stats.

I really feel it illogic to say : “Let’s get rid of this zerker meta!” and build a Raid with time gated bosses that need a lot of DPS, something you get from playing zerker.

I want a Zomby smokescale pet…

Skoigoth.9238:

Sinister of course :^)

^ this

Ranger/druid feedback… well well…

Pets :
Smokescale : That guy burst like hell and have high survivability! I looooove it!
Bristleback : I though I could use it as a condi damager but in the end it’s disappointing. A bleed on it’s auto attack would be more than welcome.
Wivern : No comment, I don’t like them .

Druid :

- Staff : The staff is in great place. Only the skill#4 make it clunky due to the fact that the skill doesn’t track your target but you gotta aim at it (It a matter of taste, maybe some like it in it’s current form but that’s not my case). Staff synergy with companion’s might may be a tiny bit to OP (I love it when I put 9 might stacks per second on my pet but I have to admit that it’s a bit powerfull).

- Glyph : They are usefull. It’s more skills that I’d expect to find on a weapon than utilities skills but they are usefull. I still had trouble linking with mobs with the elite skill, the skill fail a lot.

- Celestial form : This thing stand on it’s own as a mechanic. honestly, It’s a bit to easy to build Astral force at the moment, I barely recall worrying for astral force. CF1 and CF2 were boring skill but well they are strong enough as it stand. CF3 is surprisingly good and fun to play. CF4 is a 2nd healing skill on 10s cool down (It’s OP). CF5 really need to be used while moving, It’s a great skill but the lack of mobility just kill it.

Trait : they are all great, don’t change anything. Or maybe work on he staff trait, the daze on swap ain’t really attractive.

Conclusion : Overall, after using it, I’m staying on my position that the celestial form is a mechanism a bit to strong versus the pet. And the lack of synergy between these 2 mechanism hurt even more. At the moment, the Druid is OP as hell… Well, to be honest, it’s a relief that you need “Druid” to use the staff, otherwise PvP creeps would cry “Omfg Nerf pet please! nerf pet!”.

well, also the ele have access to more condition than burn while the guard only have burn.

Well, it’s a bit complicated… and you already do something like that in game.

What would be great isn’t something really complicated. What would be great would be that they allow us to disable some pet skills so that the pet just don’t use them. With this, no more devourer fleeing, no more bird wasting time casting useless quickness, controle over some skill that we could want them not to use. We were able to do it in GW1 for the heros, is this to much to ask?

This would already relieve a lot of the pain due to the pet behavior.

Minions will engage the target on which you attack with your AA now, still they won’t switch their target if you change while they are still in combat. Their responsivness have been greatly improved since last year.

I’ve soloed easily caudecus manor and ascalonian catacomb story mode last week thanks to them. You should give them a second chance.

If you don’t mind here is some tips for leveling as a necro as a solo PvE quester. There is 2 easy way :

- The easiest : minion master. Simply, this is the spec that don’t need any specific stuff, you can go with whatever you want, the minion have their own stat so they support you without any issue. For this spec and if you really want self survivability first, unlock Blood magic then death magic and spite at the end.
You can go with a full minion utility bar.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBLRdG2IJN0Sj10gzNwejjaham2TRUI/hgoHgzZAMDA-e

- Else, go for a well build. I know it doesn’t support as much condition but it will make you solid enough to engage almost everything. Again start by blood magic, then spite or soul reaping, it will be up to you.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBLRdG2IJN0Sj10gzNwejjaham2twWQbj5oahzZAMDA-e

OGDeadHead.8326:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Rangers are hated because the vast majority plays role-playing ineffective builds, can’t control their pets, ruin skips, ruin pulls, have no idea what is Ranger’s job in high-end fractals.

That being said – yes, I always curse to myself when I see the ranger join my group. But that’s because I know that the ranger’s most probably going to play 3 signets, Longbow and play support with his brown bear.

Honestly, is this really still the case? Sure I see the typical bearbow archetype from time to time, but I also see a fair amount of decent rangers that knows how to use their pets properly.

The most annoying thing about other rangers in pve that I see are the ones that can’t keep their fingers away from longbow #4…

It’s easier to gain a bad reputation than undo it. As long as you’ll still see mobs being knockback in PvE from afar (even if it’s not done by a ranger) this will remind to people that the bad rep of the ranger.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Keldras.7091:

I am not a troll. I have over 800 hrs of play time on my Ele. Now (thanks to this update) no one wants me in party because I’m a no damage healer…after spending a lot of time creating the build for my Ele.
Everyone seems to want glass cannons wait till HoT…Zerker will die too.

To be perfectly honest, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t have trouble finding groups as a healer before, given how unnecessary dedicated healers are for the vast majority of current content. Most dungeon paths are do-able as an Ele wearing Soldier’s armor and camping in Fire.

True!

Well, OP, the Frostbow nerf is not the end of the world, you still have Lightning hammer It’s not as cheesy as Frostbow but you’ll be able to cap the camp thank’s to the almost perma blind on auto attack. Add to this the auto attack blast finisher and you can grant might to your party just by auto attacking.

Dradiin.8935:

Umm you really don’t main as a Ranger do you ?

If Rangers were “Balanced” in the dmg department, i would be able to get highend Fractal groups without having to buy them. Let alone other aspects of this game.

Well, I play all profession equally and even no, the ranger don’t lag behind as much as you seem to think when it come to damage.
Rangers are only held down in pve by their bad reputation.

Just to say, OP, some of your change are totally illogic and would just nerf the ranger a bit more :

Pet damage is reduced (by something like 40-50%)

Sic Em: Now still works if Pet is commanded to use F2 skill during the duration (a bug fix which has been needed for literally years.

How do you even want the pet to do anything with Sic em if the pet do already no damage? The less base damage the pet do, the less effective Sic em is.

Overall, even if it’s hard to accept it, the ranger is balanced in regard of damage. The only thing the ranger need is a lot of work on the pet and maybe an upgrade on the shortbow.

Oh well I still had it though, maybe it was a remnant of the past that finally disapear from my skill. (Though it suck to see that they remoced something that I earn from playing)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Antitoxin_Spray

Seem like this skill has been removed from my characters. Is this a bug?

WHaO:
- it gave swiftness and regen
- do you really think that was enough?? When you have heals like Withdraw, Healing turret

Healing turret? really? you’re talking about healing spring that is basically giving the same as healing turret + condi cleanse and you ask for more to WHaO?

Well, by being a shout, WHaO is :
- a burst heal with short CD : 16s (I’m sure you understand that thieves would be jealous of the healing value)
- a condi cleanse with the right rune set
- a way to gain swiftness and regen.

That was enough.

WHaO was good after it became a “shout”. I think it’s been “buffed” because of inertia.

You know, at least they didn’t start by nerfing the ranger’s skills/traits that grant boon to their pet. I was kinda expecting it since that’s what they did to the necro after they gave them dhumfire.

I think it will depend on what kind of encounter there will be on these raid.

For example, there are mobs in HoT that are really resilient to direct damage, being condi or hybrid could be a good idea. (Well, hybrid cover the condi aspect as well as the power aspect of the dps, it could be the best thing to take)

Toughness work well against fast and relatively small hit. 1-2k damage per hit (at 2 hit/second) being almost ideal values to make toughness, healing and passive defense/offense mechanics needed/viable/desirable.

As soon as it’s above this range of values some professions lose their viability (the first profession to lose it being the thief).

Well, everybody’s got the right to voice it’s opinion and my opinion is that pure condi weapon are not healthy whatever profession you play. They come to be either overpowered while on full condi setting or just terribly bad.

Condi spec that work well and feel balanced aren’t supported by “condi weapon” but by hybrid weapon, sigils/runes, traits, utilities skill and profession mechanisms.

I’ll be honest, I think the poison thief dagger make it a condition weapon hundred time better than this scepter. Even in full condi gear the dagger will still do good direct damage, you’ll be able to stack plenty of bleed via dodge/on crit/DD#3 and put easily 12-14 poison stack on steroids.

For me this change to the scepter only put this weapon on the level of the ranger’s shortbow.

nop… only increase axe skill damage on vuln foes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJBHhMSoCtsYFL4wCBKhyf8K/y7AoxjgCcZB-TBiNABdpE8N1fgR5xSnAANVi55DAQK9AAs/ApA8bpF-e

Here. Add staff, and druid 1/3/2 and you’ll probably become a massive pain to kill. Just try to stay above 90% heal which shouldn’t be really hard.
Obviously use condi pet. they will worn out steadily your oponents from afar (devourer taking advantage of their easy access to poison)

Or just reduce cool down to 25 s ? For what it does is long enough as a cool down. I never understood that it has a 50 s cool down.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Make them useful by making them function identically to Engineer kits. Seriously, even the shield and fire axe will see play then.

It would be a great idea and it’s an idea that’s been proposed since launch. Sadly, no dev ever answered to it.

Though, some of the skills would need some tune down or a change to make them more like “utilities”. It would be a good moment to change the Icebow#4 into a potent aoe healing skill.

Maybe because :
- faster auto attack
- less clunky animation
- better cripple uptime
- Poison (anti regen tool)
- used to be way better at LF generation (Now the 2 are just bad)
- No easily interruptible channeled skill

Well, I find this way enough to prefer scepter to axe.

NB.: See? the lobby answered you.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Wait, what fraction of the bleed/torment stacks are you allowing to tick before you dump it?

With MoC, only use BiP when you have Putrid Mark up, plague signet is ready, or dagger 4 is in flight at Max range.

Without MoC, use it whenever, but you won’t be putting 2×10s torment on your opponent.

Not sure what’s hard to grasp. MoC differs from other traits in that it requires forethought and tactical play to maximise the benefit. If that isn’t your style, the other two traits are very, very powerful indeed.

I’m all for MoC. Will I use itnin every build? Nope. Is it suitable at all times? Nope. Does it provide a 20s heal and interesting tactical tradeoffs? Yes.

I may be wrong somewhere in my head, but what’s the point of the 33% cool down reduction if anyway, you’ll have to wait for one of your condi transfer to be up before using your skill?

MoC is a good try at focusing on corruption, but the trade off is awfull. If you want to make corruption attractive you gotta support them by at least one or 2 other traits that take advantage of them without crippling your character even more. I’m repeating myself but a trait that would siphon life around you each time you “corrupt” yourself would be a good example of trait that would make corruption attractive. At the moment, they are not (outside of main effect of each skill that is).

The necromancer corrupt himself, draw condition from allies but absolutely nothing in it’s specializations take advantage of that to push this into a place where you would actually want to corrupt yourself and draw condition from allies.

I understand your pain but the condi lobby was just to strong. Anet decided to please them.

i cant be the only one to not notice this right?

You are…
Rangers can equip 4 blast : 2 reliable (WH and clarion bound) and 2 unreliable from drake (Note that this skill have priority in the drake skill rotation. He will use it first on CD if you do not [F2])

There are hero point and mastery point.

Hero point :
- needed for specialization (core and elite).
- You can earn them by leveling or doing challenges in the base game maps.
- These point are bound to the character.
- Skill point have been refund in regard off the progression of each character. (which mean that even if you used some of them for unrelated matter you wouldn’t have more of them than you have today)

Masteries point :
- Needed for Masteries.
- You can earn them by completing achievement or doing challenge in HoT maps.
- These point are account bound.
- Some achievement will retroactively give mastery point at HoT launch.

Note that Elite spec cost isn’t set in stone and that since they may change them each time they will introduce new elite spec. For the moment, you can be sure that the Elite spec cost wan’t need more hero point than what’s left after hitting 80 and paying for core profession spec.

Don’t mind me if I’m a little out of the subject, but we used to have a curse trait that was giving us 1% life force on crit (33% chance). Maybe, they could reintroduce this effect as either being baseline or part of a current trait like Barbed precision or Lingering curse. This could be a way to fix this lack of LF that condition spec suffer.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper's_Precision

Seem legit for me. Do you happen to think that the thief don’t have any condi spec?

Todd.6573:

Overpowered for PvP.

Am i doing it right?

Druids look like the new elementalist. Unkillable and with insane utility, passive healing, dmg reduction and basically constant swiftness. Not to mention unmatched condi cleanse on demand.

10 / 10 would nerf HARD.

Exactly what I think. I wonder how Anet will manage it when players will have grasp the insane survivability potential in sPvP.

Reaper isn’t solid… it’s hard countered by anybody with a ranged weapon.

Life blast and doom are gone & scepter/axe/staff provide next to nothing damage.

Until the weapons are fixed, reaper is garbage.

I was using “solid” with the meaning “can endure a beating”. I never said that it was perfect. He lack everything that would give him some value for a group but, as a solo player in some easy content, he is by far the most enjoyable to play.

Are scepter users supposed to be running Nomad’s?

Power scepter user are screwed. But it please the condi scepter lot so… whatever.

Odeezee.7362:

wtf is wrong with you people? sorry but can you not see that other than CPC now Blocking (the only actual buff to Necros btw) everything else is either reshuffling or a straight up nerf? PLEASE view these changes logically in the context of the game as a whole and NOT just in the context of Necros alone; we don’t get many buffs at all so all positive words without any actual substance seem like a buff to some Necros.

Robert and the balance team i am soooo disappointed in your efforts. Base Necro is the profession in most need of assistance to make it competitive come HoT, having an okay elite spec, and yes compared to ALL the professions and their base/elite specs as a whole Reaper is just okay, we will yet again be left behind if this is all you have to offer us. why can’t you devs just buff the profession outright for once? always coming from behind, this kitten is getting ridiculous and i am not buying this expac is Necro does not improve SMH.

I can’t agree with you. Reaper is solid and certainly more than most of the other elite spec. On the other hand, he won’t contribute much more to the team than a core necro… But he is solid and exceptionnaly pleasant to play!

Lily.1935:

is that it? No mention of the horrible axe animation? No reason to take the axe over staff? No curses fix? No soul reaping fix to reduce our dependency on it? No well of darkness fix? Nothing for healing in death shroud? Nothing about utility in death shroud?

Well… no nothing. I mean… Reaper shroud will be awesome, why do you care about death shroud and base necromancer.
I’m not especially fan of these “awesome change to scepter and axe”, it feel like they don’t want to aknowledge some real issue.

Guess I have to lose my interest for the scepter… sigh I have to say that the max life force nerf on the scepter suck.

Gaaroth.2567:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Gaaroth.2567:

well…who said that the 2 rading groups HAVE to be 2 full optimized damage wise groups?

Because there are enrage timers on the bosses, which means that high DPS will be critical to success. Everyone should and will bring just enough CC to ensure that breakbars are broken, and just enough survivability to ensure that they won’t die. If more support or CC is needed, then things like a Hammer Guardian may come into play in each party. Really, though, both parties are going to need to be doing huge damage during burn phases or you’re just not going to win.

imho this depends on how they build them…what if there are encounters with loads of adds where you need a group dedicated JUST to mass cc stuff? (thus needing to share between them proper buffs) and the other group is left to do the full DPS stuff without worring of other things? 2 balanced group wouldn’t cut it, not enough DPS, not enough CC…i’m really seeing specialized groups in raid content, thus alloying many different gameplay/classes and getting outside of the full support/balance idea of team we have now.
At least this is my hope and the direction this should go. otherwise…all is vain

Well, you know, the most effective and versatile profession will prevail. Even if you got to adjust each build for each boss/encounter. In the end what will make the difference is whether the profession add something valuable whatever build it has to run… or not.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Puck.9612:

Extra heals will be useful in PvP and WvW, I couldn’t care less about PvE. I just hope celestial form is something that can be used as often as death shroud. If it takes so long to charge it that I can only use it once in a PvP match I will be pretty kittened off.

Celestial form gets powered by healing. So if you want to use it often, go full healer or go home.

Celestial form don’t get powered up by healing. without any regard on the heal value, you will gain 2.5% astral force whenever you apply some green numbers.

With that being said, what sort of support/boon trait would you like to see it replaced with? Keeping in mind the roles of Tempestuous Aria (Shout ally DPS-add/Enemy weakness trait) and Harmonious Conduit (DPS/anti-control trait), is there something that you’d imagine would fit AoE support in a generic way.

Simple, On the whole tempest line you got no support condi cleanse. So the most logical trait as a support would be : remove one condition whenever you apply an aura. This way you also grant the Tempest a really good condi cleanse trait (maybe to good).

You’re not wrong but that would fit perfectly with the mindset of a large part of the ranger community. So…
Although, nothing say that going out of the celestial form deplete all your astral force. For what we know, signet of the wild and natural healing could act as a perma regen of astral force, which mean roughly 5% per second as long as you got a pet alive (Though signet of the wild also heal you, which potentially mean 7.5%). But that’s only theory…

Honnestly, I think the druid spec will grant a near broken suvivability to the ranger. Yeah, I’m not considering the sporadic healing support to hypothetic team mate, just the obvious broken fact that the Druid will have 3 personnal heal (2 from celestial form and the regular heal skill), a lot of CC and still access to things like survival skill and stone signet. Basically, you will be able to gear as a glass canon, dish out awesome dps and double your survivability compared to the regular ranger.

So if he is bad at healing, he will still be good at being a very resilient DPS.

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

teef!

ummm…. anyone?

kitten

Thieves would have a lot of potential if they were able to chose what bundle they will steal from an ennemy (in PvE). This way, a dedicated thief healer would chose to only steal Healing seed and blast in it for condicleanse, party regen, and descent burst heal. Sustain heal would be done via a proper use of venom rotation. Obviously, boon sharing come naturally with steal.

First of all, someone that focus on only one profession and calling it “my main” only show that he is short sighted.

Now, on topic, I doubt that people calling themself rangers in this forum and complaining about the fact that the Druid elite specialization (a ranger traitline) is built around the assumption that the pet is useless and not needed, aren’t people that actually really care about the ranger.

On the other hand, people being overjoyed by the fact that they gain a free additional new mechanism allowing them to discard the pet shouldn’t call them rangers. The celestial form outshine the ranger’s core mechanic, in fact, I’m pretty sure that the one that you call REAL ranger main would be overjoyed if the core profession was the druid with it’s actual mechanism and if the pet was tied to an elite spec called the ranger. (Well, they would most likely complain that there elite spec suck.)

Necromancer healing shroud.

or

Pet is screwed

or

Neverending fight incoming

Well… fire overload + any Firefield mean a lot of burn
Fire aura… another good way to apply burn
Feel the burn, oh wait! it burn
WH#5 wildfire : 8 pulse of burn

… Well… I mean… there is more than enough already… Afterall, when I think about a tempest, I think more about something windy, wet and full of spark than something hot.

Cheated.

But not as much as the ranger’s pet should be, afterall, it’s master chose to transform himself into something else instead of deepening it’s relationship with him.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Bryzy.2719:

Good job the Druid traitline isn’t designed for old world content then

Sorry, but this view is extremly naive.

Let’s analyze the situation with a case study:

Case 1: A main healer is needed.

Case 2: Content is easier with a main healer.

Let’s go with Case 1:

If a mainhealer is needed for any PvE content, the ranger/druid might have a chance to be involved. Unfortunately, ANet pointed out that the philosophy is “Bring the player, not the class!” and therefore we have to accept, that other professions will bring enough healing to keep the raid alive.

What does the ranger/druid offer:

Healing, minor condi cleanse, spotter, frost spirit.

What does the other possible healing classes offer:

Mesmer/chronomancer: Healing, boon sharing, alacrity, double time-warp, reflects.
Guardian/dragon hunter: Healing, aegis, all kinds of usefull boons, reflects
Elementalist/tempest: Well you get the picture
Revenant/herald: I won’t even start

So ranger/druid will be sub-par in any healing scenario, unless you want to be proud of super over-healing, because the profession simply doesn’t offer much useful stuff.

Now Case 2:

If healing is sort of optional, raids will be a learn2play issue and the druid will be the worst of all new specializations and worse than any vanilla profession. It will be useless beyond help.

Do you get the picture, this is why rangers should be worried.

Well, I think you’re a bit pessimist here…
It’s more like :

Case 2 : The Druid can still put it’s healing weight when the raid is in dire need. (This assuming that the ranger is not far far away pewpewing without benefiting of it’s teammate support because it’s safer)

Rangers have always been able to bring more than healing/condicleanse/spotter and frost spirit. Afterall, ranger always had access to fire fields and some blast. The real issue come from the fact that rangers (players) want to play at range.

Now, as a druid, you’ll got 3-4 blast finisher to use in whatever field you prefer (Fire/water/poison/Ice?/electric). It give a lot of possibilities to answer any situation, but that’s if you play with your party and not somewhere afar with a mindless knockback every 8-12 second. The dev said it, positioning for the druid will be especially important (not that it wasn’t before but since ranger’s will be “druid” maybe they will forgot a bit the “range” in “ranger”)

While, it’s right that it suck that buffing is limited to 5 man, it’s not illogical and make things pretty balanced outside of 5 Man content atm.

Nobody here is a dreamer or an utopist, there will alway be an optimal combination of professions for any in game content. Now, yes, all profession ain’t equal when it come to what they do in a party (Main example is that necromancer suck at buffing). Personnally I’ve alway ask for more equality between the different profession but it doesn’t happen (For example I’ve always said that forceful greatsword need an ICD, never happened in 3 years).

Without equality between all professions there will always be a meta because a meta take only the guy that are the best at doing the job and work well with everyone.

The Meta will involve 2 5 man party in the end. You will need :

- 1 profession per party to assume offensive support : Warrior will still be the best at that but the Herald can also do a pretty good job. Obviously an ele can do the job as well (since it was the ele job before Phalanx strenght)

- 1 profession per party to assume defensive support : Guardian most likely since they are the best at aegis/block/return.

- 1 profession per party at healing support : Guard and ele reduce damage with prot and heal decently. Maybe you can try with a Druid at this spot but I got a feeling that they won’t become “meta” due to a lack of versatility.

- 1 profession for utility support : here you can expect mesmer for a lot of things and maybe thieves/Engineer for skipping stuff.

- Last place will be for a DPS. Obviously, the meta will ponder between the potential candidate about who give the most to the party which mean that there is a need for a minimum of versatility to be brought in this spot (Obviously, someone who have great access to blast finisher will be taken before someone who only DPS).

Now, Every profession have good access to soft and Hard CC without losing anything of their “role”. The only difference is the natural resilience to damage but, let’s be honest, they won’t design raid in a way that it put some profession at a disadvantage because they have a smaller health pool.