Playing a trap ranger is a new way to play?
I think it should just stay as a healing/astral force weapon. The shortbow is already there for the ranged condition damage role.
Lunar Impact doesn’t heal in the targeted area, it only heals (and presumably blasts) in the area around the user.
If you like to play Ele support by camping in Water and tossing out heals, then yeah, the Druid is going to do your job better than you.
If you play Ele support by making full use of everything available to us, though, you should be just fine.
You imply that it’s not okay to camp in one kind of attunement 80% of the time, but glass staff eles do exactly that.
Because healers are normally squishy? When you trait into druid, you’re not traiting into something selfish.
Ironically, they got nerfed and lost 600 range, turning them into sub-par shouts in addition to sub-par signets.
What I meant was, the effect of Virtue of Resolve is applied every 3 seconds for 3 seconds.
Well, they’re technically not the only profession that doesn’t have a spec that fits. Druids don’t fit rangers either. :>
The effect has always been applied in 3 second intervals.
I believe it now removes a condition from you every time you block on a one second cooldown. As much as I hate DH, I think this trait is pretty strong, and I don’t think it needs any sort of buff.
Oh, that aspect probably needs nerfs then. Perma-daze is kind of absurd. :>
Don’t forget all the useless utilities druids get. Glyphs are by far the worst sets of skills with minimal functions, minimal range, and long CD.
Long cooldown? Glyphs have just about the shortest cooldowns in the game among utilities. When traited their cooldowns range from 16 seconds to 24 seconds. It really doesn’t get shorter than that.
Glyphs have short range (they really should be targeted), but their effects aren’t actually bad.
As far as I know, it’s only 3 seconds long, and that can be increased to 4 seconds with Runes of the Mesmer. Where are you getting 6 seconds from? :p
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.
Totally agree, especially on the staff idle animation. It’s currently held like a hammer, which is kind of fugly for a staff imo.
You’re not using Healing Breeze, Monk Runes, the honor trait line, or even a staff. Also Battle Presence is garbage ever since it got nerfed. How on earth does that build offer more healing.
It doesn’t heal at the targeted location, it heals in a 300 radius around the user.
Lunar Impact seems to be bugged, it doesn’t heal at the targeted area.
If things keep going at this rate, Guardian might as well just become a stability/aegis bot, because that’s all people will ever want it for anymore.
Well, at least guardians can be great aegis bots now that Shield of Judgment got buffed.
Considering the nature of the Druid (and of rangers in general), why are glyphs close ranged?
Sorry to break your dream.
Druid is only needed in WvW and potentially raid, and nowhere else, since it has on offensive and defensive supports.
No one except bad team really need a dedicated healbot.For a party of 5, it’s too great of a sacrifice to carry a healbot who can only heal and does nothing else.
Healers aren’t there to make bad teams decent.
Druids don’t just heal either, although specializing is usually not a bad thing.
Fixed for accuracy.
Lel, you think Sanctuary could “use a little revision” but you think Signet of Mercy is just fine; that’s funny. A lot of the things he listed really don’t need any changes though.
Also Battle Presence is most definitely useless. A healing aura that’s up only like 20% of the time, or instant stability/stun-breaker on Virtue of Courage?
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Cosmic Ray is kind of absurdly hard (almost impossible) to land on moving allies, a speed buff or radius buff could solve this.
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
I have a love-hate relationship with druids. On one hand, they borderline stole tomes from guardians. On the other hand, they’re the closest thing to using tomes again until the supposed tome elite spec gets released. As a result, I’ll probably be playing one quite a lot. :>
Edit: I love how they even use the same animations for celestial form that were used for Tome of Courage.
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I don’t really understand how the ANet devs are so prone to undertuning or overtuning things. There’s a very obvious middle ground, and somehow that middle ground is always flown over by a few kilometers.
Druid heals and cleanses. That is all it does. It does those things very well yes, but thats absolutely it. It is a backline healer, not support.
1. Healing and cleansing are support, and a backline healer is a support.
2. Healing and cleansing are not all that it does; it’s just what the spec focuses on. It has quite a fair bit of CC (as the poster above you post points out), the spec was seen to be doing quite a fair bit of damage in the spec video, it has some projectile defense, and it also has a supportive damage buff in the form of Glyph of Empowerment.
I don’t think druids will replace guardians or anything though. I’m just pointing this out.
also I haven’t seen a single blueaish light on presentation – only yellowish/whiteish…
You must not have seen the presentation then.
You have an entire trait line called nature magic and you summon elemental spirits as well as healing springs of water. you even call fourth vines from the ground to entangle foes and a skill called “Spirit of Nature”…… I truly hope you are just trolling me right now.
All of those things minus staff #4 are from the base ranger and not from the druid. 90% of what the druid does is light-elemental, which is -again- encroaching way too much into guardian territory.
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What’s wrong with healers? Nothing. What’s wrong with rangers being healers? Quite a few things.
the point of elite specs was to give professions play styles that they didn’t have access to before.
The point of elite specs was to allow professions to expand in different ways that still suited the class. Guardians being ranger-wannabes and rangers being monk/guardian-wannabes doesn’t make sense and it never will. Hypothetically, a “monk” specialization which turned guardians into backline supporters would be a fitting elite specialization. To use an existing example, reapers are quite like this too. They allow necromancers to do what they usually do (debuffing/damage) except at close-range (with an emphasis on chill and cleaving).
https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/#specializations read it. elite specs just need to fit theme of your base profession but the play style and mechanic can be focused in any direction.
So what you’re saying is, you think it’s okay that rangers have an elite spec which spams blue healing light at people 24/7, and you think it’s okay that this somehow isn’t on guardians? Also, let’s not ignore the monk references or that over half of Celestial Form is stolen from Tome of Courage.
- Communal Defenses and Stalwart Defender should be merged into a single trait.
- Glacial Heart is moved to Valor to fill up the empty slot.
- A trait which restores the 600 nerfed range from virtues can be placed in Glacial Heart’s old spot.
What’s wrong with healers? Nothing. What’s wrong with rangers being healers? Quite a few things.
the point of elite specs was to give professions play styles that they didn’t have access to before.
The point of elite specs was to allow professions to expand in different ways that still suited the class. Guardians being ranger-wannabes and rangers being monk/guardian-wannabes doesn’t make sense and it never will. Hypothetically, a “monk” specialization which turned guardians into backline supporters would be a fitting elite specialization. To use an existing example, reapers are quite like this too. They allow necromancers to do what they usually do (debuffing/damage) except at close-range (with an emphasis on chill and cleaving).
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If it gets a buff, it should get a buff to its supportive aspect. It shouldn’t just be changed into a mobility skill that might incidentally heal people as a secondary effect.
There is no need to make QQ threads… seems like most of guard threads are QQ
After the garbage elite spec that guardians are getting, it’s certainly reasonable that QQ threads would pop up frequently.
It’s a little funny that over in the Ranger forums that I hail from there’s so much complaining about how Druid will supposedly be useless because all it does is heal and then there are Guardians over here calling it OP and being jealous of it. Whenever Anet does anything it just seems to make EVERYONE angry. Why can’t they win? XD
This result isn’t all that surprising. As I’ve said before, rangers don’t want to be guardians and guardians don’t want to be rangers. When ANet uses bad logic, they get bad results.
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I’d leave it alone for the most part. I think #2 could perhaps use a QoL buff like making the orb ground targeted rather than having to “aim” it with the game’s invisible crosshair. Also, the detonation cooldown is too large imo, but besides that I’m personally good with it.
I said that assuming it would gain properly balanced scaling on land.
I’d very much like it if the trident’s auto-attack (Light of Judgment) became the staff’s auto-attack. It wouldn’t be hard to implement and it would also fit the staff’s theme and gameplay-style nicely.
Urgh another “Ranger finally got something nice so let’s QQ” thread.
Just back off and let us be viable for once.
I wouldn’t mind it if rangers were viable as ranged dps (even though they already are in PvP, but whatever), but rangers suddenly gaining one of the best (if not the best) healing specs in the game will always be utter nonsense to me. I didn’t sign up as a guardian to be a ranger wannabe, and I don’t think most rangers signed up to be guardian/monk wannabes.
To be fair, why waste time polishing trash? When DH is ignored you get lovely stuff like the shield finally getting decent buffs.
I’ve given up hope on these guys long before. I’d just appreciate if they’d finally start rolling out these changes exclusively to their idiotic sPvP game mode that is pretty alienated from the rest of the game anyways and isn’t even remotely relevant in esports whatsoever, instead of consistently kittening with the class game-wide when it’s not even close to being a problem anywhere besides that crappy conquest based abomination called sPvP.
Excuse me? They just nerfed Frost Bow into oblivion because of PvE, in case you hadn’t noticed somehow.
Guardian possesses vastly superior AoE boon support, which is infinitely more valuable than healing in most game modes where focused healing isn’t needed or good.
That said, I don’t know where this mass delusion has come from amongst the Ele and Guardian players who think “their role” has been stolen. Neither class was ever a healer, and neither class does or should own such a role.
And apparently you think rangers should have that role, for some reason. Guardians can spec to be healers in PvP, eles can spec to be healers in WvW, and they can both spec to be healers in PvE (except it’s currently unneeded there). Tempests also further reinforce that eles can be healers.
I couldn’t really care less if healing is valuable or not in most areas of the game. The two closest things to dedicated healers in the game pre-expansion are elementalists and guardians, and thinking that a dedicated healer spec is more fitting on a ranger is completely ridiculous. The fact that druids stole Tome of Courage from guardians really says something.
There will be people who leverage what it gives and people who will bemoan its not a straight upgrade to what we have now. You’ve made it abundantly clear which group you’re in.
Well, enjoy your boring trash spec, I guess. I’ll continue to enjoy the base profession as well as chronomancers and druids.
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If tanks and healers are needed (which has been implied), then I can see Nomad tank guardians and Zealot healer/dps guardians being common.
Anyways, it’s clear you’re using a specific version of lore that doesn’t coincide with what Anet is using for the concept of the classes they design, so the discussion about how Druid relates to Guardians really doesn’t mean much. Just have to shrug your shoulders if people are hinging the demise of the Guardian/DH on technicalities of lore. It’s weak.
Lol, when I use lore that you don’t like or that puts holes through ANet’s BS then it’s “using a specific version of lore” that doesn’t coincide with what ANet is doing. I’ll leave you alone to your white-knighting and delusion.
So the devs took them away and gave you a frankly outstanding shout and a signet that can literally heal everyone alive near you to 100% while adding to your existing passive healing.
Tome of Courage already could heal everyone around the user to 100%. I don’t want overpowered abilities, I want interesting ones. Signet of Courage will never be as interesting and fun as Tome of Courage, and I can definitely say it’s not as good as Tome of Courage either.
You can throw around Aegis and retaliation nearly all day. You can condition cleanse and give stability. You can trait to mak your sigils heal allies and burn enemies, and you get a lot of sigils. Not only that, but you’ve got good projectile protection.
Engis and mesmers are capable of doing most of the things you’ve listed. Also don’t bring symbols into a comparison between what guardians can do and what other classes can’t.
Oh, and you still have all your stuff from before that made you so survivable in melee, otherwise known as the place to be when you want to drop traps and make them fire off instantly.
A big part of what makes guardians have nice survivability in melee are meditations and instant virtues. Do you know which slot meditations take up? Do you know which slot traps take up? That’s right, utilities. I’m assuming you’re not talking about bunker guardians, because no sane bunker guardian would ever take DH.
Honestly it doesn’t really sound like you know much about guardians and I’m assuming you’re just QQing because you dislike playing against them.
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Is that what Anet thinks, or what players decide makes sense to them? Again, Anet determines and owns the concept of the class. What players decide/interpret/think has likely little to no influence on this. The only problem here is that players aren’t aligning what they think the class concept should to the class concept that Anet has created.
They literally use monk magic. To quote someone commenting on guardian magic: "It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training, wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha. A real grab bag of “you can’t hurt me”. They’re called guardians, and simply put, they mean trouble". Not to mention the rather large number of skills/traits named after or referencing monk prayers: Shield of Absorption, Shield of Judgment, Ray of Judgment, Smite Condition, Judge’s Intervention, Contemplation of Purity, Smite, Save Yourselves used to be called Martyr, Healing Breeze/Receive the Light, Symbol of Wrath, Banish, Smiter’s Boon, Heal Area/Protective Spirit/Pacifism/Light of Deliverance from Tome of Courage, Zealot’s Fire, Monk’s Focus, Bane Signet, Signet of Judgment, and whatever else I missed. How the hell could anybody not see the connection guardians have with monks? I’m sure even you and your persistent whiteknight-ing can’t deny it, especially since ANet doesn’t deny the relation monks and guardians have. They’ve done nothing but enforce it lore-wise. I can’t comment on druids since the lore on them is so vague, but gameplay-wise rangers have never had anything to do with healing since Guild Wars 1 (outside Healing Spring) right up until now.
Guess there is a reason why Druid Staff attacks are supposed to be Solar but blue instead of white’yellow/golden, maybe it was intended to be a Guardian thing and they decided to switch in early conception?
Coincidentally, the old leaked longbow had a skill which could knockback or pull people depending on the stance of the longbow. Glyph of Tides does pretty much exactly the same thing.
Trying to justify why guaridans elite should not resemble Druids is beyond idiocracy. As people have mentioned guardian has certain lore to it and skills that are meant directly for healing. Yet they bring out a healer elite spec on another class? Why?
And on a ranger of all things.
Having the ultimate support ability stolen from guardians and given to rangers makes me sick.
The lore that Guardians follow is not determined by players; that is solely Anet’s playground. There is nothing indicating an elite healer spec should belong to Guardians or not belong to Rangers or any other class.
Actually, there is. As has been stated many time through this thread, guardians are the spiritual successors of monks. Rangers are a mainly martial profession that have never been known for being healers at all. ANet can make up any lore they want, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be gaping holes in the lore they make and use.
They already told us that these elite specs are something that strays from the current classes in terms of gameplay. Therefore, it makes MUCH sense that Guardians aren’t getting THE healing elite spec that people normally associate with a paladin-like class.
What elite specializations offer is supposed to be different but still similar in some ways. This can be seen with (for example) reapers, who still focus on things like debuffing but do it in a different way and in a more specific way (melee with a focus on chill). Dragonhunters are just flat-out trying their kitten hardest to be rangers, and druids are monks who are forced to have ranger as a secondary profession (and whom blatantly stole most of Tome of Courage).
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I’d rather have an overpowered ability which sped up boring PvE runs (that I only do for gold) and was occasionally used in WvW/PvP, than another empty void in the list of viable abilities.
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a balanced game is objectively good
ideally, people should never feel that one choice is objectively better than others.
nerfs are good for you. embrace the nerf. let the nerf into your heart
Yes, balance is a good thing. Nerfing something so badly that it becomes imbalanced on the opposite side of the spectrum is a bad thing.
Like, you’re giving us what we wanted.. But only half-way.
I don’t think any guardians wanted to be ranger wannabes. I would imagine they wanted a ranged option that was uniquely guardian-like.
Yes, it’s pretty much cheese. It’s one of those builds which will probably get you flamed on a regular basis.