It doesn’t help that reflect is completely broken. 100% damage reduction + 100% damage returned to attacker. Nothing else in the game has that level of power. Even Retaliation is crying in a corner.
Projectile destroy is fine. That’s 100% damage reduction like so many things.
But I don’t see them removing reflect any time soon, they just added 50 new reflect skills and I bet they just love the mechanic too much.
Ranger is great for open world PvE because of longbow range and the pet tanking, like you said. However, that’s where it ends.
In group PvE content, the pet tends to die. At least, until the last update where they finally got damage reduction from AoE.
In PvP, pets are simply ignored since their pathing is bad and they can’t reliably hit moving targets. This makes the pet closer to a handicap, since the Ranger deals less damage for having a pet in the first place.
In WvW, pets are both ignored and simply die, making them as good as worthless. Pets can only reach a PvP-level of usefulness in very small scale encounters. However, the longbow range starts to shine in WvW, but also quickly loses effectiveness because of all the reflect spam in large battles.
This doesn’t make sense. If the wisp were to effect enemies, how would that lead to allies getting blinded? I confus.
He doesn’t mean the allies of the druid, but the allies of the enemy. Imagine a WvW zerg fight. If the wisp would blind enemies around the target (so: the allies of the target), druids could shoot the wisp at a player. Counterplay would be for the target to not stay close to his allies. But if this guy isn’t aware, he would grief his own allies. The other players aren’t able to counterplay, because they can’t prevent their ally to stay close to them.
Yes it’s viable. Longbow/GS has been viable for a long time. simply replace GS with Staff and you should be fine.
You don’t need pets, they’re worthless in big fights anyway. You could go with Red Moa/Blue Moa to buff yourself and keep them by your side, or simply go bristleback/smoke scale.
I prefer Staff/GS myself, because of all the reflect (wall of reflection spam) and double mobility is great.
I think the reason the wisp does not affect enemies is because of potential griefing. It would be very important for the player to steer clear of his allies so they don’t get blinded, but instead he could deliberately stand in the middle of his zerg. He could also simply be completely unaware. Which is frustrating to his allies, since they have almost no control over it, but their ally is blinding them.
I like the idea of the wisp transferring boons and conditions between allies and his target. This has no potential for griefing.
It would also be nice if the wisp simply gave a good boon to allies it touches, like Aegis. So a defensive boons that are useful in melee combat. Or simply have it blind the attached enemy once every rotation.
However, I love the wisp theme of it. I also loved it when Lingering Light had a wisp circle around the Druid. But they both didn’t do anything useful.
I suggested in BWE3 to let both wisps give blind to enemies they touch, but only Lingering Light was changed and the wisp was removed from it. Lingering light was an improvement, but the theme was a loss.
However, Astral Wisp can’t remain unchanged. It’s a dead skill that’s even more dead than Vine Surge.
The Staff 1 damage counter disappears once it has been off the screen (outside of the camera view). The damage is still done, but there is no damage counter anymore.
There is actually an NPC outside Teku Nuhoch that “uses” it. You can talk to him while helping Tizlak gather those items from the Chak. His dialog is actually quite funny.
I had the same yesterday. Finished VB on my Ranger and got no reward, which I needed for achievement.
However, I have an idea what the cause is. They switched some hero challenges around and messed some up. Like the one at the final waypoint got switched with the one east of noble area. You have to do the one to get the other and vice versa. Now I mostly completed VB before they made these changes, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I had to go back and do one of these two to complete the map. Or maybe something else that shows as completed but I never did.
I noticed it too in the wardrobe and it’s pretty nice, but doesn’t fit the rest of my outfit.
The staff I use is the Daredevil’s Staff, which you get for starting off as a Daredevil. Pretty basic, but that’s why I like it. I couldn’t find any screenshots of it unfortunately.
I’m working on upgrading it to the Bo Staff. You have to do quite some things for it, but it’s do-able. It’s not crazy or expensive like a legendary weapon. It just takes quite some time since you do need a lot of different masteries and plenty of other stuff. Check this Achievement page for it (the Machined Staff requires several other things by itself, so don’t be fooled by it). It’s an ascended staff as well, so not just the skin.
Electric Wyvern
CC pet. Wing Buffet and Lightning Assault, which leaves a Lightning Field, which can be leaped through for more CC.
Bristleback
Ranged sustained damage pet. Don’t use F2, it’s broken. Just let it do its thing.
Smoke Scale
all-round utility pet. on-demand Smoke Field, gap closer with burst and 1s knockdown on 20s cooldown (canines have 2s knockdown on 40s cooldown).
Tiger
DPS pet. No CC at all however.
Fire Wyvern
Bit of a mess. on-demand Fire Field + some CC.
well… I guess I’m still going to use it. Smoke Assault is still a gap closer and takedown is nice to have. Just have to try and forget it used to be much better.
I don’t think Lingering Light is worth it anymore, even if your build has no CC. I’d rather have a random chance for Ancient Seeds to proc than for a single random blind. So, just get a pet with a bit of CC like Smokescale and you’re good, or just assume your allies will CC from time to time to proc it.
Full zerker druid, complete with scholar runes? Are you using the staff? What utilities?
I am running full ascended Berserker with Staff, yes, but I keep my builds mostly to myself.
It’s basically my Longbow/GS build in which I replaced my Longbow with a Staff and made some adjustments. So I guess any old Longbow build would work. You can also run Longbow/Staff I suppose, which I might do in WvW when I get back to it, but I just like GS for the extra mobility, which is also very useful in WvW.
If you need more survivability, get more survivability, otherwise, get more damage output.
Just because Druid is advertised as a healer doesn’t automatically mean you have to run it with Healing Power stats. But you can of course.
Sinister Staff + Sharpened Edges can build quite some stacks of bleeding, but I don’t think the damage is more than Berserker staff. I could be wrong though, I didn’t test it very seriously.
Astral Force should not even be a thing. CA should only have a cooldown after leaving it and nothing else.
That’s what I think too, but I can’t see them removing it now. But yeah, its pretty counter-intuitive for a healing spec, imo.
They could cut the duration further to 10s with a 10s CD and totally remove the AF mechanic and it would be pretty good imo. Although, the 15s duration would be better, if not longer. It is a bad mechanic for a healer who needs to be able to focus healing immediately and not have to wait for the bar to fill, which is also impossible if there is no target, before being able to heal at all.
I don’t think it should have a limited duration at all. There is already a trade-off for going into it since it only offers support skills.
The thing Staff has over Longbow is it’s ability to ignore reflect and destroy, which makes it a very sustained damage weapon. It’s a bit like you are applying damaging conditions to your target for the duration that you are attacking him, which he can not condi cleanse and is based on power damage. It’s pretty weak, but it’s constant pressure.
I think Cultivated Synergy would make a good GM minor trait, since it can be used both selfishly and to support allies and synergises with Live Vicariously. Maybe merge it into Natural Mender and design a new Adept trait.
Or simply make Natural Mender increase all healing by 20%, not just outgoing and not just triggering on outgoing healing.
Primal Echoes is a pretty bad trait. The only useful skill you’d want -20% cooldown for is Ancestral Grace, but you can live without it. Staff 2 and 4 are almost worthless and Staff 5 has only limited use.
Staff is also not a weapon you actively swap between. It doesn’t have cooldowns to burn or anything really. Either you camp Staff or you don’t even use it.
Natural Mender is bad too. It tries to pigeonhole the whole trait line into being a healer of allies. But any Druid will find himself in plenty situations where they aren’t actively healing allies. Many Druid builds don’t even heal allies at all.
So I tend to support your change, but I’d still not want it as a forced GM minor. Weapon swapping is more of a Skirmishing thing.
I’m not going to heal anyone until I can see their health bars. I’m not just randomly going to throw around some AoE heals in the hope that maybe someone needs it.
I don’t feel like Druid is a healer at all. CA is very gated behind several gates and only lasts for a very short time. There are also no health bars visible anywhere for me to know who could even use a heal or not.
If Druid is supposed to be a healer, CA has to be allowed to be switched to permanently and not force kick you out of it under any condition. Allied health bars should also be allowed to be toggled on in the game settings.
The only reason I play Druid is because I can get it to work on a non-healer build.
I replaced my Berserker Longbow with a Berserker Staff and left the rest mostly the same, except now I no longer need Signet of the Hunt.
It’s so nice to have a responsive weapon with a quick auto-attack that doesn’t lose damage at close range and also can’t be reflected or destroyed. You lose some damage and range, but it gives ease of mind in return. Except Retaliation… you want to watch out for that, but so does Longbow.
Staff 1 also has another fun factor. If you keep auto-attacking and do nothing else, the damage number will keep adding up endlessly.
Make a list of what YOU want to see in the patch notes. Don’t worry about suggestion changes that you won’t use yourself. Feel free to copy ideas from others and feel free to edit the list later. Don’t tell us why you want the change, the patch notes don’t always tell us either.
Astral Wisp (Staff 2) now applies weakness to foes it passes through and while attached to the target.
Vine Surge (Staff 4) is now instant cast. Immobilize increased from 1s to 2s. Damage increased by 100%.
Sublime Conversion (Staff 5) is now in the shape of a dome. Skill icon changed to reflect this.
Lingering Light is now automatically applied to up to 5 allies in a 300 radius every 12 seconds , including the Druid.
Cultivated Synergy now also applies 2s resistance.
I think pets should have been all about utility from the start, not about damage and it should have never reduced Ranger’s personal damage output, except maybe through a Beastmastery GM trait to make it a choice.
Like how Scrapper has a drone that goes around and removes conditions. Pretty “lame”, but fun and useful. Imagine pets going around and healing allies or giving out boons or taunting enemies. Applying cripple, daze, stun, poison, etc in an area around them, depending on which pet you have. All utility. Not much about damage or missing their target and running around like headless chickens.
That’s why pets taking 30% of Ranger damage has always been a fallacy.
It wasn’t like that in beta/release mind you. They nerfed Ranger because people were saying Ranger has more damage potential than other classes because it has a pet. Forgetting that it’s just another class mechanic.
This topic shows why I’ve been running Red Moa on avoid combat for years in WvW. So I basically don’t have a pet and get high up time of Fury instead.
This is the first time in years that I’ve picked other pets over Red Moa(fury)/Blue Moa(protection)/Brown Bear(condi clear). Bristleback and Smokescale are both quite nice.
