Guild Wars 2

Knockback should be included and Launch should be removed. We don’t even have Launch in our whole skill set.

Wyvern also does Knockback, as does Devourer for example. They won’t be able to trigger this trait if it’s excluded.

Maybe Knockback counts as a Knockdown, since it takes a second for someone to stand up after being knocked back.

This trait should be balanced around the idea that Knockback works as well.

I’m just wondering why Knockback wasn’t included in the description and why Launch was included. Ranger has no access to Launch on any skill nor pet.

Even the new Wyvern pets use Knockback as well as the new Glyph. Ranger has plenty of access to Knockback on weapons and pets in fact. It should not be excluded.

Smokescale look awesome. Revenent-like teleporting attack, Smoke field making pet immune and maybe clears its conditions as well. Probably pretty squishy, but good damage and can land hits.

Bristleback look great as well. 1200 range pet which shoots often. It will have great sustained damage and the bleeds will do quite some damage. Bit worried about the AoE since Spiders suffer from theirs as well.

Not a fan of Wyverns because of the auto-attack.

It’s not a teleport. Teleport changes the position of the character instantly. It looks like a movement skill such as Mist Form.

I hope it makes you evade for the duration, but it doesn’t say so.

This is the feedback thread:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/ranger/Druid-Healer-Confirmed-Feedback-merged

Most Dangerous Game
Still not a fan, because you can’t influence when you get it at all. Could also simply make it 15 stacks of might for 3 seconds, every 3 seconds. Sounds more like a mechanic that should be baseline for everyone in the game to make low health more interesting, but not something to spend a GM trait on.

• Remove the heath treshhold
• Ranger takes 10% more damage
• 10 stacks of Might for 3 seconds, every 3 seconds

Nature’s Vengeance
Looks better. As long as it’s 3 stacks for 3 seconds, every 3 seconds. Permanent swiftness looks ok, but swiftness isn’t a good boon. Permanent regeneration is alright, but we can already get that with shouts which will be more effective.

First impression balance change suggestions (this is all I could come up with, everything else looks good):

Sublime Conversion (Staff)

• the projectiles become unblockable

Just make sure these converted healing projectiles can’t be reflected back to heal the foes that fired them.

Glyph of Rejuvenation

• reduce cast time from 1s to 1/2s
• radius increased from 300 to 600
• Celestial Form version heals self for full amount as well

The heal seems very weak compared to existing heals (from a selfish point of view). If it had a short cast time it might be able to compete.
300 radius is too small for a party buff. Spirits have 1000 radius. Shouts have 600 radius. Glyphs shouldn’t only have 300 radius.
The Celestial Form version seems odd. If the party needs a heal, then so does the Druid. The Druid also won’t have his own heal skill while the rest of the party still has theirs.

Glyph of Empowerment

• +10% changed to +20%
• Radius increased from 300 to 600

10% damage with 25% uptime sounds very weak. Either increase the damage or the duration.
Again, 300 radius is too small for a party buff. Spirits have 1000 radius. Shouts have 600 radius. Glyphs shouldn’t only have 300 radius.

Cosmic Ray (celestial form)

• 3 pulses

It looks like this skill has to be constantly used to be effective. It’s annoying to have to constantly press 1 while aiming with your mouse and moving at the same time.

Lunar Impact (celestial form)

• 3s daze decreased to 1s

3s daze can be increased to 6s with Moment of Clarity trait. With 5s cooldown this skill would easily be able to permanently daze on its own. Depends on how long you can stay in celestial form of course and if this is by design.

• Alternative: change +100% daze from Moment of Clarity into +1s daze and make Ranger daze skills stronger baseline (1.5s to 2s on Hilt Bash, 1.5s to 2s on Concussion Shot).

Celestial Shadow (trait)

• 2s increased to 5s

2s of stealth and 2s of super speed sounds extremely short and not worth the trait compared to the other 2 choices. Depends on how often you can enter/exit celestial form of course.

Heal as One sounds overpowered. I think it would suit the glyph more, which is underpowered at the moment.

Guard-> Heal as One

In fact, I think ranger and pet should share the same boon-pool. Because currently we can’t see pet boons anyway.

So all boons on the ranger also affect the pet. And all boons applied to the pet are given to the ranger instead. Then rebalance based on this new situation.

Conditions would still be seperate.

Like:

• Staff 1 1200 range beam
• Staff 3 1200 range wisp form
• Staff 5 make enemy projectiles heal (if they cant be reflected afterwards)
• movement speed trait
• condi removal traits
• immobilize GM trait
• new pets
• pets get condition damage

Dislike/Unsure:

• Unsure about glyphs being point-blank AoE rather than 1200 range ground targetted AoE (maybe thats why the cooldowns are nice)
• Unsure about new F5 form. Only heals (no damage) and has a time limit and seems like you have to keep pressing 11111111111 while aiming with your mouse.
• Unsure about F5 form traits, apart from the condition removal.
• Unsure about minor traits. Rather not have them forced. Rather see Natural Stride as GM minor.
• Unsure about orbitting wisp (Staff 2 and GM trait)
• Unsure about the many ways to heal leaving no room for other things.

Like:

• Staff 1 1200 range beam
• Staff 3 1200 range wisp form
• Staff 5 make enemy projectiles heal (if they cant be reflected afterwards)
• movement speed trait
• condi removal traits
• immobilize GM trait
• new pets
• pets get condition damage

Dislike/Unsure:

• Unsure about glyphs being point-blank AoE rather than 1200 range ground targetted AoE (maybe thats why the cooldowns are nice)
• Unsure about new F5 form. Only heals (no damage) and has a time limit and seems like you have to keep pressing 11111111111 while aiming with your mouse.
• Unsure about F5 form traits, apart from the condition removal.
• Unsure about minor traits. Rather not have them forced. Rather see Natural Stride as GM minor.
• Unsure about orbitting wisp (Staff 2 and GM trait)
• Unsure about the many ways to heal leaving no room for other things.

Lightbringer.5860:

I don’t do WvW much, but think about it…

One Druid vs zerg: Druid pops glyph, tethering 5 enemies, then pops Signet of Stone and gets hit by the full zerg…. five people are going to be REALLY hurt.

Exactly

It’s not like retaliation tho. All damage from all sources are transfered to all tethered enemies.

So better than retaliation, even if capped. Well… different than retaliation

Substance E.4852:

According to dulfy, the damage/healing shown is with no stats factored in so while the radius’s may be small and have long cooldowns, they may very well end up hitting like a necro wells which is a reasonable tradeoff given the Ranger’s lack of power aoe skills.

I don’t think you can compare Glyphs with Necro Wells at all. Ranger Glyphs are instantly used in a direct radius around the player, Necro Wells can be placed 900 range away.

Glyph reference

Glyph of Rejuvenation (24s cooldown)

• 4860 heal to self
• 1300 heal to allies within 300 range

This just looks terrible. It heals for almost half of what Troll Unguent and Heal as One can do and has more cooldown on top of it. The radius is also tiny, 300 is nothing. Don’t see this being used at all. The traited version isn’t better than Healing Spring either, if it wasn’t still bugged.

Glyph of Alignment (20s cooldown)

• 300 radius 4s cripple, 4s weakness, 947 damage

Looks pretty bad. 300 radius is low. The conditions applied are weak and short. The damage and the short cooldown might save it though.

Glyph of Equality (40s cooldown)

• 300 radius 2s Daze, 947 damage

Extremely long cooldown for only a 2s daze with only 300 radius. I don’t see this being used, except with Moment of Clarity trait that makes it a 4s daze. Asura racial skill Technobabble outclasses it already, which is a 1200 range targetable 3s daze (6s traited). They might see some play combined together in some Asura daze cheese build in WvW.

Glyph of Equality (25s cooldown)

• 300 radius knockback, 947 damage

I’m starting to see a patern. radius is short. cooldown is good. Might see some play.

Glyph of Empowerment (20s cooldown)

• +10% damage for 5 seconds for up to 5 allies. 300 radius

Very underwhelming. 5s every 20s is almost no coverage and +10% damage is low. Probably worse than Frost Spirit. If it sees any play at all, it will be for zerg meta farming.

Glyph of Unity (20s cooldown)

• for 5 seconds deal damage dealt to you to foes within 300 radius

Very interesting, but again short radius. nice cooldown. Not boring like the others.

Overall, glyphs are very focussed on melee-range play. 300 radius max. So it has very little synergy with the 1200 range staff and other ranged weapons. Double melee Ranger might find some use for them. Most of their cooldowns are short and they can deal damage, which might make them good. Gives a high elementalist vibe, but elementalist will do it better.

However, the trait that makes glyphs plant a seed (= remove 2 conditions), might make them worthwhile.

staff reference

Solar Beam

• 1200 range instant-hit beam (like Mesmer Greatsword)

Great. Immune to reflect and projectile destroy which Longbow greatly suffers from. It also heals allies it hits, but I’d rather have it apply cripple or something. Druid has plenty of healing anyway.

Astral Wisp

• wisp heals allied in melee range to target

I guess it’s defense against melee where they close the gap and you get healed for it. Could be interesting. Otherwise underwhelming for a 1200 range weapon.

Ancestral Grace

• 1200 range ‘mist form’

Awesome! great alternative to Swoop. nice low cooldown. Was hoping for an instant teleport, but this looked great. Wondering if you can’t be damaged while in wisp form.

Vine Surge

• 1200 range line with 240 radius immobilize

I see this miss a lot. It has a cast time and the vines take a while to arrive, but otherwise a great skill with a low cooldown. Immobilize will help the pet land hits.

Sublime Conversion

• 5s ‘wall of reflection’ that makes the enemy projectiles that pass it heal allies

Looks great. Wall of Reflection is powerful and this might be as well. It also has a much lower cooldown.

Overall I like the look of the staff. I’d have to try it out first. It has a lot of healing. Maybe too much, but Solar Beam seemed to do a good amount of damage. As long as the auto-attack has a good punch, this weapon will be great. It’s a combination of Longbow and greatsword, so it could probably replace either in a build.

traits reference

Natural Stride

• 33% passive movement speed (same amount as swiftness),
• lose it if you are affected by cripple, chilled or immobilize.

I think that’s awesome. Great for WvW where you have to run around a lot. Now I can finally get rid of Signet of the Hunt and Rune of the Traveller and get my skill slot back.

Druidic Clarity

• Pressing F5 clears all condtions on you.

What’s not to like? Great condition removal. I’m not sure how often this can be used though.

I liked the one that had ranged projectiles. Great alternative to spiders/devourers.

What worries me is that several pets are condition damage based and we know pets start with 0 condition damage and we do not have a way to increase that to a good amount.

Another cool figurine, very nice!

Especially love the armor on this one

• maybe not buy expansion
• play new wvw borderlands
• see if longbow is still playable in wvw with all the reflects
• wait for next balance update/expansion

It’s horrid.

Scaling should always be based on vitality, toughness, power or precision, since those start at 1000 for everyone.

Healing power, condition damage and ferocity start at 0.

Which makes it so bad I feel disgusted I actually have to write this and ANet doesn’t even understand it.

I think Ranger should get this trait:

• whenever your projectiles are reflected, they are destroyed instead.

the recipes are so cheap I just destroy them all when I get another one.

There is no rune of the trapper in pvp, but there is in pve and wvw.

Dadnir.5038:

Well, the thing is that the HoT video lead us to think that they at least keep their base pet. That’s mostly why I restrain myself to 3 new pet each tainting the flesh attunment in something else due to their [F2] skill passive effect.

I’ve also kept myself into the boundary of existing content.

Yeah you’re right, good point

Interesting idea. Let’s go 1 step further:

What if Druid gets access to only 4 pets, but they’re all new and more powerful.

• pet with power damage laser beam 1200 range instant hit.
• pet with 50.000 health, passive health regeneration to up to 50 allies around it and reduces condition damage taken.
• pet with aoe condition damage around it
• pet with power damage melee and shadowsteps

• utility glyphs based on which pet you have out.

Staff:

• 1200 range single target, 3s cripple on hit.
• 1200 range targetable teleport (10s cooldown)
• 1200 range shoot-a-vine, 2 bounces, 2s immobilize, 5s cripple, 1 stack of 10s bleed. (15s cooldown)
• 1200 range pet shadow step to target, it gains 3s quickness, 3 stacks of 3s stability, 3s resistance, target revealed for 3 seconds (20s cooldown)
• Thorn shield. 10000 health shield for 6 seconds, shield takes 50% damage, 6s retaliation (30s cooldown)

Traits
Adept:

• whenever you cripple, you also cause 3s weakness
• resistance you apply lasts 33% longer

Master:

• +50% cripple duration, +25% movement speed
• whenever you gain resistance, you also give it to your allies

GM:

• Your pets and spirits take 50% less damage from all sources.
• You gain 3s resistance whenever you gain a condition (15s cooldown)

What if new GM trait:
Druid Spirit
Your pets and spirits can no longer be damaged.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

I don’t agree. Reflections are one of the counter-plays for ranged combat right now and it should stay that way.

It really isn’t. Not all ranged weapons use projectiles. Just look at Mesmer Greatsword. Also, some ranged projectiles are unblockable baseline, again, look at Mesmer Greatsword.

no, projectiles only reflect once I think

Reflect is the most overpowered skill in the game. Projectile destroy is ok, since that’s basically 100% damage reduction, which is the same as block. But reflect is a 200% damage difference. 100% less on the defender and 100% more damage on the attacker.

Not even retaliation comes remotely close to the power of reflect. Retaliation only returns a tiny amount of damage (about 200 per hit) and doesn’t reduce the incoming damage at all.

They once got this image off the HoT website. Which seems to show the pet, but it looks different.

Druid might not get glyphs at all. It was part of some datamining, which is often correct, but not always correct.

Shapeshifting for druid isn’t a WoW thing either. Everquest had it too to a lesser extend, which was a few years older. This game has transformations as well, so it’s possible.

However, in this game transformations are terrible, so I hope it won’t be transformations.

Again, transformations would be awesome, just not in guild wars 2.

I didn’t even like it when it was an Adept trait. But nope, Anet thinks it’s Grandmaster tier.

However, don’t worry about it. Traits only change once every 3 years tops and that based on 0 feedback from the players.

I wouldn’t be opposed to an elite spec for ranger that gives him rifle.

Bears are great in pve leveling. But I would start off with a cat or a bird for damage, until it keeps dying, then go with a dog or drake, if those keep dying too, go with a bear.

You WILL need to change your playstyle and not depend on the pet to tank for you once you hit 80, but for leveling it’s excellent.

What makes the Ranger unique is the range on the longbow. It’s the longest range in the game. Dragonhunter longbow has less range.

The pet shines in 1v1, but not much else.

I’d be fine with aspects based on pet families:

• aspect 1: moa, bear (damage reduction/healing/boons)
• aspect 2: cat, bird (burst/crits/stealth)
• aspect 3: porcine, canine (CC: knockdown, immobilize, cripple)
• aspect 4: spider, devourer, drake: (condition damage, chill)

Definitely go troll unguent early on. It actually heals for a lot more than heal as one. Maybe the difference isn’t that big anymore at level 23, but at level 8 the difference was 140 against 910 or something silly.

As for when they let you choose equipment, go with power. (asumming longbow + greatsword).

Longbow + Greatsword

Start with longbow, then switch to greatsword if they get close and your knockback is on cooldown. Greatsword is also great against multiple enemies and Maul deals a good amount of damage.

Greatsword 3 (swoop) is great for moving about.

Longbow is basically THE ranger weapon that makes the profession unique. If you don’t like it, you may like other professions more.

I’d just stick with signets: signet of stone, signet of the wild, signet of the hunt.

as for traits, im not sure in which order they unlock with the new system, but for leveling Beastmastery and wilderness survival are probably good.

Nike.2631:

Holland.9351:

Not very likely.

• All staff weapons have 1200 range autoattack.
• where is the skill from the video?

Uh, Guardian staff is 600. Revenant and Thief staff autoattacks are 130. You’re thinking of staff in the hands of light armor… which the Druid is not.

• Guardian staff is a very useful 600 range AoE and is also a different armor class. You’d be happy to get this.
• Thief staff is a melee weapon, which doesn’t seem to be the case for Druid judging by the video.
• All other classes with a staff have a 1200 range auto-attack and Druid is closer to a caster theme like those.
• Druid is an elite spec
• So, 900 range auto attack for Druid makes no sense.

You can get 60% boon duration without going overboard:
20% lingering magic (editor doesn’t count this for some reason)
20% rune of water
20% food

3s becomes 4.8 every 30s sigil of rage
6s becomes 9.6 every 48s traited quickening zephyr
3s becomes 4.8 every 20s zephyr speed
3s becomes 4.8 every 20s instinctive reaction (unreliable, but will happen at least once.)

That’s 24 seconds of quickness added up. That’s a pretty high uptime.

This is the base build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQFATClsYgTo8AnnGuJAA-TlwIgAAPAA99HECgJ-w

The problem with quickness is that it often goes at the cost of other things. Quickness is only really good for dealing more damage and for stomping. However, you already lose your rune set to travellers or water, so that could be a damage loss. Also you lose your food, which could be another damage loss. Then you’re also locked into some trait lines, which could be another damage loss. You’re also forced into using a certain utility slot and a loss of a sigil.

But I’ll give it another try. At least, I’ll try Sigil of Rage.

Not very likely.

• All staff weapons have 1200 range autoattack.
• where is the skill from the video?

kiwituatara.6053:

Tragic Positive.9356:

My concerns are that even if they do make druid a really interesting specialization – and maybe get us viable
- they’ll just drop any fixes and changes we really need because you know… They did a good job and they can take a cookie, not ever sticking their noses into our class again until they find we have something nice and nerf us back again (hello GS Swoop).

If they fail – we’ll basically get a chance to rebel and fill their boxes with ideas how to fix things they did wrong, from the very core since that place is overflooded by problems and issues.

I’m really curious about who’s calling the shots to ranger nerfs like:
Shortbow range from 1200 to 900
Shortbow attack speed
The old [Vigorous Renewal] trait with Healing Spring that allowed it to pulse vigor
Greatsword double leap

I really didn’t understand these nerfs. They weren’t even overpowered. The second year after launch was the worst year for rangers if you guys recall. Nerfs like these came wave after wave at every balance patch that year.

I agree with Tragic. I am far more concerned with the core class balance than the Druid specialisation.

I think Jon Peters, since he moved Most Dangerous Game from adept all the way up to grandmaster tier saying it’s too powerful. And that on-air while revealing the changes.

Sic ’Em is great the way it is. It has 2000 range and is instant cast and has no tell whatsoever. Good luck revealing anyone around your pet.

Search & Rescue needs a much shorter cooldown and be a targetable skill like Sic ’Em and shadow step the pet to the target.

Super Speed

Does not exceed the blanket speed cap of 33% out of combat, 25% in combat.

How do you double post with 2 hours in between?

I’m quite hopeful for Druid now after the Scrapper reveal, since Druid has the same dev as Scrapper. Scrapper traits have some great synergies and the hammer is excellent. I’m not too fond of gyros yet.

We also had the same dev for our trait rework before other devs came in and “balanced” it by removing %-damage traits, moving Most Dangerous Game from Adept to Grandmaster, ruining Light on your Feet, removing Opening Strike from Signet trait, and I think some other stuff as well.

So, Scrapper might still be destroyed as well as Druid.

Playing on lowest character model settings removes the animations.

1) Sneak Gyro is an Elite skill
2) Scrapper is an Elite spec
3) Sic ‘em is a 2000 range single target instant 6s reveal without a single tell. Sneak Gyro is a 900 range point blank AoE 6s reveal with the gyro itself being a huge tell.
4) Traps can’t be thrown because all skills/weapons can only have 1 trait in their new system. They didn’t want the trait to change the behaviour of the skill. So they choose the non-throwable trap and the immobile spirit. Nothing to do with Dragonhunter or Scrapper.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Add in 30s worth of comments about Grouch’s Bearbow Bandit, his Bear, his Bear getting stronger, being able to use his machine gun with staff, asking if staff will be like a machine gun, and the presentation interrupted during the trait segment to do on-the-fly balancing.

They already did that, I’m sure they can come up with something even worse.