Guild Wars 2

CAF got totally gutted and made the extremely clunky to use. I just don’t get it.

I don’t know. Its really bummed me out. Don’t know if I’m even gonna keep playing. I only have really played Ranger for the last year and I was pretty stoked for the Druid after BWE3.

Disappointed barely even describes it. I just can’t believe there is not even a single dev post/info about any of the changes. I just don’t get it.

7/10 for the new zones. I think they are quite good overall. Don’t mind the hero point gating on elite specs either.

Only things that are killing me are (1) my fiance can’t even download the xpac because the launcher keeps crashing; and (2) druid got rofl nerfed (or is bugged) and we have gotten no feedback/comment from dev about it.

I just want to thank ANet for building some beautiful new zones. I am enjoying those.

I have had plenty of rage over crashing launchers and a stupidly nerfed/bugged/broken druid but despite that, I have still been impressed with the new story/zones/events.

So Anet, thanks for the great new content. Now please just fix that other stuff : )

Since we have not had any comment from a devs on this, I am assuming that this is a bug and is not intended.

Druid’s astral force dissipates immediately upon leaving combat. Makes the class really awful to play. Please address.

Druid felt so smooth and nice in BWE3. I refuse to believe they intentionally ruined such a promising class.

Please give the community an explanation of the stealth druid changes. If these are for real (AF dissipating, shorter CAF) I don’t want to waste time playing on my ranger.

I think they had it a lot closer to where it should have been in BWE3.

I just can’t believe that, without any comment or explanation, they ruined what was a great class in BWE3.

The astral force dissipating OOC and the CAF lasting only 15s just feels so icky.

I’m just not gonna play Druid until the OOC combat dissipation is either fixed or confirmed as intended.

If confirmed as intended I will just not play Druid.

The AF dissipating out of combat ruined the class for me. Not even gonna bother playing it until that is addressed.

I am not playing a Druid until it gets fixed. Just disappointing to play right now.

Scrapper is prettty cool though.

OK, so I ran the TCP fix that Anet posted in another thread. It did not work, but I am getting a different error code now.

• Crash <—*
  Exception: e06d7363
  App: Gw2.exe
  Pid: 3036
  Cmdline:
  BaseAddr: 00ED0000
  ProgramId: 101
  Build: 54533
  Module: KERNELBASE.dll
  When: 2015-10-24T17:24:18Z 2015-10-24T10:24:18-07:00
  Uptime: 0 days 0:00:17
  Flags: 0

Now its crashing while it tries to initialize.

I have been trying to help my Fiance download HoT but nothing is working. Launcher starts up and downloads at > 100kb/s and then after anywhere from 1 to 60 seconds, crashes.

Never had any issues on this computer with Gw2 previously.

Anet:

Someone should really respond in this forum with some information about the rather drastic druid changes. We don’t even know if AF evaporating as soon as you leave combat is a bug or is intended. Is it confirmed that CAF is now shorter than it used to be? Is there a rationale for one or both of these changes?

Clarification is sorely needed. I know that my self, and many here, were very excited for druid after BWE3. Many people are frustrated and disappointed that the core class mechanics have been rather drastically changed for launch. A little communication with your players, most of whom just shelled out $50 at least in part to play druid, would be very very appreciated.

Sincerely,

A concerned ranger

I dont mind the staff gating too much but the ooc dissipation feels awful to play around.

I felt like CAF was shorter so that its only 15s makes sense. Gotta say, these stealth nerfs have totally killed my hype for HoT.

I agree with above. Enjoyed it a lot more in BWE3. It feels very clunky now with AF decaying out of combat. Also, as far as I can tell regen still does not charge AF.

Honestly I am very disappointed and may not play my ranger at all in HoT.

mistsim.2748:

LegallyBinding.4937:

IMO I have no problem gating CAF behind staff. But given that healing charges it less now and that it dissipates out of combat, the whole system feels awful and clunky.

if youre using staff, then reaching avatar form shouldn’t be a problem at all, even with the decay. maybe 20s into a fight u’ll have it.

Reaching it definitely takes longer than BWE3, but thats not the problem. The problem is the dissipation. It takes so much away from the Druid in PvP.

Nicknobreak.7543:

Obviously this isn’t intended. Otherwise it would have been clearly stated in the patch notes. I know we’re all a bit paranoid because, “Oh geez, here we go again, Anet hates rangers” but this is obviously some kind of error that will get fixed.

We can hope. Maybe its just the Druid’s second beta weekend?

IMO its a gamebreaking change that should have been shared with the community before launch.

IMO, CAF should charge faster with staff than any other weapon. Staff is generally quite weak but its slight healing makes up for this by helping charge AF faster. That said, it should still be possible (albeit slower) to charge with other weapons.

Regen from WH 5 should also charge AF.

It decaying out of combat is ridiculous though. Just a very unfun mechanic.

IMO I have no problem gating CAF behind staff. But given that healing charges it less now and that it dissipates out of combat, the whole system feels awful and clunky.

Druid was much better in BWE3. There was no need to mess with its core mechanics so much. Healing power scaling and some slight tweaks was really all that was needed.

Borderline unplayable now, at least in PvP.

Don’t bother. It was nerfed into the ground.

So…. why was there no mention here of CF dissipating out of combat? Everyone would have told you that was a terrible idea.

It was sooo much more fun in BWE3 : (

I am disappointed with Druid. They should have had more than one beta, obviously.

IMO the astral force changes (the way it now generates and the out of combat loss) has completely ruined the Druid. I won’t be playing it unless this is addressed.

Any word from Arenanet? Seems really weird they would implement this huge nerf without comment.

Anyways, if this is the way of things I won’t be playing my Ranger in HoT. Hell we’ll see if I even still play HoT. Engineer maybe?

Yea if this is Druid, I think I will pass. AF gain feels WAY slower than before when using staff, probably because TU seems to have been nerfed. AF loss out of combat just makes it plain clunky to play.

It doesn’t appear that they fixed the scaling on the staff either, so its not like you have a lot of healing outside of CAF no matter what you do. Terrible change if this is intended.

Feels like CAF is lasting much shorter than it did before as well. Not sure I want to run druid anymore.

I liked the way my character carried the staff in BWE3. Doesn’t look nearly as bad kitten now. Doesn’t mesh with the solarbeam animation at all.

This feels like a HUGE nerf. Not cool.

I think the consensus is pretty clear.

We need a toggle on/off for player health bars (would be very useful for PvP as well).

If people are worried about the UI getting cluttered with health bars, you don’t have to use them. For those of us that think they would be a great QoL improvement for dedicated healers, it should be available.

Please implement this Arenanet. The squad/party UI would work fine with single target healing, but we don’t have that. We need health bars to make healing/support work with the positional based healing spells Druid will have.

I would settle for just an on/off toggle

I know that for many the lack of the ally health bars was one of the biggest impediments to enjoying the healing of the Druid.

Any word if this will be fixed for HoT release?

Loving these changes!

Only other thing I would have liked to see was a change to CA #1 because that skill is NOT FUN to use.

It is an expansion. If you don’t understand how that works…. I don’t know what to tell you.

IMO if you don’t want to heal/support maybe the Druid is not for you. You can still play Ranger as you always have.

I hope they make healing power more important. IMO you should have to give something up to get that kind of healing support power.

There is a lot of negativity on the forums so I just wanted to say thank you for creating what I think is a very fun to play specialization in the Druid. As a ranger main, I am very pleased by what I saw in the beta weekend.

In fact, I liked Druid so much I spammed it all weekend, playing nearly 40 PvP matches and several hours of WvW and PvE.

While there are obviously some bugs and issues that could/should be addressed for launch, I think the overall design of the Druid, focusing around CC and burst healing in Celestial Avatar, is a lot of fun to play and brings cool new dynamic to the game.

Thanks again for all your hard work!

Most important druid change:

Make ally health bars visible!

Bug report:

Using signet of the wild during Celestial Avatar will end the CA state immediately.

Bug notes:

Signet of the wild removes you from CA. Other signets appear to work.

Once or twice I have swapped into CA and I get the visual look but the abilities do not appear.

arkealia.2713:

I really wish we could see allies HP without having to mouse over them, it would help a lot.

This x100.

We really need some health bars!

It would be really nice to be able to toggle on ally health bars. It would be very helpful for a druid healing. It gets really annoying to have to mouse-over allies to see their health.

I am actually kind of surprised that this is not already in the game. It would be a really great addition to the UI.

Summary of problem skills after more playing:

Staff 2 needs something more.

Staff 4 is hard to hit for too little reward.

CA 1 is god awful. Such a pain to use, not rewarding or fun. Just a bad mechanic there.

CA 5 is too slow to cast. Very very hard to get off in a PvP environment.

Glyphs are generally underwhelming. Daze is the best one IMO.

Celestial Druid kicks kitten . Seriously tanky with great team support. I have been running staff and axe/warhorn. Axe/WH is great for the boons and the chill. Axe 2 also does decent damage with celestial stats.

I have been playing Druid all night and tried about a half dozen different specs.

Some general comments:

Staff 1 is great.

Staff 2 needs something more, probably more or AoE damage or vulnerability…. Something. It is quite underwhelming. Maybe even just raising the heal coefficient would help.

Staff 4 should either be a longer immobilize or have a light bleed like all other vine skills.

Staff 5 healing is kind of low. Reflect would have been better.

Celestial Avatar 1 is horrible. Like really, one of the most awkward unrewarding skills to use ever. The rest of the CA skills are great, but this one sucks. I suggest having it do AoE damage around the druid and apply a small (200 or so) radius heal. At least that way we are spared the wrist killing ground targeting.

CV 3, 4, and 5 are pretty cool. 5 could use a bit (1/4 second?) fast cast time.