Guild Wars 2

Yes. 3s passive blind spam is not healthy for pvp.

Half of you you nubs come talking all this good stuff about learning how to play when you don’t even understand the mechanics of your own trap. Maw can not be dodged out of. You must dodge before it clamps or else you are stuck inside of it. Rangers for instance cannot even use Lightning Reflexes(stunbreak with movement evade) to get out of the trap. All of our active defenses are movement based which cannot be used inside it.

To address the stab: oh wow that’s a great idea, too bad once again Rangers for instance don’t have instastab or a tele. Your only option is to either have SoTW on your bar which is unlikely in most builds or to pop SotP, both of which skills are 1s cast time. And if you manage to do either of those then hopefully you don’t get rupted or die by the time you are able to cast them and get out.

If you want to tell people to l2dodge or something you should at least know what you’re talking about and recommend things like telling people they absolutely have to dodge before Maw clamps and to look for things like getting dazed right before a trap will activate.

I think Druid is in a good place. LL needed to be adjusted. Not by so much, but it did. Personal morale is very good atm.

A passive trait that gave zerkers toughness to a cele level? No thank you

Holland.9351:

Please share what’s so great about them and why.

Equality is good in a MoC marauder build. 4s instadaze that Crits for about 2k. Builds not very survivable, but fun to mess with.

Hmmm can’t decide whether to pick this or gotl now.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Mcrocha.3891:

Hammerguard.9834:

Dragonhunters defenitely do counter Druids, as well as warriors. This was even true back in BWE3. Druids do terrible against burst and CC. Dragonhunters do both. The amount of lockdown they have is ridiculous.

Also people don’t seem to understand that it takes a while for Druids to build astral force. If you don’t have the CC to waste out their Celestial Form, go after them after they leave it. It’s going to be a while before they get back in.

I would argue that Druid counters DH since you have projectile nullification and can have ranged pressure that is just as high them. Warriors are a problem yes if they cc lock you.

water wall goes up , DH teleport and Trap test of faith > Trueshot (traited stability or KB) DH and druid have ways to counter but Dh would win due to Druids lack of Stability.

but this can go on forever talking about Tactical Advantages.

Which are dodgeable. What is your point? That their burst can be dodged? You can dodge and reposition around the wall.

Hammerguard.9834:

Dragonhunters defenitely do counter Druids, as well as warriors. This was even true back in BWE3. Druids do terrible against burst and CC. Dragonhunters do both. The amount of lockdown they have is ridiculous.

Also people don’t seem to understand that it takes a while for Druids to build astral force. If you don’t have the CC to waste out their Celestial Form, go after them after they leave it. It’s going to be a while before they get back in.

I would argue that Druid counters DH since you have projectile nullification and can have ranged pressure that is just as high them. Warriors are a problem yes if they cc lock you.

No it’s been like that since release. I made a thread about some stuff that they didn’t say they were gonna do, but it kind of got buried bc everyone was qqing about AF degen.

It’s not just the blinds, it can heal the ranger himself for 600 as well, for instance this trait will proc a couple times over the course of TU and give an extra ~1.5k heal on top of the blinds. If you combine something like this trait with sigils like blood or leeching for example, you become very sustainy even on a glassier build.

Also torn bc the burst is juicy, but smoke field hnnng. Guess it’s a good dilemma to have though.

Modify Last Stand to also make stances apply to nearby allies.

Elxdark.9702:

Mcrocha.3891:

Don’t promote celestial builds. They are a scourge on this games existence.

You can use the same build with marauder though.

Yes I know. I said celestial was a scourge. I didn’t say anything about the builds viability.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Anyone test Dolyak runes for AF generation?

Tried in hotm. Didn’t appear to do anything.

Don’t promote celestial builds. They are a scourge on this games existence.

I would say a general tip from what I’ve seen happen is sometimes people get too caught up in running supply. You can run supply all day and nothing will happen if you don’t kill enemy guards or protect the guards you spawn. Any door breakers you spawn will get one shotted by door guards and other teams defense, if they’re smart, will prioritize archers if their door guards are still alive. Running supply should at most be a job that one person does and others can pop in occasionally and get supply if your team starts winning skirmishes and whatnot.

Another thing I’ve seen is that some people don’t know that when the champions pop there is a 30s timer before they actually come available to summon. This is important because instead of losing 30s by committing to the summon, you could rush some guards or do a quick little supply run while waiting for the timer to get to 0.

This was the first thing I tried with Druid and Minstrels. Only played a couple games with it and went total tank because smokescale had yet to be nerfed. Would make some changes now to be more offensive, but Ive been trying out other builds instead and it works fine like this too. Runes are whatever.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRjEqQ/K2wCWsAXLWyEM4ZaONo6k4SANumkVA4AcyrS3K-TpwHAAyVAAeEAAA

LughLongArm.5460:

Remeber now its also light field for the blooming duration(and also blind). Light field+projactile = condi remove. This got very good potential for condi remove. Its very good.

Fairly certain that projectiles only remove conditions if you are next to the target they hit. So not that reliable cleanse.

It’s weird bc the function it had in beta was already good, but they replaced it with this which is ridiculous

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

You get the reward of being on the winning team, plus a bonus.

Lol right. That’s not enough?

nearlight.3064:

Mcrocha.3891:

nearlight.3064:

I was just comparing what they offer in terms of supporting and dealing damage in a teamfight, and cele tempest just works better than a druid if you build it right, and I’ll be free to explain more seperately so we don’t go too offtopic. Personally I think that marauder’s support would be too low with the numbers you’d get on staff, making it an infeccient weapon choice with that stat spread. Longbow damage is great as always, especially with the mightstacking, but I just don’t see the point of running druid if you aren’t going to focus at least partially on healing power, which as I’ve stated is hard to do due to crappy amulet choices.

It’s free heals why not run it? Gives a roamer the outs it needed to be competitive with thief/Mesmer. Also Druidic Clarity+Celestial Shadow is absolutely god mode.

Well I mean, thats what I ran in the beta and it worked almost too well. Just now, I don’t think it would be worth it since they changed the healing values and scaling, and It honestly feels like you’d just be using staff as a mobility stick instead of for healing people in teamfights since you’d probably be on longbow most of the time.

Lunar Impact is a ranged ~2.5k heal with daze, running Marauder, that’s pretty good for an off healer.

nearlight.3064:

I was just comparing what they offer in terms of supporting and dealing damage in a teamfight, and cele tempest just works better than a druid if you build it right, and I’ll be free to explain more seperately so we don’t go too offtopic. Personally I think that marauder’s support would be too low with the numbers you’d get on staff, making it an infeccient weapon choice with that stat spread. Longbow damage is great as always, especially with the mightstacking, but I just don’t see the point of running druid if you aren’t going to focus at least partially on healing power, which as I’ve stated is hard to do due to crappy amulet choices.

It’s free heals why not run it? Gives a roamer the outs it needed to be competitive with thief/Mesmer. Also Druidic Clarity+Celestial Shadow is absolutely god mode.

I posted this in another thread, you should be able to at least see what staff does.

Staff. I’ll list the 5 skills and what they do and some possible plays on them. Do note also that the staff doesn’t really have any damaging skills on it. If the Ranger is going for damage with staff they will most likely try to just auto attack spam(effective at stacking might) and maybe lock you down with skill 4, which I will cover.

1) Auto. Of noteworthiness is the fact that it gives very small heals to allies through which the beam passes ~100hp or so. It also works similar to Mesmer GS in that the beam pierces through enemies to reach its target(actually very useful in cleaving down clones ironically). Also note that it is not a projectile so reflect won’t work on it. However, mainly the auto is very good at proccing one of the new GM traits we have: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lingering_Light. This trait gives the Ranger a lot of sustain with blind spam and heals. If you notice a lot of blinds coming from the Ranger, this is probably the cause. Honestly, I expect this trait to be brought down because it is quite good and quite random atm.

2) Astral Wisp- Not much going on here. It fires a wisp at the target that circles around the target and heals allies that are around the target.

3) Ancestral Grace- Now this is the big one. This is where some of the evade you were talking about comes in to play. What it does is it basically is like a Blink that instead travels to a ground-target up to 1200 range instead of teleporting(doesn’t stun break). But while the skill is being used the Ranger turns into a wisp and evades throughout the movement frames. You will see a big wisp(larger than skill 2) with a streak coming out of it. The skill heals the Ranger and also counts as a blast finisher.

4) Vine Surge- This is a skill shot that immobilizes enemies(1s) it hits, not very much damage. You will see a big line of vines coming out of the ground at you. It is difficult to hit with and has a long cast time. It also cleanses chill, cripple, and immob on allies it passes through(of note though, it does not cleanse those conditions on the Ranger himself). Might want to dodge this skill if you don’t want to be rooted.

5) Sublime Conversion- This is a line skill that absorbs projectiles that pass through it and turns them into little balls of water that heal the Ranger. If you see this then you might want to hold off on say auto attacking with scepter bc it could heal the Ranger if they are behind the line or standing inside of it. If you see this skill and the Ranger is staying close to it you might want to consider aoe to move him off of it especially if you want to move him somewhere a DH for instance could hit him with LB. Note that the line acts as a water field so it can be blasted by Skill 3 or allies as well.

If you come up to a bunker Druid then I recommend ignoring it as you most likely won’t be able to kill it 1v1. if you can decap, then do so, but move on unless you have numbers

When you say dh with a normal meditations setup do you mean old meditations with longbow or trap plus medis.

I’ll try to explain some general things for you and maybe you can figure out what they were doing.

Staff. I’ll list the 5 skills and what they do and some possible plays on them. Do note also that the staff doesn’t really have any damaging skills on it. If the Ranger is going for damage with staff they will most likely try to just auto attack spam(effective at stacking might) and maybe lock you down with skill 4, which I will cover.

1) Auto. Of noteworthiness is the fact that it gives very small heals to allies through which the beam passes ~100hp or so. It also works similar to Mesmer GS in that the beam pierces through enemies to reach its target(actually very useful in cleaving down clones ironically). Also note that it is not a projectile so reflect won’t work on it. However, mainly the auto is very good at proccing one of the new GM traits we have: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lingering_Light. This trait gives the Ranger a lot of sustain with blind spam and heals. If you notice a lot of blinds coming from the Ranger, this is probably the cause. Honestly, I expect this trait to be brought down because it is quite good and quite random atm.

2) Astral Wisp- Not much going on here. It fires a wisp at the target that circles around the target and heals allies that are around the target.

3) Ancestral Grace- Now this is the big one. This is where some of the evade you were talking about comes in to play. What it does is it basically is like a Blink that instead travels to a ground-target up to 1200 range instead of teleporting(doesn’t stun break). But while the skill is being used the Ranger turns into a wisp and evades throughout the movement frames. You will see a big wisp(larger than skill 2) with a streak coming out of it. The skill heals the Ranger and also counts as a blast finisher.

4) Vine Surge- This is a skill shot that immobilizes enemies(1s) it hits, not very much damage. You will see a big line of vines coming out of the ground at you. It is difficult to hit with and has a long cast time. It also cleanses chill, cripple, and immob on allies it passes through(of note though, it does not cleanse those conditions on the Ranger himself). Might want to dodge this skill if you don’t want to be rooted.

5) Sublime Conversion- This is a line skill that absorbs projectiles that pass through it and turns them into little balls of water that heal the Ranger. If you see this then you might want to hold off on say auto attacking with scepter bc it could heal the Ranger if they are behind the line or standing inside of it. If you see this skill and the Ranger is staying close to it you might want to consider aoe to move him off of it especially if you want to move him somewhere a DH for instance could hit him with LB. Note that the line acts as a water field so it can be blasted by Skill 3 or allies as well.

If you come up to a bunker Druid then I recommend ignoring it as you most likely won’t be able to kill it 1v1. if you can decap, then do so, but move on unless you have numbers.

Krispera.5087:

Wow, thank you for telling me that, I didn’t realize the link between them.

I wish Seed of Life was casting when you start the glyphs or just faster in general, but with Glyph of Empowerment you can get 13% easily and more if you stack other glyphs + Seed of Life on you or you went in CA.

I’ve been using Longbow with it and you can pull more condition removal with the arrows.

Glyph + Seed of Life + Grace of the Land + Frost Spirit can give you huge damage boost. Not bad.

Ye, I think it’s something valuable to keep in mind when building for pve, as it lets GotL have higher upkeep.

Yeah no problem, welcome to the Ranger forum. Could you tell what weapons they were using? If you know that it would be helpful. Also were they using traps, survival skills, or glyphs even?

Edit: also if you could tell if they were running condis or a power build would be helpful and pet information too

Jasher.6580:

Mcrocha.3891:

I don’t know if this is widely known, but I just noticed it. If you use verdant etching, the seed that spawns when you use a glyph procs Grace of the Land even when you’re not in CAF.

Seed is a celestial avatar ability. Verdant Etching allows you to use Seed outside of celestial avatar.

Grace of Land doesn’t state that you need to be in CAF, it just says it will proc with celestial avatar abilities which as I said earlier Seed is.

Yes I know. That was the point of the op. I was just throwing it out there for others who didn’t think of it

I don’t know if this is widely known, but I just noticed it. If you use verdant etching, the seed that spawns when you use a glyph procs Grace of the Land even when you’re not in CAF.

Elxdark.9702:

Yasha.5963:

I think DH traps a fine, the problem is Ranger traps are too weak. Please throw in some stability, daze, blind, ageis procs on the ranger traps as well and give them a trap elite.

You can’t compare a mere abilities from ranger (traps) with an elite specialization.

but yeah ranger traps need a buff, they’re garbage besides the burn trap.

Elite specialization aren’t supposed to be vertical upgrades, so actually you can compare them. To theif traps as well.

The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away.

Patch just went through taking away degen. Cheers.

Great, thanks so much mate. Really appreciate it.

Hey guys and gals, just a question. With all the new specs running around and stuff I’ve been trying to learn the tells for the skills. Could someone pretty please inform me as to what the skills to dodge are from reaper shroud and what they look like? I’m finding it hard to see the animations with the particle effects. Thanks much.

SlayerSixx.5763:

You could always wait until they release the new PvP leagues. Then you and your buddies could premade vs people absolutely new to the game and feel good about yourselves until you hit the high MMR bracket again and get destroyed.

Can’t you read the sig? He’s the best solo player in the game.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Mcrocha.3891:

EvilHero.1248:

So none of the QQ’er are looking at the insane amount of DPS/burst a reaper and chronomancers can dishing out? That’s really weird…. so the main section of the community is made up of Mesmer and Necro?

Mesmer has been ridiculously strong months before HoT patch is still OP currently and no one is questioning about that? Seriously?

You can stunbreak and get out of their burst. If you get caught in maw, you can’t stunbreak and get out. It’s not the dps, every class has a strong burst. It’s the cc that makes it so I can’t mitigate unless I run Signet of Stone on my bar. If they made Maw so that when I use Lightning Reflexes I am able to get out of the killzone then I wouldn’t care.

It’s an elite skill. The kitten thing has to be good for guardians to choose it over renewed focus. Can’t we have nice things top(

I understand it’s an elite skill and I’m perfectly fine with the damage it does, but that cc is something fierce.

EvilHero.1248:

So none of the QQ’er are looking at the insane amount of DPS/burst a reaper and chronomancers can dishing out? That’s really weird…. so the main section of the community is made up of Mesmer and Necro?

Mesmer has been ridiculously strong months before HoT patch is still OP currently and no one is questioning about that? Seriously?

You can stunbreak and get out of their burst. If you get caught in maw, you can’t stunbreak and get out. It’s not the dps, every class has a strong burst. It’s the cc that makes it so I can’t mitigate unless I run Signet of Stone on my bar. If they made Maw so that when I use Lightning Reflexes I am able to get out of the killzone then I wouldn’t care.

Half of those things are already true. You constructed the post poorly. 1,3,4,5,7 are all true atm. 5/9 are true

I was surprised that they didn’t tbh. Same goes with pet damage. There are many pets that have multiple strike attacks and that would probably help generation quite a bit.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Mcrocha.3891:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Nice work on doing that mate. Interesting numbers, the difference is not that big when you look at the stat investment. It’s just too bad the glyph effect only lasts for 3s and not, like, 5 or so. I’ll have to look at this a bit more imo. Cheers.

Ye, if the bonus were just a bit longer it would be a great set. Too bad.

Edit: Also note that I did some math on GoR and let me tell you something lol. If you’ve got 1200 hp, then GoR in CAF heals allies for about 9.2k and you could tack on a bit more with cultivated synergy which would probably be the pve trait of choice.

I can’t remember the exact number, but I calculated out the absolute maximum heal that GoR can put out and its crazy big, like 20k with Cultivated synergy and all buffs.

kitten . Druid bunker meta healer for lord in stronghold. Wow lol.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Nice work on doing that mate. Interesting numbers, the difference is not that big when you look at the stat investment. It’s just too bad the glyph effect only lasts for 3s and not, like, 5 or so. I’ll have to look at this a bit more imo. Cheers.

Ye, if the bonus were just a bit longer it would be a great set. Too bad.

Edit: Also note that I did some math on GoR and let me tell you something lol. If you’ve got 1200 hp, then GoR in CAF heals allies for about 9.2k and you could tack on a bit more with cultivated synergy which would probably be the pve trait of choice.

Hunters Determination change is more significant.

Ok so I was bored and decided to do the math on what Heim and I were discussing.

Note: I assumed 5 stacks of Natural Mender for 10% heal effectiveness in both cases. And then I also assumed GoE was used in CAF for another 25% effectiveness. For the case with healing power without Druid Runes I also assumed another 10% effectiveness from Rune of the Monk.

Lunar Impact(675 hp)- [2452 + 1.1(675)]x1.35= 4312.575
Lunar Impace(1200 hp)- [2452 + 1.1(1200)]x1.45= 5469.4

For Rejuvenating Tides I assumed it pulsed once a second so you would only get 675 hp for 2 pulses and 175 for 3 pulses.
Rejuvenating Tides(675 hp)- [810 + .35(675)]x1.35= 1412.4375(2)= 2824.875
Rejuvenating Tides(175 hp)- [810 + .35(175)]x1.35= 1176.1875(3)= 3528.5625
Combined= 2824.875 + 3528.5625= 6353.4375
Rejuvenating Tides(1200 hp)- [810 +.35(1200)]x1.45= 1783.5(5)= 8917.5

Also I wasn’t sure exactly where the coefficients for outgoing heal effectiveness went as I’ve never looked into that stat, but I assumed it was after the calculation of the heal value. I did the math for Cosmic Ray and Seed of Life as well, but they were marginal differences really(however if cosmic ray wasn’t so clunky it would actually heal for decent amounts- bout 1650 with 1200hp).

So from my analysis of the stats it is obvious that stacking hp can give you a nice little boost, but using druid runes could also give you some power heals. Furthermore, if you decide to go druid runes it would be better to prioritize healing with Lunar Impact as it best utilizes the hp boost from the rune set.

I think it is a question of sustain really. If you want bursty heals then you might go druid, but if you want sustained heals then you might go hp stacking.

It’s probably good, but I hate celestial with a passion so won’t be trying it out. Condi spikes/heavy condi pressure probably give this build a headache though.

glaphen.5230:

Mcrocha.3891:

I don’t like how I can’t get out of Maw when I use Lightning Reflexes to stunbreak. So I’m literally forced to sit there in the traps and hope I don’t die while I try to cast SotP for my stab.

What you don’t like the 12 seconds of barrier that prevents any form of action even dodging besides stability and teleports? I like how it’s invisible 90% of the time so I can’ even tell what’s happening.

It’s unfortunate bc I don’t want to run SoS, but I might have to if dhs don’t go away. I don’t really blame the trap though. I mean it is an elite so it’s supposed to be powerful, but Rangers don’t have a teleport or instant stab, so getting out of it is quite a chore.

Wow good catch, didn’t even notice that but it explains why I feel more sustainy.

I don’t like how I can’t get out of Maw when I use Lightning Reflexes to stunbreak. So I’m literally forced to sit there in the traps and hope I don’t die while I try to cast SotP for my stab.

I don’t mind the degen that much in pvp. I mean yeah obviously it would be better if it didn’t degen, but with staff you can still fill AF fast. Pve though the degen is a big problem. I think the core problem of AF generation needs to be addressed before other changes are made, otherwise we’re just in a weird state of flux.

Was playing with an anet guy earlier in stronghold and he was running some evade spam condi spec and was largely unkillable.

Think it was lotus and trickery line. Pretty trollish, just annoying people by dumping condis everywhere lol.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Mcrocha.3891:

No he said it might change, he confirmed nothing. And it’s not a moot point, it’s integral to the argument that you can’t complain about the change to AF because it’s not comparable to adrenaline.

Nobody here is complaining about the changes to Astral Force. More power to you. I think I might grind out the Hero Points for a Druid now myself.

We’re complaining that Adrenaline isn’t getting the same treatment.

Op sounds pretty complainy to me. But aight.