Guild Wars 2

You can’t beat celestial if you want to deal both decent damage as well as decent healing, while at the same time having good survivability. I find it the absolute best armor and trinket set for a balanced allround build.

I tend to favor Cultivated Synergy over Primal Echoes unless going for MoC. I realise though that you plan to swap weapons often sine you’re running Quick Draw, and therefore PE may suit your playstyle better.

Since you run traited WHaO, I’d drop Natural Stride for Verdant Etching, and put some glyphs in there. Glyphs are awesome imho. Swap in spirits for boss fights, and go with glyphs for trash. Same with the last druid trait, go with Ancient seeds for trash, and swap in Grace of the Land for bosses if you plan to use your CA skills.

Bristleback is a solid secondary pet, with one of the best bursts of all pets.

Eurantien.4632:

You’re just gonna get PvP nerfed…

Most likely yes

Eval.2371:

CA does not need last longer than 8 seconds honestly. You should be getting out what ever you need too and swapping out.

We’ll see about that when raids hit.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Where, oh where, can my pointer be?
ANet took it away from me.
It’s gone, and I don’t know where.
I’ve got to be good
So I’ll see it again before I leave this ole Zerg.

Kudos!

+1

Interesting, and this calls for further testing. Anyone?

LegallyBinding.4937:

Always use CAF 2 before 3 for AoE retaliation

Good! And tbh, something I haven’t payed attention to. +1

Justine.6351:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Justine.6351:

Cosmic Ray would be fine if it was instant hit with an after cast.

Better yes, fine – not sure. I still think the radius is way too small on both #1 & #2. Compare the feeling you get when you use Lunar Impact – that skill feels so nice; a very good heal, daze and blast finisher.

I don’t think anyone would disagree that Lunar Impact radius is borderline ridiculous. You don’t even need to aim the kitten thing and it will hit you, an ally, and half the enemy team in an spvp match. Surely you are not suggesting Cosmic Ray should be increased in radius to that point?

I’m not sure what I’m suggesting, I just feel that #1 and #2 as they are now aren’t working quite right. I like the idea of merging them, and give druid a new ‘autoattack’ for their #1. What that should be I honestly don’t know.

Justine.6351:

Cosmic Ray would be fine if it was instant hit with an after cast.

Better yes, fine – not sure. I still think the radius is way too small on both #1 & #2. Compare the feeling you get when you use Lunar Impact – that skill feels so nice; a very good heal, daze and blast finisher. I find myself using it many times for the daze alone, or the blast finisher alone.

1 and 2 just feels… meh. So, either increase their effectiveness (many ways to accomplish this), OR add something else to them. They could be merged like was suggested (but still improve them), then make #1 an autoattack that could behave much like axe #1, just to pick one example. It would primarily target allies, to heal each one it touches, but it could also bounce on enemies, making them burn or something. Just… something!

blubberblasen.3901:

https://pandateemo.github.io/YoloMouse/

Yes thank you. I’d prefer options ingame though.

Yes I have indeed. Works well for what it does. Does not solve this issue when not using that mode though.

I know. There are many topics posted about this issue – the visibility of the mouse pointer in this game. I’m one of the ppl still struggling with this from time to time, and I know I’m not alone.

Anet, any chance you can work on this and improve the visibility somehow? Whatever you do, if you do anything, make sure it’s a toggle option not to mess it up for the players that think it’s fine as is.

Same thing to a degree can also be said about the target marker above selected enemy, I wouldn’t mind a bit better visibility of that one as well.

For the game in general, there are areas that could use improvements when it comes to visibility and screen clutter – please give us more options!

I agree that ranger are an easy class for solo roaming in pve, then again my experience of other classes are very limited (ranger & thief @ 80, then a bunch of low levels).

I’d like to ask the ranger/druid community how often do you use Cosmic Ray and Seed of Life? Personally – not so much. I feel they are both very underwhelming tbh. They both suffer primarily from their tiny radius, the delay before impact and pretty low healing.

If these two skills would get the same radius as Lunar Impact, they would be in a much better position and I probably would start using them more. Cosmic Ray could use something more besides the straight up healing, be it damage, boon, condition, finisher, pet synergy… something.

But primarily – increase their radius!

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

replace with a Sigil of Transference for the additional +10% outgoing healing

Do you mean Sigil of Benevolence?

Speaking of which – Sigil of Benevolence vs Sigil of Life? When to pick one over the other (from a druid pov).

Cyninja.2954:

You must have missed the:

- Flax hype
- ToT bag hype and general Halloween farm
- Potatoe hype for 1-2 days
- Ley-Line Infused Tool hype
- Pile of Coarse Sand hype

Just to name a few. To bad, had you done more than just farm silver wastes in the past 2 weeks, you might have noticed these extreme price hikes and adjusted accordingly. I’m sure you also refered to silver wastes farming pre HoT, since then it already was around 10-15 gold per hour, the Pile of Coarse Sand insanity just added a couple of gold more per hour.

Indeed I must have missed it

Since making close to 100 gold in 2 hours (2-4 ok), or 50 gold in 1 hour or almost 1 gold/minute is something I’ve never been capable of unless I got really lucky with a drop that sells for loads

Since these things pop up from time to time, and players keep failing to see the obvious warning text at the bottom, I think Anet needs to make it more visible somehow.

Maybe a big blinking text at the beginning of the letter that you absolutely can’t miss, possibly even a confirmation button before you get to actually read the message.

+1 to Eirdyne for a well written post. Even though I don’t necessarily agree with everything you said, it’s food for thought.

That said, I really like the druid spec!

LegallyBinding.4937:

Still waiting for Health Bars! At least in PvP give us this option.

In pvp you’re always in a group, so there you can at least see health bars in the party ui. I think it’s more of a problem in pve/wvw.

Cyninja.2954:

As is one can easily farm 100 gold in 2-4 hours without trading post flipping or other fancy stuff. Just sell your loot on the trading post, done.

Wow!

Please let me in on that, to make 100 gold in 2-4 hours, please! As an avid Silver Wastes farmer, chest runs as well as events, I don’t make anywhere near that amount, and I do sell that loot. I’m serious, I really would like to know. I do tend to salvage blues and greens, maybe that’s something I shouldn’t do?

Kraggy.4169:

You’re overlooking the O/S also has to be 64-bit, many will still be using 32-bit Win7 systems I expect, or even XP maybe, and still be running on 64-bit hardware.

Nah, I’m fully aware of that. Afaik if you got a valid key for Windows 32 bit, that key should also allow you to install the 64 bit version (not counting XP). Now that may prove to be problematic though due to many things, like oem licenses and such.

I only got one wyvern so far. It’s collecting dust. Maybe I just haven’t been able to use it the way it’s meant to, I don’t know.

I like how sword works currently (well, #2 should get rid of the delay when jumping backwards OR evade from the moment I press the key) and use it a lot.

That being said, I like your ideas, Aethersong, so +1 from me.

Kylden Ar.3724:

While I will have a new 64-bit rig around late December probably, not everyone in that boat can do that.

If your computer is capable of running GW2, it should also be able to go 64 bit, considering the minimum requirements of the game when it comes to the cpu are all able to run 64 bit:

Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3 OR AMD Athlon 64 X2, or better

Please also note: “Due to potential changes, system requirements may change over time and you may be required to upgrade your current system (or obtain a new system) to continue to play the game.”

Dont talk about it. Still havent learned how things work when it comes to rangers? They wont buff the others, but nerf the Bristleback. History repeats itself over and over again.
Last I said it was in regards to what would happen to smoke assault if they swapped the F2 again…

So in the past, you [Anet] implemented priority targeting, and it’s been working pretty darn well by picking the champ as prio #1 (pve).

These last few days when running around in HoT, it’s been a true pain in the kitten to get the high priority target I see in front of me using tab targeting. Even if I clear my target and start over again, tab targeting selects some random son of a motherkittening mob somewhere on my screen. And no, don’t even get me started on mouse targeting, try get the target you want in the chaotic open world pve events, and chances are you’ll be dead before you manage to get the target you want.

Seriously Anet, the targeting system in this game sucks, it always has and probably always will. Anyway, it feels like someting has changed the last few days, probably with one of the recent patches. Can you please at least take a look at how things work?

…there’s a 64 bit client available for download now. Read more here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/64-bit-Client-Beta-FAQ/first

Good stuff!

OGDeadHead.8326:

Q: Is there a hard limitation how much ram the 64 bit client will use? I would love for it to use LOTS of memory if it means smoother performance.
If I understand things correctly, it seemed yesterday it went close to using 6 gig ram, but I may have misinterpreted the numbers show in Process Lasso (taskmanager of sorts…)

Screenshot attached…

Q: Is there a hard limitation how much ram the 64 bit client will use? I would love for it to use LOTS of memory if it means smoother performance.
If I understand things correctly, it seemed yesterday it went close to using 6 gig ram, but I may have misinterpreted the numbers show in Process Lasso (taskmanager of sorts…)

Absolutely smooth performance even in large scale open world pve events, it feels like it’s running better than the 32 bit version, taking better advantage of the memory in my computer!

Windows 10 pro 64
Xeon X5650
Gigabyte x58
R9 280 toxic
24 gig ram

Glyphs are fine as pbaoe. Traited version could activate condi cleanse faster though.

Wolfric.9380:

Oh my … When i pair up with a ranger and he puts a smoke field down …. Think teamwise. I can fire a bunch of projectiles in or blast it three times in less then a second.

Yeah, I don’t doubt the use when in a group/team. I was thinking more of how to utilize the field best by myself, solo.

I’ve never really thought about this, but isn’t the damage displayed (base damage if you will) based on pet stats (and possibly traits)?
Will have to take a look after work this evening.

The true power of the smokescale is the shadowstep functionality, and that it sticks to a target like glue during smoke assault and actually lands its attacks. I would love that shadowstep being available for other pets through some of our shouts, for example.

As for the smokefield, nice utility, I don’t use it much. I try to get several seconds of stealth going by blasting it myself with warhorn, staff and Lunar impact, but it seems I really can’t get more time out of it. Not used to smokefields, I hope someone will put up a video of how to use it effectively.

Star Ace.5207:

Was an insult, but that’s enough of that, as we’ll never agree (no reason to even mentioning RPers to make his point).

Oh I’ve totally missed this.

Anyway I’m a RPer myself, on occasion in GW2 but mostly the classic pen & paper versions.

I’m sorry if you, or anyone else, took it as an insult – that was not my intention at all, and was not the point I tried to make. This marks the end of the discussion about that for me.

Staff 3 still puts you in combat…

You do realise you have to combo a smokefield to get blinds out of it, right? As in projectile or whirl finishers.

What are you guys on about? The smokefield most definitely works as a regular smokefiled – it blinds when shooting projectiles through it.

In other words, it’s working perfectly.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smoke_field

Are these in game yet?

Way too complicated. The whole mechanic needs to be easier to access in general, without a bunch of different cooldowns and barriers.

I cannot imagine from a whole team of devs not at least one of them being fully aware of all of this though.
Either they lack the knowledge, lack time to do it right or simply do not care.

Pretty much what jewish wrote. I’ve yet to see the benefits of that glyph vs most enemies, with the exception of fast hitting ones. Maybe I’m not using it right…

Yasha.5963:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Yasha.5963:

Kuya.6495:

That’s how all traps currently work. The CD starts on trap setting, not trap activation. It allows a trap user to set up their trap immediately after it is triggered if enough time has passed. In other words, a trap user is rewarded for setting up their traps before hand and not by triggering them immediately after they are off cooldown, which is what most people in this forum are complaining about when it comes to DH using judge’s intervention to drop traps from 1,200 range.

What are you referring to? The ranger’s heal trap certainty doesn’t work like the way I described the DH trap.

It does.

No it doesn’t. A ranger’s heal trap heals when cast-if you have taken damage. If you are at full health when cast, it appears on the ground as a “trap”, but if you later step on it for a heal when you get damaged it does not trigger the heal.

That’s because if you cast it when at full health, you actually “wasted” the healing part on yourself. Believe me, I was confused about this for a while as well.

The only thing that the actual “trap” of healing spring provides, is the condition cleanse, the regen and the water field, not the actual healing because that part, like I said, is cast the moment you use the skill.

Yasha.5963:

Kuya.6495:

That’s how all traps currently work. The CD starts on trap setting, not trap activation. It allows a trap user to set up their trap immediately after it is triggered if enough time has passed. In other words, a trap user is rewarded for setting up their traps before hand and not by triggering them immediately after they are off cooldown, which is what most people in this forum are complaining about when it comes to DH using judge’s intervention to drop traps from 1,200 range.

What are you referring to? The ranger’s heal trap certainty doesn’t work like the way I described the DH trap.

It does.

ZombieLeach.5862:

(I’m kidding by the way. Seriously needs to be fixed or seriously downplayed as a mechanic though.)

Well, considering how things works around these parts, that would most likely mean:

• Ranger pets gets their damage nerfed by 50%
• Ranger damage buffed by 3%

Also, there are lots of pve rangers running around with the pet they think look nice, and couldn’t care less about their efficiency. Many never changes pet, because they are roleplaying.

Even though I really like the druid, I fully agree with everything posted here. CF skills #1 and #2 desperately needs to be fixed. Even when I try my best to predict where a person will be running, it’s very, very hard to be able to land these skills – they are slow and the radius is way too small. Instant and bigger radius yes please.

Same thing with traited glyphs, due to Anets love for delay of everything when it comes to druids skills and traits, the condition cleansing of glyphs tend to miss a lot since people step out of it before the effect goes off.

Also, being able to tell in the first place who actually needs to be healed would be a pretty kitten big QoL improvement for a healing class. I can’t imagine the idea behind the druid is to randomly put out heals all over the place.

Holland.9351:

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

Lots of small things that adds up together, and also note I’m not using glyphs untraited – Verdant Etching is a must for me to use them.
Point blank aoe damage, the effects themselves, aoe condition cleanse, aoe healing, short cd.

The elite is performing a bit bad though imho. VS slow, hard hitting mobs, its almost useless. There are a lot of things they could consider when it comes to improving it, like duration, damage, add something more to it (taunt?).

foste.3098:

Elorna.5329:

From my testing leopard is actually a bit slower than lynx, cause the extra bleeds go a long way. Especially now that cats have 1000 cond damage.

Actually the bonus condition damage pets got from the patch is bugged and only effects the number shown in the tooltips not the actual skills.

For example the lynx rending pounce and maul tooltips state that 4 stacks of bleeds are applied for 10 sec doing 5.200 damage (520 dmg per tick), but they actually do 3.280 damage (so 328 dmg per tick).

Similar thing with the hawk can’t remember the exact numbers since i am not ingame but it should deal 225 dmg per tick, the actual number is ~130 dmg per tick.

This is a big issue that has gone unfixed for 4(?) months.

Please post about it in every druid/ranger bugs thread you can find!

…how does it work? Is it the devs themselves that plays around in pvp matches and find out that this needs to buffed/nerfed?

Or do they read the complaints here on the forums? Observe matches? Collect data in some other way? Or do they talk to some special individual top tier players about it? Are all classes equally represented, without bias?

Anyone in the know here about this?

ping @Josh Davis, for example.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Well it’s been about 5 minutes since the last ranger nerf, I suppose it is about time to nerf rangers again.

Lol! Indeed! +1

I used my fire wyvern for about an hour when I got it in pve. Haven’t touched it since. I got the feeling they weren’t working right. Let’s just say your nice compilation here confirmed my suspicions, so +1 for that.