Guild Wars 2

Druid feels like it was bolted onto Ranger at the last minute. With things like Reaper, Chronomancer, Tempest, Berserker, Scrapper, Dragonhunter and so on, you can see how the spec is a clear extension of the base profession. You could take Druid and give it to Elementalists, Guardians or Necromancers and it wouldn’t feel out of place. There is no thematic underpinning between Druid and Ranger because Druid doesn’t tie into any of the Ranger’s core mechanics.

Druid feels like a new one weapon profession created with the single-minded purpose of having a healer for raids and then strapped onto the back of Rangers because where else can you jam it in? Even if I thought this was a good thing, and I don’t, what happens when Anet abandon raids like they abandoned dungeons and fractals? We’re the ones stuck with the gimmick spec designed for a specific purpose that’s become obsolete. As it stands Druid is way too over-centralised with its focus on healing. Seriously? It has like eight different heals and no real synergy or interaction with other trait lines or core Ranger mechanics. And at this point, can Druid even be adjusted in a meaningful way considering we’re under four weeks out from launch and we don’t even begin testing until next week? You could have given this spec to Thieves and it would have fit just as well.

Nobody before this announcement made a Ranger because they wanted to be a healer. It would be like making the Elementalist spec a non-magical brawler. No Elementalist made their character with the notion that they’d discard magic to punch things in the face. It’s a poor thematic fit that feels shoehorned in because apparently somebody’s spec had to be the dedicated healer for the new raiding trinity and we’re the people who copped one for the team.

It also doesn’t help that there appears to be an influx of people migrating over solely because they want to be a healer telling people in the existing Ranger community to sit down, shut up and stop voicing their opinions that they don’t like the direction this went in. People should be free to express their feelings about the Druid regardless of whether it’s in favour of it or against it without self-appointed censors telling people that they’re not allowed to complain or dislike it.

I’ll be using Sinister gear and leaning heavily on condi damage and control. I don’t see myself equipping the staff in its current state.

The pets looked nice and I’m excited for the long overdue balance of the main professions.

Druid though strikes me as overly focused on healing to the point that it’s essentially a gimmick spec. It also seems like it was designed exclusively to prop up the new raid content at the expense of other areas of play. This is worrisome given Anet’s track record of abandoning content like Dungeons and Fractals. Are we going to be stuck with the elite spec designed specifically for content that will likely be abandoned eighteen months down the road when something new and shiny catches Anet’s eye?

I didn’t want this and I don’t particularly care for it but I need time and testing to see if I can take what’s been dumped on us and try to salvage something workable from it. Which is a shame considering how little actual testing time has been allocated to us. Any way you cut it though, I didn’t make a Ranger to be a healer and I will never be anybody’s healbot.

I was thinking something like shortbow and greatsword to focus on stuns for the cc trait. I also might try greatsword and axe/torch to stack bleeds, burns and stun. It’s possible I’ll also go with longbow and sword/torch. If the longbow knockback can proc the entanglement trait then it could be interesting.

Runiir.6425:

I could be on board for that. However they need to update the necromancer minions as well. Currently the electric wyvern has the SAME SKILL as the flesh golem, a bloody elite for necromancers, this is rather problematic considering the ranger isn’t giving up a skill slot to have that pet.

Rangers give up 30% of their personal damage potential to have a pet. You want Necros to be brought up to the same position? Sure. Let’s do this.

First thing, all your skill damage is dropped to compensate for your new minions. You can choose two minions to use in combat and have a maximum of one minion out at a time. You liked your old minion menagerie where you could have like eleven minions (sixteen once HoT launches) out at once? Too bad. You get one now. But at least it will be a good one, right? No. It will be the worst thing about your profession until someone decides to turn you into a healbot. The AI will still be terrible, there will unbelievable lag between commanding it to use its skill and it actually deciding to, it will pull aggro like nothing else, it will get you stuck in combat and it will sit in damage until it dies meaning your 30% damage dip was for nothing.

But at this point you’re thinking, they’re just like minions, right? Except you have more control. Kinda, but there’s an important distinction. Necros can choose to not run minions. Rangers are stuck with our barely functional profession gimmick. And here’s what I need you understand: I like Ranger pets. They’re stupid as all get out but don’t for a second think I don’t have every single pet tamed, and once Anet ever gets around to fixing the naming bug, they’ll all get names too. But mechanically speaking, there is nothing here to be jealous of. But if you want to be in the same position, go ahead and petition Anet for it. If your luck runs poorly, you might actually get what you wish for.

Aren’t WoW Druids the only ones that change form? And animal forms is a Norn thing. There’s no reason to step on their toes.

If you trait into Clarion Call on swap you can blast fields on pet swap too. It’s what I tend to do instead of running a warhorn in combat.

I have no intention of using the staff but I’ll need to test it during the next BWE to see how viable it is for myself and my playstyle.

I don’t find it particularly odd. Ranger tends to have so much condi cleanse it can’t carry it all at once. Resistance stops conditions working for a time, but it doesn’t remove them. Druids have multiple methods to cleanse conditions. Resistance isn’t necessary, we already have the better option.

cafard.8953:

[…] And though that wasn’t my thing, i’m still looking forward to the green numbers i can push out. Wondering how absurdly one can push out a Nomad BearStaff build. […]

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Healbot.

Take it as a challenge and go full healer with Nomad, the staff and a Fern Hound pet. Then activate Oprah mode, “You get a heal! You get a heal! Everybody gets a heal! Nobody goes home dead today!”

I had absolutely zero desire to be a dedicated healer and I don’t know of any other Ranger main who did. That being said, some of the Druid traits looked okay and the bulk of the healing focus is on the staff skills. I may just spec into Druid and discard the staff completely. Even without the staff you can offer some group support from Reverse Death Shroud form.

Watching the start of the reveal felt a bit like being punched in the gut but it got mildly better as it continued. The new pets were definitely the high point for me. They all look nice. Some of the glyphs could also be useful in regular play. I’m still not really sure what to make of Druid. It’s not even close to anything I could possibly have wanted but I’ll wait until next week’s BWE to see if I can do anything with it.

Is there a reason why some of the LS2 cutscenes are unskippable? I’m trying to get the achievements done but if I don’t get them right on the first shot I have to sit through those long cinematics again and again and again.

Is there some kind of technical reason why these can’t be skipped?

Now the lack of beta testing time makes sense. It was dead before it was ever born. I could not be more disappointed.

The individual episodes of LS2 were unlocked for free if you logged in at any point during the two week period while they were active. If you don’t have them unlocked and want to play them you will need to purchase them from the gemstore.

1) Absolutely.

2) It depends on what you mean by level 1-79 experience. If you mean widesweeping changes to leveling mechanics, traits and so forth similar to the NPE, then no, not likely. However, there will be map reward changes when HoT launches. Completing events in most maps will reward you with crafting materials from a per-map preset rotating list. The exception to this new rewards system are the racial starter zones. Anet have stated this is to retain the feel of the early level experience for new players. Beyond that, there shouldn’t be any changes to the level 1-79 experience.

BWEs are typically given with one week of advanced notice. TwitchCon and the Druid information reveal is coming in a day or two so I’d say next weekend is likely. They’ll probably announce the next BWE at TwitchCon too.

Prophet.6257:

I hate to be this guy but just be glad you didn’t get “dragonhunter” or “daredevil”.

I do pity the guardians and thieves. Both those names are embarrassingly bad. Druid has some lore behind it as well as a place in MMO history.

I would honestly rather choose a name like Treehunter over only getting one BWE for testing and iteration.

I kinda forgot to write up feedback after the last BWE so I never addressed this. Thank you for changing the animation effect on this. It was, arguably, a small change but it was important to me. It looks so much nicer now too.

I think Ranger/Thief would be interesting. There’d have to be some nice synergy there.

How about Planthunters?

Original Orr was terrible and I hope that Mordremoth territory is just as bad until the post-Mordremoth Living Story update.

Original Orr was just downright mean. The mob density, respawn and the fact that you were likely in garbage masterworks or rares meant that you had to fight tooth and nail for every inch of progress. It was awful, but also a little great at the same time. You can more or less just waltz through Orr now and it feels bizarre in comparison.

Not normal, no. I’d recommend changing your password just to be sure. Make sure your Guild Wars 2 password is both strong and unique. Don’t use the same password for Guild Wars 2 that you use anywhere else.

1) Representation is the mechanic that determines which of the guilds you’re in that you currently display to the outside world. Representing allows you to do various things like claim areas in WvW if you have those rank privileges set, lets you join your guild during Guild Missions and it generates a guild resource, influence, when you complete activities in the game.

The reason to 100% rep a guild is so they receive all of your generated influence, but beyond that, is to develop and maintain a consistent, active community. If 75% of your guild isn’t repping it can become difficult to keep your community alive. People tend to like to be where other people are so 100% rep rules help keep the community centred.

2) It doesn’t. From your perspective I can understand why it would seem that way, but many players enjoy an environment of being in multiple guilds. If you’ve willingly chosen to join a 100% rep guild then you’ve essentially agreed to only have one guild available to you.

3) I doubt 100% repping will disappear in HoT. However, HoT is slated to bring in multiple guild chats so you should be able to maintain a 100% rep rate in one guild but still talk to your friends in you social guild at the same time.

4) I would handle this situation by leaving the 100% rep guild and finding a guild more to my tastes. I do not like 100% rep guild so I do not join 100% rep guilds. As an Oceanic player I tend to have periods of the day where one of my guilds is dead. At that point, I switch to another guild that actually has people online. In a 100% rep guild or even a “rep us 80% of the time” guild, I would run into trouble if it were discovered I were doing that, even if the rest of the guild was offline.

Hearing Guild Wars 1 music. I love the GW1 OST but so much of it was recycled into GW2 and I find it jarring when it pops up.

Especially if the music is out of place, like hearing Sands of Kryta in Frostgorge Sound or the music from pre-searing Ascalon in Orr. The regions in GW1 all had their own set musical theme and it helped set the atmosphere. In GW2 it’s all just dumped into a giant pile.

It makes me glad that HoT has its own, new music.

I often tell people if I like their armour or costume. I’ve never had anybody react poorly to the compliment yet.

Sea of Sorrows is the unofficial Oceanic server.

Even the pet has the Anet icon. That’s adorable.

From what I understand, the HoT PS is designed to be replayable. So even if there are minor things you miss by not doing the Zhaitan arc, things like no specific reactivity due to Order choice or NPC story encounters, there would still be the opportunity to go back, do the Zhaitan arc and then re-run the HoT PS and see the small, missed reactivity.

Wondrouswall.7169:

No. Druid will hold the staff…

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With NO Hands!!! :o Pet carrying staff confirmed.

I would stop my griping for at least twelve minutes if there was a skill where you throw the staff, your pet runs over, fetches it, runs back to you and trips everything between the landing point and you.

RIP “When It’s Ready”.

Long live, “It’s okay to release low iterated, partially tested content. They’ll just patch it later probably maybe”

Are those three light armour characters all Necromancers, Bishop? Because this was some high quality thread necromancy right here.

Area currencies like geodes don’t show up correctly in vendor windows. It displays zero instead of how many you actually have in your wallet. You can still purchase as normal, but it’s clearly nor working as intended.

Don’t worry. The new maps have more than just Mordrem in them. For instance, I know some Smokescales that would love to make your acquaintance.

For Sylvari characters, definitely, Caithe interacts with you a lot in the personal story. For other races, it depends. A lot of the Destiny’s Edge interactions presume that you’ve done their dungeon story paths. It’s been roughly three years since I watched the dungeon story cinematics, but even then I don’t think Caithe has any particularly prominent interaction with the player.

At most I’d say that most of the trust represented is second-hand. Namely, you trust Caithe because she’s buddies with your mentor. At the end of the day though, I want my egg back, Caithe.

This post has changed my life. I used to be disgruntled about the three years worth of bugs that haven’t been touched and the fact that our elite specialisation will get a third of the time that other specs got for broad player testing and iteration. But now I’ve come to love, and even cherish the neglect from out benevolent overlords. I was unaware that my desire to not have a hamstrung profession was so damaging to you. I am deeply and sincerely sorry that you have been forced, possibly at gunpoint, to read comments from players who want to improve their profession and have been completely ignored.

Now though, I know that I should just embrace the unique “features” of my profession. Why shouldn’t 30% of my damage be tied to a profession gimmick with terrible AI, pathfinding and which I have minimal control over? Why shouldn’t my sword auto-attack either pin me to a target like glue or send me flying off in a random direction like I’d just been shot out of a cannon? I used to think this was an annoying bug that nobody should have to deal with. But now? Gosh, I just see that as an opportunity for adventure! And the mystery! Will this be the combat that launches me off a cliff to my death? Where will I fly off to next? Oh boy, I can hardly withstand the suspense.

And I now realise that my profession presents other unique opportunities. I used to main the shortbow until it was nerfed into the ground because it was making longbow look terrible in comparison. Now, however, I see that the shortbow is actually an opportunity to challenge myself. Who needs to do a reasonable degree of damage in combat anyway? Truly the shortbow is just Guild Wars 2’s equivalent to Hard Mode.

Truly, with the power of positivity you can just ignore everything that actually needs to be fixed. And it’s not just in the game that this new outlook can be applied. I was going to see the doctor today about this nasty cough I’ve been having, but I now see that actually speaking out about problems and trying to get them remedied is unnecessary when you have the power of smiles!

MithranArkanere.8957:

Well, other than scenery, the only plants you see around that are not corrupted or nightmare court are treants.

Aloes, thorns, ibogas, jaracandas, drake plants, walking bushes, guardians…

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Wiki:Projects/NPC_models/Plants

You don’t see any of those sentient plants anymore. Not much of anything to cry.

Not being able to take a flamethrower to aloes is something to be upset about. Trying to do a Vanquish with three or four of them sitting in a cluster all healing each other was infuriating. Is that what Menders are? Easily interruptable dragon aloes?

Oh, Ten Ton Hammer didn’t have the exclusive reveal this time? What a surprising turn of events. I wonder what happened there.

I hadn’t even noticed. This upsets my loretism. They should all have legit combinations.

That’s an interesting point. I can’t recall seeing Rytlock use anything other than Sohothin. When does he use a pistol?

I’ve had maybe five key drops since the headstart. That’s like a precursor, except infinitely worse in every way.

In the HoT beta story there’s a cinematic where a Pact unit kills a Mordrem guard and then gets struck down by the incoming rider. My question is this: The pact unit is wearing Whispers medium armour but is wielding a hammer. Until the Forge comes in no medium armour professions can use hammers. So what’s the dealy?

I don’t keyfarm enough to affected by this but it’s still unpleasant. If Anet want people to buy Black Lions Keys instead of spending time on alternatives, make buying them worthwhile instead of packing the chests full of garbage like boosters or, worse, booster dust.

I don’t think anybody in this thread has yet considered the most disturbing possible implication of Mordremoth being able to resurrect his minions.

Why give all professions the same opportunities for testing, iteration and refinement when you can just shove a half-baked concept out the door? But look, we’re dealing with the same people who needed the community to point out that a profession with over-specialised, locked in utilities might actually need a weapon swap and the people who needed us to point out that a profession based around mobility from special dodges might actually benefit from those dodges not rooting you to the ground for over a second.

I am sure that in one beta weekend event, one round of feedback and less than five weeks of turn-around time we can achieve the exact same level of polish as the professions that received multiple events for testing, multiple rounds of feedback and months of time for people to iterate, be creative and problem solve. I am sure that in five weeks we will have a product that was released “When It’s Ready” as we were told it would be and not shoved out the door to meet a preset deadline.

Despair wrought sarcasm aside, why? Just why? That’s all I want to know. Why the lopsided development schedule that so heavily favours other professions? And why is it that so often it’s Rangers and Engineers that catch the short end of the stick? I didn’t even want to spec into Druid and I wasn’t excited by the concept of a staff Ranger. But I know there are people who were excited by this and did want this for their Rangers, so why do they the scraps of development crunch time, testing and iteration? Why? Just why?

Five weeks to release and one more beta weekend event to go. I have absolutely zero faith at this point that Druid and Forge will be in good shape on release day. In any event, my bet is on Engineer being last.

You can also get them from Black Lion Chests if you have a bunch of keys lying around or want to farm up a bunch. Keep in mind that they’re kinda rare though.

TRon.2610:

Anyone know when they update the sales? Same time everyday?

It should be in about half an hour. If in doubt, go check the trade post and see how much time the current sale items have remaining.

The Falls and Lyssa’s Ice Cave.

Hopefully we’ll get to see The Falls again next month.

Character slots are what I’ve been hoarding my gems for. I don’t even need more character slots at this point, but I want them.

If the copper fed salvage-o-matic also had a price drop that would make me happy too.

You make an excellent point. If Mordremoth can attack the Mother Tree in the Grove, it can attack anywhere.