Guild Wars 2

Bits of it. The personal story in the base game was decent. However, the Living Story editions have less redeeming qualities about them.

Wasted opportunities to reintroduce existing characters in a meaningful way, while having a solid story showing more and telling less.

Overall, they could have saved time and budget with smarter narrative choices. Instead, they have ambitions to do more, and lack the of sense to be reserved and coherent.

Don’t think too much on the meta builds. The main ones are cripple and poison as they mess with our mobility and healing. If they aren’t present, use Vigorous Training. If they are present and you keep finding yourself inflicted with them to the point of being a noticeable annoyance, then slot Evasive Purity.

Granted, I also share the sentiment of slotting Vigorous Training over Evasive Purity since blindness negates damage and not healing (our bread n butter) and Vine Surge can self-cleanse cripple and on allies in its path. Better than using a dodge in my opinion.

Not to mention everyone can dodge more with Vigorous Training – and for those comps that use a Herald – more uptime for them for that extra 2% damage per unique boon and 1% for us (not that it matters) if Bountiful Hunter is slotted.

I prefer this variant: HGH Boon Scrapper

More power and ferocity, less toughness, 95% critical chance with traits and fury, less costly sigil instead of concentration/momentum, and 100% boon duration.

Honed Axes should just ditch the ferocity and apply something else that both condition and power can benefit from. Make it active, too, rather than just having an axe in (either) hand. Maybe buff an off-hand axe skill. Something like:

Honed Axes: Gain Honed Axes (5s) each time you strike a foe with an axe skill. Axe skills recharge 20% faster. Winter’s Bite is an AOE and Path of Scars inflicts Daze (½s) on the outgoing strike. Honed Axes: +2% critical hit chance per stack. Stacks up to 10 times.

That would make it worthy of the GM slot in my book.

I’d rather Canines receive the nice high-leap AOE stomp the wolves in “Frozen Out” have instead of the single-target crippling leap. Would be a nice upgrade for an already solid Pet. Or just give us a new Canine pet with it as its F2 skill to replace the Hyena.

First time since his introduction, I’m all right with Braham. He’s been a useless meat shield since day 1 and was a flat, boring character with no character.

Now he’s angry, has some angst, is showing initiative, and has a reason for it besides “thing is happening so I need to do it”. Is the reason and his acting cliche or typical? You bet. But for the first time, he has conflict, a developing arc, motivation, and character.

It’s not the best writing, but it’s now getting interesting with characters and their interactions between each other due to this conflict.

wildflares.9732:

3. Having to do Frozen Out again from beginning to get to the boss fight.

This one irritates me the most. Most of the other Living Story boss encounters with achievements had a mote you could interact with to start the boss fight over again. It’s absent here and highly annoying repeating this from start to finish.

Happened to me, too. One work around right now is to loot frozen Ice Boxes with the torch and hope you get Winterberries from it to fill the meter. That’s what I had to do.

Map design is nice. Less Waypoints are punishing in a good way and mob density seems appropriate. Map currency (Winter Berries) are easy to come by, not too easy but enough to where they can be farmed consistently unlike Blood Rubes from Bloodstone Fen.

New enemies are the only mixed bag. The new moves are nice, varied, and density provides a decent – albeit artificial – challenge. My only gripe is the insane amount of homing projectiles the new mobs have.

It’s one thing for a projectile to make a slight adjustment to hit a moving player, and another when some are doing near 180 degree turns and still hitting a player with Super Speed that has moved out of its supposed trajectory.

Lahmia.2193:

All Necro marks and Dragonhunter Traps have a double radius. So no, Rangers aren’t the only ones to have it.

If they were different active effects such as Mark of Blood dealing bleed to enemies when triggered within a 240 radius and regen applied to allies within 180 radius, then you can say what you did.

Otherwise, nope, Rangers are the only ones that have it. Even further when some Pet F2 traits have 240-300 radius on top of their F2 radius if they have an AOE ability.

I think it would be a buff and a nerf. A buff since it will have a stronger synergy with Remorseless and working with other weapons such as Longbow and Shortbow. A nerf in the aspect of reduced fury uptime as gaining fury will depend on moderately-high CD skills and landing the CC.

Granted, it would be an all right buff as it’s not a large buff while being susceptible to being negated with blinds, blocks, invulnerability, stability, and having to rely on moderately-high weapon skill cooldowns.

Hmm… seems to be on the right track but not nearly there, Triss. Rather than on Swoop, what about altering the fury application on Two-Handed Training to be like multiple traits where half of it applies to a set of weapons while the other half – in this case, the fury, is more universal?

That said, what about:

Two-Handed Training: Greatsword and Spear skills recharge 20% faster and deal 5% more damage (same). Gain Fury (3s) when you Daze, Stun, Knockback, or Knockdown a foe with a weapon skill.

This way, it can sync up with Moment of Clarity and the Fury application can be more focused to increase the potency of Remorseless builds. On the flip side, it will only work when doing the above listed hard CCs with weapon skills.

That cuts out some Druid synergy with Celestial Form, Primal Echoes, and Glyph of Equality and Tides as those are transformation skills and utilities. This way, it does not empower Druid further, allowing core Ranger to stand on its own.

This also makes it exclusive to Two-Handed weapons with the exclusion of a Pull CC which links to off-hand Axe (Path of Scars). So, at least Longbow and Shortbow can now have some use and synergy with this trait on Point Blank Shot and Concussion Shot.

I might add this to the main list.

I’d avoid Water Spirit all together, regardless of the mode, since it’s still bugged.

The wiki was updated a few months ago, and here is the original thread created a few patches ago when it was “fixed” (but not really) and tested: LINK.

The only area it excels in is underwater combat due to being a good Astral Force generator since our Glyphs do not work underwater (get on it devs, ffs) or niche raid groups.

As for feedback on the build itself, swap out some Cleric pieces for Minstrel to boost boon duration given by yourself and Nature’s Vengeance.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Just as an FYI…if you had either Mad Memories skins, and lost them before the wardrobe implementation…often times Customer Support can return those to you. I have read threads before where people asked about it, and several replies posted stating to open a ticket, and if they can verify you got it, they mail it back to you to unlock in your wardrobe.

Hmm. Thanks for this bit of info as I am going to attempt this. I have proof via completed 2012 achievements in the Historical Panel to show as a screenshot that I was there. I am one of those that lost the skins during the Wardrobe change.

Not sure how far they are willing to go since I never thought about sending in a ticket about it as I assumed it was just lost forever. I’ll update on the results, though.

Given the thematics of the new map, I doubt it. Just think of the release of Ember Bay. Most of the new enemies there were weak to ice, taking more damage when chilled.

If anything, the video most likely displayed the Engineer Flamethrower in the same fashion. New enemies in the map will be weak to fire and take more damage while burning is applied.

I get the feeling FT won’t see a buff the next patch, unless they just decide to spread out the current burning to ¼s burn ticks per hit, resulting in an extra ½s of burning when all 10 hits connect.

Otherwise, condition and flamethrower camping builds would thrive in the new map. Not that it matters as it’s open world PVE.

To me, the only thing that needs a tweak is the difficulty at East. Give some of those Bristlebacks the range and firing capabilities of the White Mantle rock-tossers in Bloodstone Fen, and it’ll be one hell of a party.

Whoops, my bad. xD

OGDeadHead.8326:

• Go for the Eyes, remove ICD […]
• Beastly Warden, remove ICD […]

Beastly Warden is one of those traits that would require an ICD unless the Hawk and Eagle F2s are changed. A 2s Taunt every 4¾s would be, well… something else.

As for Go For The Eyes, that can be deleted for all I care. Rangers were fine before without it, and are still fine after it was nerfed. I’d take the return of the Master’s Bond trait you mentioned to replace it.

Wouldn’t it be a nice joke if one of the crafting components of this shield was 250 broken ornaments from Jumping Puzzle chests?

As for speculation, pics have shown the Quaggan peering out of the tank when sheathed and swims in the water when equipped. I’m going to speculate it goes belly-up when the player gets defeated.

Dang. There goes my hope for a toilet seat themed legendary shield that flushes when you sheathe it and has a small Mystic Forge effect in the center under the seat…

On a side note, the fun/silly themed legendaries are my cup of tea. I might play more just to make this one.

Earix.5684:

Main question:
If Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow were the issue, why wouldn’t you add a 25/30 sec cooldown on these traits instead of on our main specialization mechanic?

I would tread lightly asking questions like these, because: 1) You will not receive a direct answer from the developers and 2) They would most likely read feedback such as this and implement it while retaining previous changes such as the increased cooldown on Celestial Avatar Form in certain modes.

To sprinkle a bit of optimism in the Profession Balance Design team, they were smart enough to place no or proper internal cooldowns with a mechanic so the flow of combat is smooth.

To point out examples, check out Necromancer’s Spiteful Spirit and Weakening Shroud where one has no ICD (which Necromancer players had to request multiple times) and the other has a 10s ICD that syncs up with their Shroud mechanic.

Even on Warrior where Berserker traits such as Always Angry, Bloody Roar, and Fatal Frenzy have no ICDs so the flow of combat when using a profession mechanic isn’t hindered by out-of-sync cooldowns.

So, even though ICDs have a place and can be useful when attached appropriately, let’s not ask for MORE ICD increases (or more ICDs) and instead ask and suggest how traits such as the ones you mentioned could be more finely tuned.

LughLongArm.5460:

Whta about the middle ground? 50% AF after death and/or and of combat?

I’d rather lose all AF when exiting CF than lose any AF when out of combat.

Druids rarely, if ever, use Cosmic Ray in raids. Rejuvenating Tides and Lunar Impact are our primary tools as they both serve as a heal and additional utility.

Burst heal and CC with Lunar Impact and moderate heal-over-time with a water field and full Grace of the Land with Rejuvenating Tides. Seeds of Life is also sprinkled in for a small heal, condition cleanse, blind, and stack of Grace.

There are setups of full Berserker with Monk Runes and Rice Ball food for 50% outgoing healing on top of the PS Warrior minor trait that increases healing power of allies by 10 per Might stack they apply. A feature that’s overlooked on PS Warriors as they not only increase everyone’s damage, but also our healing.

Overall, a low healing Berserker Druid (assuming Monk and Rice Balls) comes in with 275 healing power, 525 with a PS Warrior at 25 might stacks, 345 base with full healing infusions and 595 with the PS Warrior buff.

It may not seem to be much, but 500+ Healing Power with +50% outgoing healing adds up and allows a Berserker Druid to be effective within an organized and experienced group.

Vukorep.3081:

But again…how much healing is actually needed? Even with pugs and new first time raiders?

I showed the numbers comparing a full healing power magi vs a “75%” zealots/magi’s gear set and the differences are very minimal… do those differences seriously impact raid groups so much (with new players) ?

So another question now…
I understand druid healers arent ment to deal dps…but lets say we pug with people that know their class and they understand other classes and they watched videos about the raid and learn quickly..

Knowing the above mentioned healing numbers,how much of a difference would a full magi’s druid healer have compared to the above mentioned weapon/armor zealot’s + magi’s trinkets?

Here’s the gist for these questions.

1: As much healing as is required. This depends and varies group-by-group. A blanket response does not suffice in cases where you have no stable group members (frequently dealing with different people with varying experiences).

2: Don’t think about the numbers too much. What impacts raid groups the most is experience and being able to adapt. Extra healing can help a raid team more than the extremely low amount of extra damage in which we can personally contribute.

Damage is important, but making sure other classes that can (easily) out-damage our profession stay alive and receive buffs is more important and valuable. Gear-wise, this should be looked at on a group-by-group basis.

3: Not much, as in less than or around 5% difference, which varies further depending on rotation and setup such as switching between sword/warhorn and primarily camping staff.

In the specific situation you mentioned where party members know their classes, the mechanics, and can adapt to the party’s composition, you might as well use full Berserker unless you are inexperienced.

In which case, Magi or mix Magi and Zealot, because the last thing people want to do in scenarios like the above mentioned is revive the healer.

More Accessible Raids Track

• This mastery unlocks a raid mode where all boss encounters are costume brawls. Raid currency is absent from this mode. Reward for defeating each encounter is a “Sense of Achievement” consumable item that grants 1,000 Karma. Capped 1 per encounter, per account.

Too Fast, Too Casual Track

• This mastery negates stat gains from armors, trinkets, and weapons. Only weapon attack power is effective and your health pool is reduced to what it would be at level 1. This applies to core Tyria maps and dungeons only.

Combat Operation! Track

• Reviving a downed or defeated ally now requires positioning and only repairs an ally’s armor piece for the area you tend to them. On a successful revive and repair, gain an item based on that body part. If reviving a part that does not have damaged or broken armor, that ally’s armor part becomes broken.

Items gained on success:
-Helmet: Apple with “Adam” etched on it or an ice cream cone.
-Shoulders and Gloves: Pencil or a comically-shaped bone.
-Chest: Broken heart-shaped locket, 2-3 butterflies, or bread basket.
-Pants and Boots: Miniature Horse (rare drop), pail of water, wrench, or rubber band.

Would rather see the current 10 hits of Flame Jet be reduced to 8 hits with ¼s Burning applied on each hit. If the cast time is reduced because of the reduced amount of hits, then no direct damage increase. If the cast time remains, then buff the direct damage of each tick by 24% to compensate for the 2 reduced hits.

I’m on the fence on this one. It has never bothered me losing astral force upon death, and I can see how others would find it an inconvenience.

Maybe meet halfway and lose half of the remaining astral force when downed and lose it all when defeated? I don’t know.

I’m certain that people do mix gear, it’s just that full Magi gear is the safest healing set available due to the extra survivability and maximized healing without grabbing aggro. A set that is especially useful for learning groups and unstable/unorganized groups.

Zealot’s is a good compromise between Magi and Berserker. However, the differences are smaller when mixing the two sets to the point it doesn’t matter compared to a full set of Zealot or Magi.

It’s not a bad thing to mix gear stats, as some other Druids have mentioned using Zealot armor and weapons with Berserker trinkets or vice-versa. As long as it works, go with it.

Otherwise, you could pose the question of why don’t people go with full Zealot instead of mixing Magi and Zealot pieces. The damage remains the same post-patch while the healing has only been reduced by less than 10% of the pre-patch values.

Before I add it to the list, I want to propose a quality of life question for Pets to you all.

What about altering F1 (Attack My Target) to function additionally as the “Skill Re-Targeting” function in our Options/Combat menu?

Currently, if you press F1 when a Pet is channeling a skill, it interrupts it and either sets it on a 5-second cooldown if done before it is able to execute a skill, or full cooldown while it is executing a skill.

I feel as though this would be a great Quality of Life improvement for Pets to have F1 still act as marking and attacking a new target (current feature) but add on the ability to re-target enemies during skill use.

This will mean a couple of things. Leap moves such as found on Canine’s can be used more effectively if the player recognizes quickly that a target is out of the Pet’s move range.

The player will then be able to press F1 to a closer or another target while the Canine is channeling a pounce and no longer interrupt said action. The like could be said to Pets that use projectiles, such as Bristleback and River/Marsh Drake F2 abilities.

This would come in handy for enemies that have died mid-channel so the Pet can redirect the remaining projectiles at another target without wasting or disrupting the flow of combat.

Thoughts before it goes on the list?

Dovkan.3519:

This is what I run in WvW. Comments?

Nice guide. I was not expecting it to be detailed and presented as such. Many kudos on that alone. Any plans to attach a short video show-casing the build?

I used to run something similar, but now use a more offensive block-buster Druid with Marksmanship and Beastmastery to disrupt Guards and Heralds in zerg clashes.

Keep the suggestions and ideas going. As anyone can see on the main list, bullet points for Most Dangerous Game, Predator’s Instinct, and some others are left open-ended.

If they [Anet] decide to address any of those, let’s leave it up to them on what the changes would be. The suggestions can provide a pool of ideas for them to draw from.

Edit: I like the idea of Predator’s Instinct casting “Sic ’Em!”. The cooldown can remain at 40s, however, adding Cripple to it might be nice.

Maybe not on the cast of “Sic ’Em!” itself, but as an alternative instead of a boon as other shouts received during their revisions.

Other shouts provide the Ranger with a boon, so what about “Sic ’Em!” provide the Ranger with a buff that makes their next strike inflict cripple? Otherwise, Fury would be a good boon to synergize with Remorseless.

Timekeeper, Scientific, and Spectral.

Functions similar to Spatial Surge now. That said, you can stow/cancel to speed up the damage by a hair. Worth doing? Nah. Mildly entertaining though.

LughLongArm.5460:

This will just kill the Remorseless trait, making “Predator’s Onslaught”, straight out better.

Nah. They buffed Predator’s Onslaught and it’s still primarily used in PvE. The above merge and trait split would change nothing on PO as it just allows more access to Opening Strike with a chance of different build variants.

If anything, it would just encourage people to choose Remorseless and Marksmanship in PvP and WvW more because the bonuses are there as minors. Now we can freely choose the burst while longbow builds would stick to Lead the Wind.

Don’t forget how rampant -% condition and movement-impending durations that are available that makes PO less effective. Not to mention, Anet could do the good ole’ wonky balancing and nerf PO down to 10% in PvP and WvW to make Remorseless stand out.

Meh, they can keep the drop rate and acquisition for T6 leather the same. I just want the crafting recipe from requiring 3 down to 2. =/

We won’t take it seriously, but Anet will. You probably killed a dev in that video, and then they complained to Roy while Irenio was out during lunch.

Nice video by the way.

foste.3098:

Make the ‘fury recharges opening strike’ part a minor trait so that the minors are self sufficient and leaving remorseless as just a 25% damage increase on opening strike.

I’m down with this simple change. Nothing major and the Remorseless GM will be a simple damage boost for a minor trait mechanic since the refresh is moved as a minor. Opens up more avenues and might produce a few variant build types.

I’m with Eleazar. Attack of Opportunity would be better off as an unblockable as it is a single attack with a +50% damage boost. Would make Moment of Clarity and Signet of the Hunt more attractive while keeping unblockable access limited.

It’s just a tooltip error. Tests were done on patch day by some of us to confirm. That is… unless the 3-4 patches after that broke it. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.

RNG is RNG. I can understand any disappointment in outcomes like what you have posted. My biggest disappointment with Black Lion Chests is that I can no longer just toss them from my inventory with a simple confirm prompt, and instead have to type out the name.

These chests are not that important, Anet. Revert this change. =/

InsaneQR.7412:

Problem with Spirits is not that the buff is useful its lackluster because of the wonky ICD of the Spirits and the % chance they give. Additionally there are better ways to buff party members in cases of protection and swiftness. Remove the ICD keep the % chance. make the spirits moveable again and give the spirits a Shatter like beahaviour on activation (it runs to its target and activates).

I feel as though if Spirits were to get some form of rework, as in rebalancing them without ICDs and such, they should be done somewhat differently rather than unified. Not that they all are as Nature Spirit is the exception with a heal-over-time bonus.

I’m all right with your Stone Spirit suggestion and reasoning for a flat 10% damage reduction. Personally, I’d like to see some of the other Spirits provide more active means for their effects. Like:

Also, I always believed Spirit actives should be creating a field of their element. Stone could leave an ethereal field to give us another access to it while Nature can leave a light field.

Not sure why it hasn’t been done yet, but I supposed that can be something introduced into traits, as a single spirit trait is kind of lacking (to me). Anet seems content with leaving Spirits as boon-turrets, so possibly another Spirit trait to augment this?

Have a new trait that increases passive and active ranges on Spirits by 50%. This would allow Rangers to trait for improved coverage of the battlefield in compensation for the loss of Spirits Unbound. Then, change the increased active range on Nature’s Vengeance (as it would be on the other trait) to Spirit actives now create a 3s, 240 or 360 radius combo field.

Spit-balling at this point, but maybe there’s something there; none of which are low-hanging fruit so…

Jim Hunter.6821:

Having every pet available for WvW (like they are in PvP) would be nice. Sucks having to cap them repeatedly for each ranger when I have zero map completion on most of my characters.

This is going on the list. I like this because it can allow people to just jump into WvW and have right at it just like PvP. Place a Juvenile Wolf in a PvE map somewhere since there would be no need to charm it in WvW with this suggestion.

Spirits are the only ones that I would consider reworking, but not because they are lackluster per-say. I personally do not like ICDs, the % chances, and how Water Spirit depends on Nature’s Vengeance to be decent.

As for the rest, I do want to see Signet of Stone get a 5 second cooldown reduction. Yeah, it’s not much, but I wanna see a clean 75s/60s cooldown that’s comparable to other high-cooldown defensive utilities.

5 seconds less, Anet. That’s all I’m asking for

That all depends on the party, Archon. No easy answer for that one. A general answer is: it’s safe to not have any pieces at all. The best thing you can do is take it group-by-group.

Ask the designated tank how much toughness they have, and replace pieces of your minstrel armor with other non-toughness armor until you are at a safe level to avoid grabbing aggro.

For safety, grab a full set of (exotic) Magi armor from Temple vendors or somewhere in case you find yourself in a group where you can’t slot any of your minstrel armor.

You could convert your Minstrel armor if you want, but those are so expensive that I personally would not want to. Just go with my above recommendation as a hapy medium.

In terms of healing, Magi. However, I think the question should be more like: Between Zealot and Magi, which stat is best for what groups?

In completely organized groups, where players know each other as well as the encounter, Berserker and even Viper will be the stats that are better due to more efficient party members.

On the other hand, if we are talking about slightly less stable and less organized groups, Zealot or Magi are both preferable for healing. Zealot being able to deal out more personal damage while Magi is focused entirely on healing and extra health to ensure survivability.

Magi will shine in less experienced and learning groups, and also applies for someone learning a raid encounter. Zealot is a middle-of-the-road stat between Berserker and Magi.

If you often find yourself in groups or your group requires healing but not as much as Magi provides, settle with Zealot. If your raiding experiences are more rocky, with teammates that could use the extra sustain from additional healing, then Magi.

As for advice on playing Druid in raids, Iook up videos and guides for each raid encounter, or you can search for similar topics AnariiUK.7409 has posted in. Very thorough and experienced Druid that posts in this sub-forum on Ranger PvE/Raids often.

It all depends OG. Depending on the team and circumstances, sometimes Red Moa can be good, other times and builds could use different pets.

I’ve seen and heard of some Druids use Fern Hound as a source of regeneration and extra heal with Invigorating Bond before. If it works – it works.

Going to agree with Vyriis. Most of which you listed received something within the past year or so. Sure, there are those that could still use some minor tweaks, but overall they are solid.

The cooldown increase isn’t all that bad. Druid’s been nerfed a lot since release, but I’m hoping the other elite specs eat more nerfs, too.

I personally liked Druid, as well as all of the other elite specs, during the beta testing phases, as they were definitely side-grades compared to the now almost-mandatory power creeps.

That’s just me though, as I’m sure others would disagree, but we can at least agree to disagree. Just don’t nerf the Pets anymore.

That’s why I said “then balance it from there.” Take a look at stuff like Deathly Chill and Permeating Wrath. Tuned without an ICD and performance based while rewarding the player for being active.

Same type of activeness and design can be applied to Spirits. ICDs have a place, but utilities and traits can be tuned without them. Otherwise, we get stuff like Venom Enchantment and Predator’s Instinct, which are garbage.

As long as it’s optional – sure.