Guild Wars 2

Hope they expand on the stat selection for the final beta weekend. Couldn’t test out Sinister, not even sure if Zealot was present before. I read a few theory-crafts about Zealot Druid in Raids. Very interested (for the time being).

cloudysan.4397:

Could it be because none of the devs play ranger? yeah that’s probably it.

Irenio said during TwitchCon that he mains a Ranger. Not sure if it’s by choice or because he was given/selected to balance Rangers (and Engineers). Either way, he’s the only developer Rangers have on the balance team.

Good luck getting Roy in here. He tweeted it because there is no way he is stepping into this area. Just remember, he has our best interest for us, whether we would like to admit it or not.

Remember? Say it with me, now: “Yes, I agree.”

=D

Well, at one point, there was a thread that wanted Roy to be the developer for Rangers. Consider that wish granted.

:^)

Well, at least we still have Most Dangerous Game.

/sarcasm

Cooldown needs to be reduced if Well of Darkness is going to keep its current functionality.

Maybe if we want to get crazy, it can stay at 50sec and have it act like Ring of Warding while blinding foes caught inside and keeping enemy allies out.

It’s getting closer and closer to the release of Heart of Thorns and I would like to propose instead for an organized Pet Selection Panel in the Pet Management Menu.

The developers must be extremely busy with crunching and finalizing for the launch and upcoming beta event weekend, so my previous suggestion has been altered to shifting the placements of the pets in alphabetical order (according to species and name).

No overhauls or fancy additions, just a simpler proposal so players, both new and old, can have an easier time finding the pets they want in the selection panel.

Note: Most of the new pets found in the expansion and exclusive aquatic pets were placed in the same line so for ease and to avoid rows with only 1-2 pets of the same species.

Been running triple Spirits instead with HS for a support DPS build.

#SpiritRangerReturns

kolompi.1287:

You’re just blindly defending a clearly broken thing because it allows you to practically one-shot people without much thought or effort.

Do what others and I have done: Test this out in a match or even go as far as doing it in open-world. You’ll soon find out by testing it first-hand in practical situations that this is niche, not broken.

Irenio also stated during TwitchCon that he felt that Rangers needed more niche builds, and this change makes one of them.

Otaur.9268:

Well then this can be fixed easily… Increase the duration of Quickdraw to 7 seconds…

Right? lol The fix is as easy as extending the duration by… 1s…

Tragic Positive.9356:

It’s OP in terms of competition with other heals available.*

If anything, the new change brought it up with the other heals as TU and HS serve their own purpose depending on what a Ranger wants to accomplish depending on the setting.

It’s not OP in terms of competition with other heals available. It’s OP in terms of competition with making Water Spirit look bad. :P

Mcrocha.3891:

- Call Lightning: Fixed a bug so that the daze will properly be increased by daze-increasing effects.

This is something I’m surprised no one mentioned. This change, along with Storm Spirit’s passive rework is just kitten nice. I thought I would never see this as there was always a split on whether Moment of Clarity should affect Storm Spirit since it doesn’t even affect pets.

Should we try and push for this to apply to pets now? Haha!

It’s day 1 for the new toy. Let the dust calm and settle. Even I thought this would be powerful (but certainly not OP). Recall that Irenio wanted to introduce more niche builds for the Ranger class with the update.

This is it.

So hoping the Mad King dungeon instance returns and the scavenger hunt for the Book of Mad Memories. I loved both of those from before. <3

PowerBottom.5796:

I can see some pretty strong interactions with zephyr speed, “guard!”, “strength of the pack.” etc., but so far, I don’t think it’s really OP.

What I do fear a bit is that in teamfights, it can get ridiculous: Imagine just an Ele and maybe a Guard together with the ranger; if you keep yourself and your pet kinda in range of the shouts and attunement-switch buffs etc., I guess you should be able to keep up almost any buff permanently…. ^^’

Indeed. Alone, it’s not OP at all. It’s powerful, but not broken. In team fights, it gets stronger, but it’s still not OP as it is limited to just the Ranger & Pet. We’ll have to wait to see how this all plays out, though.

I can only assume “We Heal as One!” might stay this way since it makes Grouch’s Bear stronger.

New bugs

• Frost Spirit & Storm Spirit boons with Nature’s Vengeance does not scale with the player’s boon duration like other Spirits.

Rabe.2456:

Boon duration doesn’ t seem to apply on Buffs given out by Nature’s Vengance. I have 40% increased boon duration and the tooltip says Swiftness(4 1/4s), but it actually is only 3 seconds.

Or is boon duration in general broken?

Nature’s Vengeance boon duration is broken on Frost & Storm Spirit’s Might & Swiftness. Just tested in game with all the spirits with boon duration gear. The other spirits are fine, though.

:(

Been doing a bit of testing, and for now, I’m going to retract my words. On paper, it looks very potent, but I’m beginning to see flaws if one were to build around this. I guess when Irenio mentioned adding more “niche builds” to the Ranger, this change counts as one of them.

Initial impression: This is extremely powerful.
After some hands-on time: It’s great, but not broken.

Time will tell though. When running this, boon strips and (as others mentioned before) chill are obvious weaknesses. Running into a Necro makes this build have a self-destruct button that Necros will press when they corrupt boons.

I would love it if they removed [Teleport to Friend] and instead added a permanent version that is extremely rare and able to sell on Trading Post.

Has anyone checked if they fixed Spirit of Nature to scale with the player’s healing power yet?

It’s been noted since the core specialization. Even with Quickness, Whirling Defense animation will linger slightly past the Quickdraw duration. The only way to obtain the buff is to cancel Whirling Defense prematurely before the Quickdraw buff depletes.

I agree that using the Fortifying Boon chart would be better off. Even with a cooldown increase, it would still be potent, and the cooldown would have to be increased significantly so it can’t be use as often.

I’d rather the former solution than the latter. Definitely not both, however.

I foresee a cooldown increase or they use the Fortifying Bond chart for boon duration copied to each other. I knew the change was going to be extremely potent. Who didn’t see this coming?

I was hoping the damage buff would at least be 15% which would have been the old Deadly Mixture trait rolled in baseline. As others have said, 11% is better than nothing.

I would say both depending on the party and the Ranger’s build. For unorganized groups/PUGs, the change to Storm Spirit should make it sought after for LFGs in parties that lack vulnerability application. I would guess that if total vulnerability from the party cannot breach 10-12 stacks, take Storm & Frost Spirit if you’re Berserker. If you’re Sinister, drop Frost for Storm.

Thank. The. Gods.

I’m a bit disappointed there was no notes about Spirit of Nature’s passive being 1000 range, or even a CD drop to like 120, but I’m happy Storm Spirit FINALLY gets a purpose now in game modes other than a pseudo-road marker.

Great changes + fixes all around. I’m also VERY surprised they let Call of the Wild give 3 stacks of might. I was sure that wasn’t an option when they finally made it into a blast finisher.

I guess Irenio IS turning out to be Ranger’s Robert Hrouda 2.0. Feels good to be a Ranger again with a competent dev at the helm that will actually do some changes (good ones, that is).

panda the chop chop.4712:

I’m in map and I see people saying they hate rangers and how they go on the forums to troll pretending to give feed back on druids lol

Not sure how to feel about reading this other than some people are just… people. =/

Could be worth looking into moving that part of Instinctual Reaction to the Druid traitline, then fill in that stat gain in IR with something else, possibly something that isn’t a free stat gain.

So far, so good. Waiting until tomorrow to see if I’ll feel better. At the moment, I’m enjoying that Irenio is doing some actual changes around here and it seems (to me) like he can finally “let loose” on his creativity.

Now, if we can only get access to our other pet skills…

None.

Cheers, then for the update. Sleep well!

Small concerns:

Glyph of Empowerment
Duration is almost right for coordinated bursting. Could we have that extended with other buffs slightly? Perhaps 6s or 8s? Preferably 8s so it can have a 50% uptime when traited with Verdant Etchings.

Celestial Shadow
As mentioned earlier, splitting it into 2 parts feels as though it would be nicer. Giving everyone stealth upon entry, and super speed upon exiting. However, the duration for stealth and super speed are a tad low. Seriously, it would be perfect if those could be bumped to 3s.

Guess it depends on how you look at it. If looking at old PVE content like Dungeons, Druid isn’t necessarily great. PVP/WVW it has a lot of potential to shine. Nothing really can be said about new PVE content like Raids, but this BWE3 is the first chance for people see how a Druid might be able to fit in.

ZombieLeach.5862:

Even if Anet gave us those key binds it wouldn’t change the lack of control over the pet.

Oh, it would change the lack of control, drastically. Many Rangers would love to have control over the other pet skills, especially useful ones like Canine Pounces, Drake Tail Swipes, Porcine Charges, and the Moa Heal.

Your suggestion is a reworked “Guard!” which has it’s own advantages. Rather than one or the other, both should be implemented.

Druidic Disruption

Weapons
Greatsword & Staff
Mode
PVP/Stronghold
Role
Team Support/Control
Utilities
Glyph of Equality, Muddy Terrain, Spike Trap, Entangled
Druid Traits
Primal Echoes, Verdant Etchings, Ancient Seeds
Pets
Smokescale & Electric Wyvern
Notes
Control group skirmishes with chain dazes & immobilization.

Sinister Roots

Mode
PVE/Open World (Verdant Brink)
Druid Traits
Druidic Clarity, Natural Stride, Ancient Seeds
Pets
Salamander/Marsh Drake & Fire Wyvern
Notes
Selfish build for exploring. Can also substitute with Rampager’s gear.

Yeah, most of the replies I read from almost every feedback thread concerning the Druid is either blind praise, hate, “wait til it’s out,” or nit-picking how much it does/does not fit the lore.

Not too many focus on potential issues or voice concerns on traits, skills, utilities, synergy, or pets. Poor Irenio. It’ll be like finding needles in a haystack when he starts reading the forums.

Added this year during some update. It was just never mentioned in the patch notes when it was added. I want to say it was added a couple of months before the core specialization patch, but my memory is foggy on the exact month.

Cheers, Gaile. Have a safe flight. o/

ZombieLeach.5862:

I think if Anet added additional pet commands besides “attack” and “return to me” the pet AI would be less of a focus.

More like, if Anet just gave additional keybinds for stuff like Attack My Target, Return to Me, and Pet Stow, it would be less of a focus. At least then, we could have all 3 pet skills on the F1-F3 bar for full control.

Could care less at this point. If Druid doesn’t make it into the Raid Meta Team, just like how Ranger isn’t in the current one (but listed as a substitute), then let it happen because it will.

In the interview they estimated about 6 wings a year for Raid content, but they also mentioned working closely with the design and profession balance teams bi-weekly for feedback and testing out new ideas.

Maybe it’s the small glimpse of hopefulness in me, but the interview was somewhat relieving to hear the raid team say that, because of the constant communication and work between the balance teams, the content designers are learning more about the professions and what they can do, making adjustments so all the professions will be able to handle it.

On the flip side, that explains why current PVE is garbage, because it leads to the speculation that they were just cranking out content with little to no knowledge of how classes worked when designing content. Instant-Kill AOEs that destroy Ranger pets with 0 chance to have the pets avoid the damage – I’m looking at you.

Carry on, though. Done with the rant.

Good catch! Guess they are still working out the kinks.

Eric.7813:

Would it really be fair to give Druid in Celestial form the addition of boons to the skills?

I’m asking myself the same thing. Nature Magic is our boon-centric traitline at the moment. Not completely against adding boons to Druid though, but it needs to be selective.

As I see it, Resistance could be a thing for the Druid. Grace of the Land is a step in that direction for mitigating some condition damage. There’s possibly some room to add it in somewhere in the traitline. Just not sure where at the moment.

Seems better this way, at least for some. I wouldn’t go all-out traps in terms of being triggered when an enemy passes through. Since it’s magic, that would be more akin to Necro Marks, and those have similar drawbacks.

I’d personally opt for Glyph of Empowerment and Alignment to be the only ones given the ability to ground-target, with the exception of Empowerment being the seal lingers and any ally within it receives the buffs of the utility. The others can remain as PBAOEs.

Forum Bug…

Doesn’t matter if it’s ranged or melee, the potential is there. There is honestly no way anyone that recognized the potential of this niche can justify it not being reduced in some way.

I don’t think Anet will be looking at the trade offs. These are the same ones that nerfed Chilling Darkness because of the Reaper, and as strong as Chill is, it is no where near as potent as Daze.

I see them looking at Moment of Clarity, a Druid with a Staff traited into Primal Echoes, and slotting Glyph of Equality with possibly Verdant Etchings. At that point, they are looking at:

• 4s AOE Daze from Glyph of Equality, 40s/32s traited which will also heal and cure 2 conditions AOE.
• 2s AOE Daze swapping to Staff from Primal Echoes. Available every 20s.
• 6s AOE Daze and heal in Celestial Avatar Form with a 5-second cooldown on Lunar Impact.

Lunar Impact being the worst offender offering 100% daze uptime, even with the trade off of being in Celestial Form, but in team play, it’s a potential powerhouse that will no doubt have some adjustments made.

Call me paranoid, but I feel nerfs incoming with the addition to some heavy-daze additions of Druid and the fantastic boon copy added to “We Heal as One!”

Like, Moment of Clarity Daze & Stun duration increase reduced to 50% and the base cooldown of “We Heal as One!” increased to compensate for its powerful new feature.

This is derailing fast.