I like it better now i think…i know when i can finish off a low player beacuse its such a sticky skill, or when i can transfer the might gained from it with WHaO.
this is rediclous. Both my Lingering Light build and my minstrel healer build were essentially deleted off the face of the earth. How do you want me to play my Druid ANET? Why don’t you tell me what build is ok before I create another and you delete it?
first you kill my lingering light build, so I change my build, then you kill my mistrel build by deleting minstrel amulet? ANET, do you play your own kittening game? Whats next, I make a build I like and you delete it tomorrow?
it was nerfed for PvP, and in all fairness, you dragon hunters didn’t know trapper runes would wnd up in pvp when you thought DH was kitten. Trapper Runes are a big part of what makes it strong
with the way things are going, elites are so strong they offer an advantage over traditional builds, in amny cases. makes it unfair and unbalanced to those who want to compete but cant afford the expansion.
ive found this build to be quite fun and rather strong. Double Staff, it takes advantage of Quickdraw, Lingering Light, and Go for the Eyes, to inflict massive amounts of blind.
Tons of blind (both in 1v1, and provided to the group)
Lots of healing
Good group support through glyph cleanses/heals, spotter, blasting water fields, area stealth, etc…
good damage ( I use marauder but you can use whatever power amulet)
lots of evades and mobility (quickdraw -> Ancestral grace), perk of also being a blast finisher
builds celestial force quickly
keeps pet alive
cons:
no self boon application (aside from vigor and blasting in other peoples fields, but I do use pack runes for the #4 to help with that)
slow moving unless you use traveler runes
liant on pet for damage (for the most part, though auto attack aint bad)
anyways, its a fun build, tweak it to your play style. Skirmishing could be swaped out if you want NM or WS for more defenses, but the blind and healing sort of makes up for it.
i am very sad to wake up to this news. I am downloading now in hopes to get right on druid to test things, now I wont even bother with it… ok lets make a revenant
ok, so you are saying they will do what I just asked in a few hours? I wasn’t asking for “now,” I was just hoping they would give us an update today before tomorrow to prepare
The update will be in 10 hours (from this post) so yeah … take your conclusions.
ah, I se the release note now, 12 am tonight. Wasn’t aware of that, was thinking tomorrow, thanks for clearing that up
I’d be more inclined to use dual staff to abuse Primal Echoes with geomancy/hydromancy sigils for Ancient Seeds and Quickdraw to make Ancestral grace available twice every 10s. That is insane mobility and damage mitigation. Sinister would have decent crit chance, so I’d take sharpened edges over the trap trait. TU and Entangle with WK. Glassy and weak to conditions but it would be hella fun to play. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWWjEqQ7K2tCmrAVLWMEM4u6XNt28uSdtAmAworBcyPS3D-TpgHAAylAAeCAAA
staff, axe/torch. Don’t run glass, go rabid or something.
I say cut out the power build cause you will get stealth from traps, aoe cc/dmg from staff swapping setup so lb wouldn’t really add anything besides the need for power stats. Id probably go:
TU, flametrap/spiketrap/LR/entangle
The reason spiketrap is because maybe its cc and flametrap = ancient seed proc. Could be devastating, well in casual hotjoin anyhow.
lobnbow would add a quickdraw’d PBS for cc madness (extra ancient seed procs), or hunters shot for extra stealth, in addition to a fairly strong rapid fire/birstleback burst.
this change does very little for my active pvp/wvw ranger. Oh well, pet still useless in wvw, still dead in team fights in pvp. Maybe ill consider playing my ranger in pve now, the little of it I do play these days. Guess I can play it though HoT safely enough
So for PvP, as a damage build, what do we think, does running Nature Magic/Beastmastery/Druid work out? Marauder LB/GS:
if youre gonna go marauder, I feel you need survival still. two stun breaks (LR and QZ), SoS, and SotP.
Druidic Clarity is reliable only once, at most twice during an engagement. when I was testing seeds of life (from glyphs and avatar), I actually did not find them to be viable at all in practice. when youre running around kiting people, you cant wait in a small area for the seed to explode. that just doesn’t work. so I found WK essential still, unfortunately.
given how quickly people will focus you in avatar form, I also found protection to be absolutely essential… so to be survivable with marauder stats, I ran NM for protective ward, WK and druid. I suppose if I wasn’t too worried about condi spam, id run BM instead of wilderness. that has been my experience dealing with comps that had condi pressure.
but I’m thinking all this will change with improvements to Hp scaling, and the addition of trapper runes. all of a sudden, settler and celestial stats are looking very appealing.
so now that bar will scale with damage better, im going to try something like this out first after patch. Seems to be a real CC machine.
I think a lot of people underestimate the defense qualities that Quickdraw brings.
depending on your party setup/roles, you could swap natural stride with celestial shadow, and trappers expertise for primal reflexes. I might even try it with celestial ammy.
DR/NM/WS also looks good with protective ward if you want extra protection. I like the extra CC potential with quick draw though. just not quite as good against Mesmer.
They arent superstars, but they can fill some rolsEs that others cant. Whether those roles are critical or not is the question. i enjoy my lb ranger in wvw, as i do in ppvp. I play it well in both modes, and im not a rallybot cuz im good. That doesnt make ranger good though.
It is fun to burst an ele in fire or necro in 3 seconds though, and watch as their party flocks to rez.
Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.
Why is this the only % multiplier trait in the game that affects both damage and condition damage? Surely this should be extended to other profession % multipliers as well?
Pretty annoying now that I think about it.
Lol. That was fast. One class has something my class doesnt have, i want now!
Before we decide on glyphs, we should wait to see what changes to seed of life (irenio said they were going to do something with it) and verdent etching irenio has implemented.
not to derail the thread, but I find it humorous that everyone and their mother complains about spirits and still do, including the GM trait, but now all the Raid Druid builds are using full or close to full Spirit bars in addition to the GM trait.
Spirits viable apparently no need to fix
Just because they are viable, doesn’t make them efficient or intuitive play. They work, because you drag them kicking and screaming and force them to, they should be helping you to do your job, fluidly.
I get what you are saying, but not speaking strickly as myself, but in general, if they are used in an important and desired build (if this build does become meta for raids) the way they are, than they don’t need to be efficient (although I would argue they are if they are being used) or intuitive, cuz they are optimal for a strong, widely used build. If they make a strong build optimal, why should we expect buffs? Why complain about something that appears to be highly effective
sure, you can say they are the best of a bad situation, but it seems to me like they are pretty kitten useful in a raid build, and if this build becomes meta, I would not expect to see any buff to spirits, even when they do need them in both PvP and WvW
make Protect Me, Guard, and Search and Rescue Base. No longer Shouts. F6 / F7 / F8
Overhaul 3 new Shouts that do more in team play, keep the others with tweaks to fill the gap
I think “Protect Me” is a little strong to be a Fx skill as is Search and Rescue but I think the old “guard area” function of “Guard!” Is something that could be worked into a Fx skill.
they could be tweaked, CDs could be changed.
Protect me kills the pet, and is on a 60 second CD. Only reason its taken over signet of stone is for the stun break. Its far from an OP skill. Take away the stun break from it and make it base. strong yes but not OP.
Search and rescue on the other hand is never, ever taken by anyone currently, and is on an 85 second CD, so why not just make it base? Scrapper can rez OR stomp with their free new Function gyro, on a 30 second CD with 750 range.
not to derail the thread, but I find it humorous that everyone and their mother complains about spirits and still do, including the GM trait, but now all the Raid Druid builds are using full or close to full Spirit bars in addition to the GM trait.
im actually interested to know what percentage of the ranger community would like to see our shouts transition to more group support (maybe as a traited option), or keep them as they are, a more pet/master command type system. Cuz it seems to me like some of the stuff our shouts do should be something we get base.
Could you imagine getting protect me, guard, and search and rescue base? more or less ya know…F6 / F7 / F8
as others have said, we have enough condi weapons. They aren’t perfect, and some are in need of attention, like axe and shortbow, but I would rather those weapons see some love than putting effort into making staff yet another condi-ish weapon (cuz it cant be pure condi AND heal, that just screeeeeams OP apothecary trapper build)
Staff should just be a very strong hybrid utility weapon, and it is almost there: it has a water field that blocks, a blast with mobility, an immob/cleanse, a non-reflecting auto…
but also needs:
a general damage buff (either through burn on auto, pulse damage on convergence to enemies passing though it, A DOT on wisp)
Maybe Slow (on convergence if an enemy is passing through it),
a long 1-2 stack of poison (not necessarily for damage, but for the healing debuff, on vine),
burning on beam sounds good, but I don’t know how they would implement it cuz its a channeled skill. either what Heim said, or a chance to burn, 33% chance per pulse comes to mind.
I agree with poison on vine surge, but not bleed.
natural convergence should pulse damage and slow on people for 1 second who walk through it or stand in it.
Oh Oh OH! I just have an idea regarding adding condition damage to Staff 1:
Instead of, for example, burn a target regularly on each pulse, it burns a target IF Cosmic Ray actually heal an ally on that pulse?
It adds a layer of positioning to the gameplay.
So if Cosmic Ray ONLY hits a foe, it applies a flat damage per pulse, perhaps similar to what it is now. BUT IF it hits a foe AND an ally, Cosmic Ray applies burning per pulse. It can even be per number of stacks of burning per ally hit.
This could add some strategic positioning to using Staff and make the (rather small) healing portion of Cosmic Ray means something more. It incentivise a Staff Druid to make the most of its (constant but little) “maintenance” healing outside Celestial Avatar.
I think at the moment, we want the druid to be LESS reliant on needing allies around to be effective. Your idea is creative, but a step in the wrong direction
if healing changes go through, Healbot Druid will likely be expected by many guilds/groups to have full healing ascended armor, trinkets, and weapons, and be flamed if they don’t, just to participate in raids. The only other mode where you can use gear like that will be zerg frontline WvW.
That kind of gear investment just for those two things seems like a huge waste of time, money and resources.
I also agree in its current form Druid isn’t viable, but that can all change with a lot of work…(cough)
I disagree. It is viable in it’s current form but could use a little tweaking. I think the Ranger community gave some great feedback and am looking forward to seeing what happens.
I used the following Remorseless Druid in PvP and found it extremely effective. A few well planned dazes can set up some amazing combinations with MoC. Glyph of Equality is a fantastic addition. This build has nice advantages against DD Elems and Mesmers. Daze is a particularly nasty control effect for them to deal with.
not really sure why you needed to quote me specifically to state your opinion but ok… yeah ive played that build, almost exactly…its just “ok.” I put in like 20 hours this weekend with druid, its just not there atm. I can be, but it has some significant weaknesses that need to be addressed
Currently all we know is that irenio is planning on nerfing base healing, to add “supportive damage” (whatever that mean). Changes are coming.
In a “balanced” game there would be no class that was unbeatable to another.
I’ve yet to see game like this.
+1
Blade and Soul?
fighting games?
Starcraft?
Ragnarok – no MVP cards? (to a lesser more grindy degree)
GW2 can strive for 1v1 balance they choose not to.
But in regards to the OP:
Mes/Chrono typically doesn’t struggle hard vs reaper. If you hate it that much run moa for the second health bar or double gravity well since stability and stun breakers is minimal.
Or you could run stun or mantra if you can’t keep up since it counters your condi.
I am a fairly competitive fighter player, and I can say that u must not be one, if you don’t understand how certain characters in a fighting game are good or bad matchups against each other, and that is the way they are designed.
In competitive environment, people will make a choice what character they will play either cuz a. its the only character thay are good at or b. they know they will face x character a lot, so im going to learn to play y character to hard counter them.
In a “balanced” game there would be no class that was unbeatable to another.
I’ve yet to see game like this.
ageed. This is a general understanding of competitive environments. Certain builds will hard counter other builds. There are meta builds, and anti-meta builds. Certain builds are taken cuz they know it will hard counter other builds. This is how competition works.
It tells a lot if you got problems with pistol thiefs
I I dont even mean in playstyle. A pistolthief is nothing you should fear on any character. If you do, you either make sth wrong or the build isnt valid.
that isn’t really true against a rev. They are super weak to condi, I could see a decent one abusing a rev
/jk
I’m sure they won’t left us only with healing…
Right?
funny thing is, I wont be surprised if the “reward” end result healing (with healing stats) is no different than what it is now base. So all an all it could just be a straight up nerf to healing (if it forces you to respec, loosing damage, just to get the same value, well, you know…)
