Guild Wars 2

RebornbyFire.7913:

On the Bright Side, it is still a decent buff to a skill that I already liked

Same here. I run TU more often, but traited WHaO is a nice alternative, which got a free little buff. Not a huge one, but a straight buff nonetheless, with zero downside…

The release of the skill without (or with very minimal) testing was clumsy, and the communication afterwards may have been handled better than the tweets. That’s really what it comes down to, a testing/communication combo that made a straight buff feel like a nerf. The skill is still better than before and it was already a viable alternative.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Hidden Pistol, Lightning Reflexes

Yeah, like this one too. Love Hidden Pistol on non-ranger classes too, as a mini-LR.

Forgot Fury in the added pros of TU.

Well, that didn’t take long.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Just curious, what have been the sPvP “could’ve beens” for Rangers that were nerfed into non-existence?

Early days shortbow “animation fix” comes to mind (the range nerf came much later).

Beastmaster build lost pet range and pet damage because sPvP complained pets were useful.

Spirit build annoyed sPvPers hence spirits losing uptime (mobility is just the latest icing on the cake).

Rizo.9534:

Will be same as Icebow.

Oh yeah! Druids! Druids!
Celestial Healing -50% of whole heal, and now you heal only 3 targets instead of 5!

Enjoy!

But to compensate, the glyphs will be made usable underwater.

Mcrocha.3891:

So we want Ranger to become God-tier and then not fixed for a year because it’s just desserts?

I don’t know for you, but personally i wouldn’t mind. I’ve been happily playing the underdog since launch, i wouldn’t mind being the top cat for a while.

They took my pet range and damage, they took my spirits, they took my shortbow, and all i have to show for it is a Canthan Monk spec. Why not the latest God-tier build for a change?

I use the toy sling shot skin for my shortbow and it changes everything. The range and damage really match the effectiveness you’d expect from it!

Sad but terribly predictable. How long did we get to keep the perma-fury last time round? 3 days?

That said, with the druid reveal, new pets and buffs, it really felt like something was terribly wrong. Back to the same old, good to feel the love again.

I don’t know, but the announced pets are in the pet selection UI since yesterday (greyed out, of course).

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Yeah, all % traits should scale from a primary stat.

If it were me, I would reverse the scaling of IR so that 10% of Power became Healing Power. That would be useful for all Ranger builds and also fit in with the other two Adepts for a support, DPS and a sustain trait.

Would be a neat trait for a hybrid DPS-Druid build.

Elorna.5329:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Instinctive_Reaction
But it’s based off healing power, which almost no one uses. Maybe if healing is actually a necessity in raids, some druids might go with clerics or zealots, and this trait gets some use (altho at that point, it’s competing with Bountiful Hunter, so probably no).

It used to be power from vitality before the trait revamp, which was very neat for wvw zerging. Switching it to healing power while maitaining it at 7% made it utterly useless.

And here’s the playstyle lecture you tried to avoid…

As the others said, cats will deal big damage, bears will tank, and drakes are somewhere in-between.

I’d advise to give a serious try at drakes as they’re very solid, hit multiple targets in melee, do some big hitting crits and have a blast finisher. And with the condition damage update, fire/marsh drakes just got better too. They’re excellent all-rounder pets imho.

Now i understand why mods get merge-happy in this section…

Chokolata.1870:

Well, it is an educated guess that it is OP thus far. I think it is, but lets play for a few days first. Reflects and boon strips are a plenty and we are very vulnerably to being condi bombed if we spend all our CDs on boon up time.

Boon steal could become a scary prospect too.

Yes, we can might stack now.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Furthermore, your declaration that having to replace a utility or two with a stunbreak makes this “a ranger with a few more heals” is frankly bizarre.
Every single staff skill heals. Celestial mode is all about heals. The entire trait line is heals. Any glyph they DO take is support/heal. You can afford to lose a couple glyphs, because you’ve got so much heal everywhere else.
We’ll see bunker and support druids all over, the real question is whether their healing outweighs the dps loss.

I’ll bow to your wisdom and accept that you’re a better player than me. My feeling is that the staff skills and traits will only pull their weight in a group situation. I can’t see the solo bunkering working as that celestial bar may not fill up quick enough to compensate the damage avoidance of evasive weapon sets.

Again, that’s just a probably misguided feeling, and if it sounds so ludicrous, that wasn’t the intention, so apologies.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

cafard.8953:

Tealots.6095:

While Druids do look fun and interesting, I bet they can still be locked down. :P

Yup, that’s the rock to the druid’s scissors at the moment. Not a single sun-breaker or source of stability in the new stuff. So in non PvE scenarios, a pure druid would spend his time interrupted, stunned and immobilised. You’ll probably only ever meet hybrid builds.

Um, you realize that Druids are still rangers, right?
I mean, it’s not like Blink, Midnight and Decoy are Chronomancer skills. Druid still has stunbreaks because ranger has stunbreaks.

Of course, but each stunbreak and source of stability comes at the price of a utility or elite slot, barring that many glyphs and watering down the build. How much it can be watered down and still be a worthy trait line pick remains to be seen.

My feeling is that it may end up rather similar to trap builds: full trap builds are too much of a prey to cc, and hybrid builds are too costly in traits to justify. So in regards to a Mesmer, i don’t think the spec should prove too troublesome, it’ll just be a ranger with a few more heals.

Nomad Bear Staff.

Tealots.6095:

While Druids do look fun and interesting, I bet they can still be locked down. :P

Yup, that’s the rock to the druid’s scissors at the moment. Not a single sun-breaker or source of stability in the new stuff. So in non PvE scenarios, a pure druid would spend his time interrupted, stunned and immobilised. You’ll probably only ever meet hybrid builds.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Ground targeting: Please keep ground targeted skills to a minimum. For a game like GW2 which heavliy focuses on quick movement and repositioning, ground targeted skills are clunky to use. Please keep this in mind for the game in general.

GT skills don’t get reflected though.

Zatoichi.1049:

• Make Spirits follow you baseline

Really disagree with this one. I love moving spirits and really want the option back, but that’s the key part: an option. There are times and places for them and times and places for static ones (though range should be reviewed in that regards). You don’t want the water/sun spirit to follow you stupidly when you melee a boss for example.

In fact, that’s the core issue with moving spirits: making it baseline or merging it to the other spirit traits means that you’ll be stuck with them following you even if all you wanted was the spirit buff. But then, it’s such a small effect that it would feel costly to pick even as a minor trait…

Ideally, it could have been added as a static/follow F5 control, just like the pet passive/aggressive setting. I guess, maybe an F6 now that the druid has landed.

Puck.9612:

cafard.8953:

Draeyon.4392:

Just a suggestion to help those of us with multiple rangers.
Can unlocking the Juvenile Pets be account bound instead of character bound?
Only my 1st ranger currently has all the pets unlocked. My other 2 have about 4 or 5 each.

What?! Collecting the pets is half the fun of rolling a new ranger.

Not if you are a WvW/PvP player. Maybe they should just unlock all the pets in WvW the same way they did in PvP. Leave the scavenger hunt to the PvE players.

I spend most of my time in WvW, but i just like the pet-taming ritual. I can see how it may be annoying if you refuse to enter a PvE map and level 1→80 using scrolls/tomes though. I level with a mix of scroll to 20, PvE, upleveled wvw and tomes, so at 80 i generally have a fair few pets already and plenty of waypoints around to quickly collect the one or two i need for a build.

In regards to gear, i don’t get the issue. What’s wrong with all stats combos debing available? If anything, they should have been available at launch. Yes, some will see more use than others, some will barely be used by anyone, but playing around is part of the fun (and in the case of jewellry, it’s relatively easy to switch around).

As for the impossibility of playing a dedicated healer, i really wonder… Did you ever see a healing-gear staff elementalist? I have a guildie that plays his Asura ele like that in wvw and even before field blasting, the constant healing output is insane.

LughLongArm.5460:

cafard.8953:

Oh for the non-spammable RaO back…

Pop RaO: 30s swiftness/fury/stability
Pop WHaO: 60s swiftness/fury/stability
16s later: only 44s left of swiftness/fury/stability
Top up with another WHaO: 88s swiftness/fury/stability

etc

Not realy, due to the way ROA works(pulses of small boon duration) u’ll get only a very small bonus from this combo. There is much more potensial synergie with skills like QZ, SOTW, gaurd etc…… We’ll have to c exacly how they will implemented this.

I know, which is why i’m just dreaming about the old RaO, before it was turned into a spammable skill like everything else (Muddy Terrain, Healing Spring). I liked my long duration skills, they were part of the unique feeling i had on a ranger back then.

Oh for the non-spammable RaO back…

Pop RaO: 30s swiftness/fury/stability
Pop WHaO: 60s swiftness/fury/stability
16s later: only 44s left of swiftness/fury/stability
Top up with another WHaO: 88s swiftness/fury/stability

etc

Draeyon.4392:

Just a suggestion to help those of us with multiple rangers.
Can unlocking the Juvenile Pets be account bound instead of character bound?
Only my 1st ranger currently has all the pets unlocked. My other 2 have about 4 or 5 each.

What?! Collecting the pets is half the fun of rolling a new ranger.

With wvw in mind, my main concern over supporting as a Druid is the complete abscence of stability and stun-breakers. In large group fights where heavy healing may be a niche role, that’s going to be a huge issue for popping the healing skills, not to mention staying alive.

Now, maybe this is a desired weakness by design but it’s a big one. It’ll heavily push one to go with the usual wvw suspects: LR for stun breaks, RaO for stability, leaving just two utility skills available. This is a pity in the sense that zerg fights may be one of the very few of the already existing contents where big burst healing may prove useful, but the required protection against cc will make it very unlikely that the Druid trait line will be used to its full extent.

MoonWhistle.3428:

Canines. You don’t have to waste F2 for cc, so it’s still there for Taunt when you need it.

I used to be the same but i really got into birds recently, the low cd on F2 and pet swap make it sort of spammable.

Bran.7425:

Also see if the fernhound’s skill Regenerate (the F2) counts toward the refill.

And the Moa healing shouts.

Bleed stacks may become more useful too if each tick counts for a separate damage dealt, considering how many bleed sources are out there. Maybe there’s a new settler/apothecary heavy condi/heal build to be found.

How about water sigils? One more AoE heal every ~5s.

I’m sort of delighted. The majority of people seemed to want nature magic, group support, a staff, and nothing to do with the pet. They got pretty much all of that at once with the spec. 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.

But since all this has been covered at once, now there’s room for the next expansion to take us into a different direction with another spec, whether it’s down the warrior path as a rifle/pet hunter or down the yeoman thief path in Robin Hood style. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, but i’ve got plenty of time.

And we still got new pets to play with until then. <3

Just got one now.

Purecura.1795:

SkiTz.4590:

Wuselknusel.4082:

cafard.8953:

Purecura.1795:

Screw the haters, ANYWAYS Iam so HAPPY TO BE A HEALER NOW! WHat GEAR WILL I NEED?

NOMAD DRUID META FTW!

YAY! FOR THE ULTIMATE I-STAND-IN-A-CORNER-AND-COMPLETELY-RELY-ON-OTHERS-TO-KILL-STUFF-FOR-ME FEELING!

It’s gonna be sad really – our pets will be out dpsing nomad druids lmao

Jus heal the pet and let him tank. OMG I CANT WAIT!!!!

NOMAD BEARSTAFF META!!!

I main a ranger and play a guardian at times for dungeons and wvw. I’ll certainly try out the druid extensively and see what it can do, but there’s already something huge that it doesn’t do compared to my guardian: Stability. You can add Aegis and Protection too, but just stability itself means that for wvw zerging, given a choice, i’d rather have a guardian than a druid in my party right now.

Purecura.1795:

Screw the haters, ANYWAYS Iam so HAPPY TO BE A HEALER NOW! WHat GEAR WILL I NEED?

NOMAD DRUID META FTW!

BlusterWolf.2103:

Some of my long time concerns have been addressed and Solved by Druid

[…]

2. WvW zerg role
Now we can proudly bring our Druid into a WvW zerg and not thinking about that if I bring a guardian or warrior I can contribute more, the Aoe CC and healing Druid provide may shift the current meta in WvW a lot.

Not convinced about that. There’s one glaring thing lacking for a WvW support role, and it’s called Stability. Add Aegis and Protection and i’d still pick guardians rather than druids in my zerg.

This is great! And yeah, it’d have been a major downer had they been tied to the druid line. Yay for new fuzzy companions!

The new pets are the highlight as far as i’m concerned.

You shouldn’t be afraid of them, you’ll hardly have the time to notice them before they get hotfixed.

Lonewalker.4027:

I felt very sad when I read this comment from Irenio:
“Since the Scrapper reveal I’ve been up to my eyeballs in Druid development.”

Yeah, saw it too. The engie forum now has officially more information about the druid spec than this one. ^^

Pick 3 from the other 5 trait lines.

L2P and use ground targeted aoe instead, like traps. Oh… wait…

One of my rangers is an Asura. Small size means that the pets look huge which is neat. And in wvw i do notice way less aggro in group situations than on my max size norn main. RP wise, like with a Charr, it makes an interesting techie race combo with a rather primitive class. Climbing into your golem suit when you had enough of the countryside is well worth pulling out your charrzooka when arrows don’t cut it anymore. Oh, and of course Technobabble + Moment of Clarity is delicious.

Honestly, apart from zzzzzzzzzz humans, all races have a lot going for them for different flavours of ranging around.

Piercing is incredibly useful for focused fire. There’s no way you’ll snipe a wvw commander with aoe arrows that explode on the first thing in the way, and this is one of the few things a ranger (or better, a ranger-party) brings to large-scale fights.

Endless Soul.5178:

thehipone.6812:

Asura = Necromancer

Oola would like to have a word with anyone who disagrees

Interestingly, my first and most played character is an Asura necromancer. Oola would be proud.

Oola, being proud of anything other than herself?

Pet name: The Ranger Subforum Denizen

Abilities:
- all ranger skills take 1s more to activate as the pet asks you if you really want to use this “basically useless skill”.
- ranger gets fury on swapping to weapon X, aggravated by the pet telling him “You know, class Y has a better skillset for X, you should reroll”.
- ranger healing skill is disabled, replaced by a pet voiceover: “what’s the point? better let them kill you and log a useful class.”
- on entering a dungeon, the pet proposes a vote to kick the ranger.
- when an ANet tagged character is in range, ranger and pet gain stealth and chat functionalities are disabled.
- when ordering the pet, 50% chance of the pet refusing the order, being too busy complaining on the forum.

HotHit.6783:

What I feel was the deciding factor is, what would the rifle do?

I feel our weapons don’t synergize nearly enough with our pets. There’s skills here and there, but overall, i’d have loved to see each weapon skill set buff/use the pet in a specific direction, like LB could boost the pet’s direct damage, SB could get it to deal more conditions, etc. In that spirit, and with the modern hunter archetype, i’d really dig the rifle as a pet-tracking weapon, with skills that grant the pet cc and reveal skills. You could also make it a unique mechanic through having some of the shots only happening after the pet has used the attached cc skill:

press 3 → pet runs to target and immobilizes → shot happens (whether the immob was dodged or not)

Also we have some ranger skills which buff the pet on its next attack: the rifle, as a pet-hunting oriented weapon, could come up with reverse skills: pet does a special attack/cc, and if it connects, it buffs the ranger’s next attack.