Guild Wars 2

Ehecatl.9172:

I am surprised at the speed they locked it. It was up what? Seven hours? I didn’t even have a chance to post in it.

Oh definitely, they locked it down fast. I don’t think they can delete it because it doesn’t actually violate code of conduct, and in the same sense, the provided no reasoning publicly or to me, and unless they did so without telling me; I haven’t received any points on my account for a code of conduct violation.

Locking it is actually the best thing for us they could have done combined with whichever commendable soul (I only know the reddit handle) cross posted it to reddit. Since the cross post and the locking of the thread, the locked thread itself has jumped from 2k views to 10k+ in just a few hours, and the conversation is now being seen by more people and continued on a much larger scale in a much wider community.

Cut off one head, and 2 shall take its place. Hail Hydra xD

Interestingly enough, some brave soul cross posted it to reddit, which has made the views spike lol.
Check it out: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3k54v7/druid_impressions_from_bwe2/

Not just locked either, but locked with no explanation as to why it was locked, no mail in my mailbox explaining it, and a complete and total lack on what possible rule on the forums it could have broken.

illenos.5134:

Sarcasm totally works when you try to talk with Anet. Look at the state of WvW…it worked like a charm! xD

Who’s really being sarcastic though? This is a serious thread with serious feedback

I certainly don’t think the state of ranger/druid is a laughing matter or something to poke fun at when approaching (and cutting it close) the first major expansion of the game, and I recognize a lot of people here that would agree with that sentiment.

Lazze.9870:

jcbroe.4329:

Dadnir.5038:

A good feedback but I can’t agree on everything and you forgot Warhorn (I’m sure you have something to say about WH#4 ).
Maybe one day they will understand that the ranger need some work in the core mechanic area so that it become something helpfull instead of this thing that drag the ranger down atm.

I think the fact that I forgot warhorn is pretty telling in itself of what I would have to say about warhorn lol.

Adding it now though, thanks

Well, in that case, you didn’t specifically mention off-hand axe either.

I noticed that and fixed that too hahaha.

Dadnir.5038:

A good feedback but I can’t agree on everything and you forgot Warhorn (I’m sure you have something to say about WH#4 ).
Maybe one day they will understand that the ranger need some work in the core mechanic area so that it become something helpfull instead of this thing that drag the ranger down atm.

I think the fact that I forgot warhorn is pretty telling in itself of what I would have to say about warhorn lol.

Adding it now though, thanks

Ranatoa.4869:

Palador.2170:

Ranatoa.4869:

I’m sorry I missed the part where no more changes are allowed after HoT goes live. Besides, more BWE’s does not mean better mechanics or even less bugs. Dragonhunter has had the most beta availability and yet the still get “line of sight” errors on flat ground with no obstacles when the target is obviously within range.

Given that most of these are problems that have persisted for the Ranger for over three years now, I think it’s more than fair to be worried that once Druid goes live it’s going to be largely left as-is even if it needs work.

Besides, Druid is based on the Ranger class. Problems for the core class ARE problems for the elite spec, so it’s entirely valid to bring them up like this. Even if the specs are not revealed yet, ANet knows them and being reminded of some of the class problems may give them a chance to jump ahead on fixing something. There’s little point in waiting for the reveal to remind them of known problems, especially when they’re in balance and repair mode anyway.

I was specifically addressing the “need” for more BWE’s and not any current issues with the class. If you noticed my point was that more BWE’s aren’t necessarily the solution.

You’re right, more BWEs aren’t the solution at this point (without more development time).

My own opinion is that ANet jumped the gun with the release date in October, and that I’d rather see a polished December release than a rushed October release.

Every class has core issues that need to be addressed before future development iterates on top of them. This thread was mainly made as sort of a “we will not stand idly by” sentiment where with how Druid was mentioned in passing in January and is now cutting it dangerously close to expac release for peoples comfort, a lot of us felt that with the mass feedback collection happening, it would only be fair to reiterate some of the concerns we have all had while we wait “biting our fingernails,” so to speak.

Also, sidenote: if you saw Arken’s video on the DH Longbow velocity, I was the person testing/highlighting it with him lol. I do quite a bit of my testing with him, and I sincerely hope that the mentioned 66% velocity increase actually fixes some of the buggy or unreliable features of the DH longbow.

Yes, the title is clickbait-y, although I openly acknowledge in the OP that I use Ranger and Druid interchangeably.

BUT, that does not void any of the sentiments of sincerity, and I would not have even made the thread if multiple people hadn’t found the feedback agreeable.

We’re essentially 6 weeks away from launch (assuming there is no reveal this week) and the game still lacks a Ranger and Engi official elite spec reveal. Each of those will take a week on their own, and another week will probably be the last BWE, so it seems that Ranger/Engi will only be getting a single round of public testing and feedback and very little comparative time to fix or change anything that needs to be changed before going live in October.

Why is that relevant? Because it means that our time to provide feedback and receive the necessary development to put the classes at a good place before HoT is extremely limited, and the problem extending beyond that is that a lot of the feedback provided here has existed since early development and the issues still persist 3 years later.

This is a short compilation of sincere and honest feedback about the class provided by multiple people. It isn’t meant to troll the devs or be sarcastic (again, maybe just a little clickbait-y); it’s meant to take the opportunity that rolling a beta ranger class and experiencing the game would take just like EVERY other class and providing feedback on things that are in dire need of changing to have a well fleshed out class and mechanic.

This is a constructive feedback process. People are welcome to add their own points, debate existing points, and suggest solutions or alterations. But do please remember that even though most people don’t recognize me outside of the ranger subforum, the point and purpose of the topic is to collect, organize, and provide a list of constructive feedback, and even if people think that I’ve taken a very tongue-in-cheek tone while doing so (though there is nothing tongue in cheek here, I’m deadly serious).

Hahaha alright guys, I’ll make that thread in the HoT forum right now!

If you’re here Ethan, try and change the topic to something like:
[Feedback] BWE2 Druid Impressions

Impressions:

Mechanic
I am aware that this is a beta, but is the mechanic even finished and will it be ready for launch by October 23rd? The cast times on the pet mechanic are much too long to justify some (most) of the skill effects. Also, the pathing and general responsiveness is horrendous. The mechanic seems almost like starter area (in the base game) was tacked on to a class at the last second and then changed to an ally at the very last second.
Hopefully though, because this was just a beta, either this is just a temporary mechanic, or there will be a ton of changes and iterations to the AI and skill responsiveness and effects of the mechanic.

Traits:
Quite a few of these traits are served the injustice of being tied to these unfinished feeling utilities (more on that later). Additionally, certain traits, like giving a random chance to destroy projectiles to sword or making axe’s chill AoE, are incredibly basic, beta level traits that need some serious up-tuning in order to ever justify their slots. Also, there seems to be a whole ton of damage modifiers missing, especially when compared to every other class, and the class itself doesn’t exactly stack boons on itself or anything either. That is definitely something that needs to be looked at before the live version of the game.

Utilities:
So, there are Survival utilities, Signets, maybe a spirit or two for exclusively PvE, and then just garbage utilities, pure garbage. Traps will never make ranger compete against something like engineer who just facerolls out the same sort of conditions at a higher rate and intensity than ranger can ever hope to, and Dhuumfire Reaper is a nightmare of a condition spec, along with mesmer and really anything else with heavy condition oriented combat. Spirits are immobile and for some reason have active PBAoE effects which makes them terrible by design, and the passives aren’t worth the slot the skills take up. Shouts…. Just wow.
Good thing all of these utilities are still in beta, because ANet, you definitely need this time to make these utilities worthwhile.

Weapons:

• Longbow-Good weapon, ANet, you managed to get one right for this BWE. Don’t change a thing.
• Greatsword-The autoattack chain is awful, but the rest of the weapon kit is pretty decent, although hilt bash only reaches about 200 of the 300 range it lists. Fix this bug before Druid goes live.
• Axe-What is this weapon trying to be? It has range but can’t do anything at range, it has no conditions on autoattack even though the damage of this weapon is clearly favoring conditions, and the secondary effect on the axe is only as reliable as the mechanic, so aka, not reliable.
• Sword-This is a great weapon, outside of the ridiculous autoattack chain animation binding you. Does this weapon even need this sort of treatment? It makes it very clunky and hard to use, even after you get used to it, because you have to use it either situationally or all in.
• Shortbow- Horrible weapon. Outside of the autoattack and 5, the rest of the skills are boring, don’t really work well or add much to the ability of the weapon to do anything (shortbow 4 and the bleeds are so weak, this is just a beta issue right?). Good thing this is still beta, because this weapon needs a total overhaul.
• Torch – another thing done right. Don’t touch this weapon.
• Dagger – the third thing done right so far. Leave it as is.

Overall, my beta impressions of the Druid were not pleasant (sorry that I keep using Ranger and Druid interchangeably). Everything was clunky and seemed fairly duct taped together, especially the mechanic, without any sort of design goal or effort to make the skills functional and effective.

Hopefully, these things improve for Druid by the next BWE or by expansion, because they are otherwise pretty awful and should never make it to a live game in their current condition.

Calling it now, aspect swapping will work like attunements. There will be 3 or 4 of them, with one additional active skill that changes based on which aspect you’re in. Aspects will passively buff you and potentially allies, and/or may affect enemies in some way as well. The only variable is the pet. Does it get replaced by the aspect auras completely, are they tied to which aspect you’re in, and if so, are they default, or do they need to be actively beckoned to the field.

Regardless, any of these variations has high potential to be quality changes, done right.

Terrorsquad.4802:

jcbroe.4329:

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Too lazy to record it. I just tested it with OPN, though.

Alright then, I’ll take your word for it. It wouldn’t surprise me the slightest, but I think the OP has already done enough spreading of the negativity for everyone.

Because Taunt is not working how it should be, and you know it as a Ranger. A skill going through evade frames makes it seem the game is broken.

I’ve already acknowledged if it’s doing this it’s broken, and I was having a conversation with Olrun about how I couldn’t recreate it.

I can see that you’re passive aggressively responding to my comment about your OP being negative, and I don’t mean to say you’re wrong because I wouldn’t have even posted here if I disagreed with you. I just find the tone you carry to be aggressive and inflammatory, and I apologize if that offends you.

I came here looking to verify information and have received adequate enough verification.

As for the rest of the thread, you have mostly agreeable sentiments but your aggression/frustration makes being constructive difficult. You should learn to have discussions and debates with people without making them feel attacked and by civilly talking their points out instead of dismissing them.

Not that I blame you because your frustration is understandable and justified, but I’d rather see some of these points gain traction than have another thread dismissed as an anger thread.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Too lazy to record it. I just tested it with OPN, though.

Alright then, I’ll take your word for it. It wouldn’t surprise me the slightest, but I think the OP has already done enough spreading of the negativity for everyone.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

@jcbroe Yes, easily recreated. It is undodgeable.

@Denied This attitude is why they stopped being so transparent in the first place. They announce what they’re planning on, but things change. Then people get upset. If thief is strong without it, I don’t see any reason to complain about it. And as for eles, I agree, but it should be fixed soon.

Do you stream or record so that you could show me (only asking because I can’t recreate what I’m talking about myself)? I and other people I’ve played around with have evaded it since the update claiming they fixed it, but the Taunt itself is instant the moment the player presses the button, meaning that while it being instant makes it unable to be reacted to in order to actively dodge, the taunt effect itself when used on a person currently within evasion frames doesn’t pull people out of dodge.

If it is pulling people out of evasion frames, then it still needs to be fixed. If it is just instant and therefore “undodgeable,” then every instant CC in the game needs to get fixed; not just picking and choosing what people don’t like at a given moment.

Well from the CDI posts from the devs when aspects were still a topic of discussion, an aspect would be like an entity-less pet, where the player has essentially “become one” with the pet and would be shown as an “aura” visible on the players appearance changing based on which pet they were attuned to (which would probably be ANets way of incorporating transformations without stepping on Norn toes).

So hypothetically, if there is something like 3 or 4 aspects available to swap to at a time and an additional active button function, every trait gets incorporated into that except Shared Anguish, Empathic Bond, and other passives that effect the pets.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable from that point that just like with Reaper Shroud, existing traits would get expanded upon to get functionality that works for both core ranger and elite specs.

We’ll have to see though, I have my bar set much lower than this to keep from what history tells me will be eventual disappointment.

People keep saying Taunt goes through dodges and I haven’t been able to recreate it pulling me or anybody else out of an evade.

Have you tested this yourself, or are you just regurgitating what all the other people who don’t understand when the Taunt fires off in animation are saying?

If anybody could recreate it going through evade frames and video capture it as proof though, I’d be very interested to see how you did it.

The problem I have with seeing a melee staff is that at this point with thief and Rev both getting a melee staff, it might start to be an overused concept. For thief and rev, it’s unique in a sense because they lack 2 handed melee weapons without staff.

Ranger, on the other hand, has greatsword already. So what would a melee staff that’s different from thief and revenant act without overlapping with Ranger GS at all? That would be my question/concern from a design point of view.

A caster staff for the druid on the other hand has tons of design potential that isn’t present on either the ranger class or in the theme/function of other classes. It doesn’t even have to necessarily be a “ranged” weapon, it just has to avoid being a martial weapon (aka it could be similar to guardians staff and have shorter ranges or even no range, but still thematically use magic to attack).

I doubt that anything will be revealed until after the next BWE though ANet is cutting it close

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

jcbroe.4329:

Don’t know how long these will be up but leaving this here, some artwork for druid is shown: https://marius.im/u/202sH4.jpg

There is no pet in that artwork…

I seriously doubt that the pet mechanic will even be a persistent creature on the field, and if it is then it definitely either won’t be “permanently out.”

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I’d be expecting the Druid to be one of the more drastic elite specs, and if it isn’t, it won’t bother me in the slightest as long as their is something positive to gain by speccing druid lol.

Don’t know how long these will be up but leaving this here, some artwork for druid is shown: https://marius.im/u/202sH4.jpg

Thz.7569:

I don’t really care about which direction they go with the Druid as long as it’s actually effective. Druid likely being the last reveal means a lot less BWE feedback we’ll be able to give which is what worries me the most.

Hits my sentiments right on the head.

You are aware the old Rapid Fire, before all the buffs, did nearly the exact same damage as Volley but took twice as long?

I’m in full agreement though that warrior rifle needs improvement, just maybe not Volley. The issue, as far as I’m aware of, is that rifle is only worth bringing for Volley and killshot.

Some skill reworks on everything else would probably be best.

What we know: druid will get something called aspects and a staff.
What we want to know: how will the mechanic change.

The overwhelming trend so far is for the weapons and utilities to be usable without being mandatory.

The most important thing we are all dying to know is how the mechanic will change, and it needs to change in a major way, either with druid changing what it is or with an update to the core pet ai, or both.

If it remains unchanged or unaltered in any major way, the simple truth is that ranger will be left behind by the other classes in HoT.

A new weapon and utility family alone is not enough.

Wondrouswall.7169:

jcbroe.4329:

(there is no reason they needed to mention Druid in January and frustrate the hell out of all of us by not giving any more information, as though it would hurt to confirm things that won’t change from time to time in a blog or a post).

Feels like before and during that time, Anet had only decided on the name Druid, using a Staff, and receiving the shoulder piece. Add in a shot of a copy-paste staff animation from Staff Elementalist Air 2 with some vine effects and it’s enough to get people speculating and excited.

At least, that what it feels like to me. All this time, I can only speculate Druid will be revealed last due to Anet going through and testing so many concepts and iterations for the spec. I would laugh though if Druid received everything but a new class mechanic. I can see the “Ready-Up!” episode now…

“So, when you take the Druid Elite spec, the pet mechanics of the Ranger are still the same.”

“So, what you are saying is… NO CHANGE!”

The problem with this and the main reason why most of us are irritated with the lack of Druid in the BWEs is because ANet simply has proven time and time again that their internal testing is not extensive or conclusive enough, or not handled in a quality enough manner to catch bugs and balance effectively.

Just look at the core specialization patch as the most recent example. There were tons of things that the community came up with to be fixed in just hours that should have never made it live.

The less time we get to give feedback, the more bugs and imbalances Druid will have come time for the launch of HoT.

The only point I was trying to make with the comment you quoted was that ANet didn’t really have to say anything at that point. We could still be sitting here in suspense, with no notion of what our elite specialization would be, waiting for a data-mined post about a name or a trait to be grabbed, and we would all honestly be less tense or frustrated. But ANet went and talked about Druid first, which makes people associate it with being the most completed, even if only conceptually, and then is so far behind in development we lose out on 2 opportunities to test and give feedback for bugs/balance.

Also, please don’t think that if I seem irate, it’s with you lol. The internet kind of just does that, and my only source of irritation is ANet lately (the other game I’ve invested a lot of time into recently is Destiny and so far I’m seeing the results I’d like to see from Bungie-Vision).

One of the biggest things that has irked me with this entire reveal experience is why the blog posts have had to wait to come out the week of the actual reveal. ANet, here’s a thought, you can reveal any concepts you set in stone and skills that need only number adjustments without having to wait on a live build to showcase the class. I mean, you guys did that in January when you announced druid in passing and then never spoke of it again. Sometimes, it would even be more useful to your developers, because before you ever even try to make a live build in game of the ideas and firm anything up, your community can give you feedback, like telling you when you have bad ideas like Water Spirit and Strider’s Defense.

….

Anyhow, I needed that off my chest lol.

Okay all, here’s what we’re going to do:

We’ll roll rangers in our beta slots and play through the beta, and then we will come here and make a thread called something really generically clickbait-y for the devs, like: “[Feedback] BWE experience with Ranger/Druid.”

Then, we will proceed to list out all of the issues that us rangers have compiled over these 3 years and add them to the thread as though they were first-time experiences (similar to how it would feel to play an elite specialization or even know anything official about it).

Example: “So, is this profession mechanic…. finished? It feels a little stapled on or added in at the last minute. Since this is still the beta, hopefully you plan on overhauling the mechanic’s AI or even the whole mechanic, but as expected, right now it just feels clunky and unfinished.”

and

“A lot of these pet skills take a really long time to cast, I really hope this was just a beta over site.”

Since even though I’ve mained the class, love the class, and have made it work all this time, I acknowledge that it’s constantly felt like I’ve been playing a 3 year long beta, I think that this might be a good opportunity to, if nothing else, troll ANet as hard as they troll us (there is no reason they needed to mention Druid in January and frustrate the hell out of all of us by not giving any more information, as though it would hurt to confirm things that won’t change from time to time in a blog or a post).

So that’s my plan. Everybody is welcome to join me lol

Amins.3710:

Better Build IMO – click

I get what you’re going for, but your heal gets hard countered by poison and will sometimes require you to eat a poison or burn another utility to get an effective heal, not to mention in general losing the clear and source of fury, and you lose having on demand blinds for stomping (cancel casting the F2 gives you 5 second cooldown blinds, particularly effective on canines when you want the other effects but don’t want to burn the main F2) as well as 600 toughness on pets.

All for just a burst heal over an over time one and maintaining swiftness instead of a runeset, along with regen that keeps the 5% damage trait constantly active.

I mean, it has its merits and is an option, but you could just swap marauders to berserkers on the typical build and accomplish almost exactly the same thing.

Unless you’re arguing some of the utility being lost is worth doing what, around 10% more damage over a considerable enough sampling of time?

I mean that’s a fine build, but at this point, why not just swap out Nature Magic for Marksmanship and pick up Rampage as One as the elite (or whatever it’s called now, I’m blanking and responding on a phone) and Remorseless and just go all in on the damage? All you end up losing is some protection and close proximity weakness which you may not end up needing at the end of the day and a specific cleanse on dodge, which you’d be trading for flat out damage options.

I’m not trying to undermine you, you just kinda made a blanket statement and I’m genuinely curious to hear your thought process.

Actually Archon, condition builds in general are weak against meta builds and team compositions, which sort of justifies that articles writer not expanding on that point because that’s more class analysis than class tiering. But, as mentioned, no class is running condi pure builds in competitive games unless they want to fight an extremely uphill battle against all of the common builds that have built in passive hardcounters to conditions.

If conditions start to push meta again, ranger will still probably lose immediately in the battle for a team slot against engineers, and really anything that can near insta-stack insane burns and cover them.

But power survival ranger is definitely a close contender with metagame builds for sure. It even has all of the right tools and matchups in a standalone sense. Really, the only things lacking are still team utility oriented. Rangers don’t help at all against builds that are boon reliant, where something else in slot would be, they don’t have that “instant” escape or mobility so they still might need a bit more team support with peeling than a different class and don’t really backcap or +1 with the same sort of mobility other classes can, and outside of taunt, rangers don’t really bring much niche utility like team stealth or the ability to moa key threats.

BUT, and I think the most important to stress counter point, is that just because rangers don’t do some of these things doesn’t mean that they are a liability to the team.

The most common instance of ranger hate in this regard is that these articles and people make statements about what we can’t do or that we’re bottom tier or the class isn’t worth playing, but they never actually know what the class actually does. As a matter of fact, most of these people have never even rolled a ranger or have bothered to educate themselves about ranger simply because of the lack of ranger players at high tiers of play. If they bothered to educate themselves at all, they might actually realize that while the class isn’t in the S-tier nerf now categories that other recurring classes get (appropriately) placed in, that just like with any other class, a skilled and experienced ranger contributes to a team composition and can be built around to be successful.

It took people forever to figure out that they could run dps guardian in a successful team comp too, but that’s what happens when the competitive community that’s visible on streams and active/vocal is maybe pushing 10% of the size of docgotgame’s gw2 viewership on its best day.

Tragic Positive.9356:

DeceiverX.8361:

They paid a lot of attention to the CDI. The results of it were not immediate, but they were there.

Some of my early suggestions in that thread were:

Baseline increased arrow projectile speed.
Baseline signets applied to the ranger.
Reduced CD on ROA.
RF channel speed reduction.

And I know even other people’s suggestions were definitely considered and have been implemented already. It will be interesting to see if the pet hangs around as an aspect or if we still have the stupid AI companion.

I actually love my companion. I picked the class because of the pet. Not the bow.

I don’t think it’s okay for pet-designed class to get rid of pet.
I believe the pet should be fixed to be reliable, instead.

What honestly “isn’t fair” about this statement is that historically, during design, ranger was originally 2 separate classes, one being primarily a ranged bow wielder while the other was a beastmaster. ANet at some point decided to cut and paste the 2 classes together because the design of the individual classes was lacking at that time, but thats what resulted in this modern day ranger.

I say it isn’t fair because the class was designed just as much to be a bow or ranged class as it was a pet class, in that regard.

I do echo the sentiment that removing the pet entirely from this stage would be problematic though, because it was designed to be both of the things I mentioned, meaning a the pet is a core theme of the class (its actually reflected in all of the art for the game where the ranger is always seen with a bow and a pet, with only rare instances of just the pet, but no instances I’ve seen wielding a different weapon).

It isn’t fair for anybody for any mechanic to be poorly designed or functional though. ANY situation where the pet stops feeling like an extension of the player and instead of a cohesive, well-integrated mechanic, it feels like a liability is an issue that should have honestly been fixed 3 years ago before the game ever went live.

In some regard, the pet mechanic is the most uniquely functioning mechanic in the game, but almost simultaneously in the worst possible ways. Every other class in the game has a mechanic that flows well in combat to use and functions well within what you would expect that class to be doing. Thieves speed across the field to steal something, necros accumulate living essence and unleash in upon their victims, warriors build up battle presence and lash out at there enemy, etc. And ranger players? They scream loudly at their screens for the pets to do things when they tell them to, stop pathing 5 seconds behind moving targets, and to notice the area of death they are sitting in and to come back before, oh wait, nope, dead pet again, it got 2 or 3 shot.

Point being, ANet did not design content and combat well for its pet class(es), and definitely did not design its pet class well to exist really in any game universe. Some games to pets really well, but GW2 is NOT that game.
How much longer do we wait though? It isn’t exactly fair for us to be waiting for a mechanic that should have been well-devised and functional at launch to be waiting 3 years later for work on a core component of the class design. It might not be thematically likeable or appropriate, be 3 years later with minimal progress on core issues might be time for a total overhaul and redesign, and if that includes an alteration to the mechanic, people might not like that initially, and they might never like it, but it might be a necessity in order to finally bring a class to where it needed to be 3 years ago.

Well some additional information that I unfortunately don’t have any direct sources for is that in the super early phases of the game, rangers were only designed with having 3 pets in mind (still 1 active at a time).

Additionally, an old elite skill (I believe it was an elite) named Alpha Strike called out all of the pets to the combat field at once.

Those that know me know I don’t tend to use specifics when I speculate, but I imagine the druid mechanic to be very functionally similar to elementalists attunement swapping, but through different animal aspects that grant auras/buffs that apply to both yourself and allies.
As for how that changes the pet mechanic, it could be addressed it multiple ways. The most drastic ways would be, while not implementing a “perma-stow” feature, the pet also wouldn’t necessarily be “perma-active,” at least not in a traditional sense. ANet could even go to the extreme of treating the “auras” as though they are the pet mechanic (essentially eliminating the pet as a physical component of combat, or at the very least a damageable component).

All I can 100% say is that we factually know existing traits will have to work with the druid traitline. While Aspect swapping takes care of pet swapping traits, we still need to think about traits the give pets the ability to do something (bleed on crit, etc), traits the buff the pet, as well as attacks (might on crit, sharing boons you get to the pet, axe 3, shortbow 4, gs5, etc), and of course, traits that affect F2s (we all know these, don’t need another list lol).

There would be lots of “stretching” in incorporating all of these into just a basic aspect/aura/attunement idea. Do my traits now buff me? Am I sharing boons with myself and the people affected by my aspects? Am I giving myself my own attacks effects? How does the F2 traits work, would the activate on aspect swapping as well?

At the very least, I’d have to imagine that in order to deal with the F2 situation, aspects would be getting some sort of “overcharge” just like tempests. Heck, this could even call a modified pet mechanic of some sort to the field.

Regardless, I hope that the class receives innovative upgrades or even redesigns, but builds the system to be fluent and coherent so that everything “makes sense” together. What I wouldn’t want to see is a slightly altered mechanic that doesn’t “fix” any issues with the current mechanic and would serve better as a QoL update than an elite spec.

Tonight’s VOD: http://www.twitch.tv/itsjroh/v/11631947

Sorry guys, was in a bad mood from IRL stuff and it kind of bled into my queuing. Still, it’s ranger gameplay I guess hahaha.

For the status of the stream: my PCs new graphics card will be arriving a bit later than originally estimated, but it is coming. I’ll let you guys know here when you can expect to see a better quality stream.

I’ll also be streaming hopefully next week between my first few days on campus and in class, and that will be a new setup so I’ll let you know when to stop by and see if my laptop I’m getting will have better streaming potential.

Knight;

I see that you’ve posted about this on the reddit, but I have no idea why you didn’t just link it to THIS THREAD lol. Linking people to the full CDI is just going to irritate people, even though you’ve followed up with my list of quotes.

Hey everybody! Seeing as how I don’t really see any posts from anybody who participated in the ranger CDI showing off when the idea was first presented to us, and seeing as how some unconfirmed information from reddit has relayed to us that we will potentially getting aspects and glyphs, I wanted to share some relevant information that was brought up in the CDI by the devs regarding aspects.

Hopefully somebody appreciates these quotes, all from devs:

As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?
If not, I don’t think the aspect idea would be a necessity for players. There are definitely things that need to be done to fix Ranger pets in general, and it’s something we are well aware of. If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?
Just musing!

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.

…The reason why I latched onto the aspect idea was because it was an option that seemed we could maybe work around. Rather than having to rebalance the whole class, we’d just have to balance the aspects to be similar to what the pet does damage-wise. That seemed a little more viable…

…The aspects I think were a little different. They talked about having specific bonuses based on the pet that the player was using. That is different from just giving a damage boost, which could end up being difficult to balance.

For all of those concept-crafters out there, enjoy!

Nobody is going to force you to play it.

BUT, reading through the original post, yes, if druid is more optimal to run, groups looking to optimize will ask you to run it.

However, you will more than likely see distinction in game as ANet intended, where people will call Druid players druids, and Ranger base classes with no druid line rangers, in order to distinguish the difference.

So, as there are many people who support the “play how/what you want” decision, there should be a disclaimer saying that NOBODY gets to play what they want when they are optimizing, only how they want (aka optimal is a playstyle option, not a build option, and relies just as much on builds as it does the skill and know-how of players playing them).

So if you’re worried, honestly just try to avoid the groups you get an “elitist vibe” from. I’d say that’s probably sound advice for most of the people who play to enjoy themselves though lol.

Eurantien.4632:

Duh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg

Eura new ranger dev now please.

(no holy hand grenades for hardcounters!)

Humorously enough, one of the GW1 dev guilds was called the Order of the Holy Hand Grenade.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Thz.7569:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Take a look at birds with a 300 range melee. Also, see this video to see how a 250 range auto attack affects a pet.

I run double birds in pvp and it’s still horrible. I suppose I see what you mean in that it can help, but it’s far from a fix.

I guess I’m a pessimist when it comes to AI and would like a petless class mechanic at this point. I mean, you know not much thought goes into these things when we still have horrible ranges on some of our pet reliant abilities like SoR.

/shrug Will likely love Druid regardless :P

Well, as well as the melee range increase, they also need a base speed increase, so they can run faster than players when both have no speed boosts. 20% should be fine, like GW1. Then they would be able to hit reasonably consistently.

It is a slippery slope, they can make the pets hit constantly, but if you cannot avoid the pet by moving around and dodging etc, it is OP. At what point should a decent player be able to avoid the pet? Since it is AI, it cannot be fair to have it deal consistent unavoidable damage against other players.

Well the simple fix to a perfectly tracking pet system is that either the pet no longer lacks a cooldown on their basic attack, OR, they only attack when you are actively attacking.

One way buries the functionality of certain pet skills that we desperately want to see in combat behind a new cooldown wall and potentially messes with the AI we are used to, and the other removes a lot of depth from the mechanic of how AI/Pets function.

Really, the only “fix” to pets is an overhaul, so I hope the Druid brings that as well as you do haha.

For people who had wanted a PvP stream, I just finished queuing for 4.5 hours, and had a few good matches against Chaith (Five Gauge) and Toker (…Toker lol) from the WTS NA team (for people who don’t tune into PvP streams/events).

You can see it here: http://www.twitch.tv/itsjroh/v/11435321

I think that overall I had a good night of playing this time, so hopefully I can stay consistent and improve, and also get that new graphics card sooner than later lol.

@Zenos;
Ahhh, awesome to hear that I’m not alone in the “guild ranger” WvW front. I know that there are definitely more people that are, but I’m not sure that everybody is vocal or active about it.

Also, @Everyone;
I need to update my builds to reflect the swap from Signet of Renewal to Quickening Zephyr on my bar. I really, REALLY enjoyed its versatility, especially the super speed aspect of it, and somehow made me feel like I had even more defense and survivability (again, superspeed lol).

Prysin.8542:

sweet to still see you around mate. Keep going!

Make the bow sing

Thanks man! It’s been forever, I figured you either took a break or moved on to bigger and better things lol.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

jcbroe.4329:

I can stick to streaming spvp, that’s fine. Just remember that I run raids with my guild in WvW at least half the week and half my play time, which cuts my streaming time essentially in half, although I completely understand the quality of gameplay improves by leaps and bounds when the quality of the fights and game modes improves.

Besides that, I don’t care about inventory management. I got all of my slot bags from earning them in the old PvP glory system. If somebody wants to buy and send me a salvager and different kinds of bags lol, then that’s their perogative, and I’m well aware I could be more efficient, but I’ve just never needed to be, and I think I’ve done pretty well with making money and getting what I want in game.

Sorry if my inventory bothers you though!

I’d still like to see you in WvW on your ranger , you’re name is influential, I know you do well and this would help towards the ranger hate Cause (new players picking up Veteran player bad habbits " just saying" , just post when you are doing WvW or Spvp and i’ll happly still watch ether or both when i’ve got the time.

No problem! I actually did stream some if you read Justine’s feedback on it. My WvW gameplay is nothing special, it’s just that I run with my guild at all times in WvW as the gank squad leader and we don’t talk, we communicate entirely by target calling, so I can imagine it will be boring, but I’ll try to keep both streaming.

I’m on T3 in Crystal Desert, and my guild leader won’t let me play anything else for him lol (he swears up and down I’m great at ranger and am as good as any other caster, and I argue back with him all the time telling him I’d literally bring more to the group as any other class, but he won’t hear it, and ranger IS my main so I don’t mind hahaha).

I can keep streaming it then, no worries, and I’ll try to keep posting past broadcasts here if you don’t catch it live.

Eval.2371:

jcbroe.4329:

Feedback or anything would be appreciated

Every time I have visited your stream, its been nothing but a laggy clipping mess. Really it’s un-watchable for my self.

I know it’s an issue and I’m very sorry about that, I have an older graphics card and it’s maxing out my gpu usage just rendering people, let alone the fact I have to run in pure low settings.

I should be getting a new graphics card by the end of the week, so in the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you check out a past broadcast or two and let me know if it’s on my end or if it’s the streaming service itself, because I know a few people on here have mentioned as well that it’s twitch for them and I want to make sure.

If it’s on me (it probably is), check back next week and I’ll have my new school laptop optimized for streaming which will be better, as well as a new graphics card in my current PC. I’ll update this thread when all of that happens so hopefully your experience improves

I can stick to streaming spvp, that’s fine. Just remember that I run raids with my guild in WvW at least half the week and half my play time, which cuts my streaming time essentially in half, although I completely understand the quality of gameplay improves by leaps and bounds when the quality of the fights and game modes improves.

Besides that, I don’t care about inventory management. I got all of my slot bags from earning them in the old PvP glory system. If somebody wants to buy and send me a salvager and different kinds of bags lol, then that’s their perogative, and I’m well aware I could be more efficient, but I’ve just never needed to be, and I think I’ve done pretty well with making money and getting what I want in game.

Sorry if my inventory bothers you though!

8/12 stream: http://www.twitch.tv/itsjroh/v/10726410

8/13 stream: http://www.twitch.tv/itsjroh/v/10841704

Youtube is NOT liking my videos -.- other than that, I recommend the 8/13 stream over the 8/12 stream, even though 8/13 is pure WvW.

Will be pure PvP queuing on my 8/14 stream, so anybody wanting to watch, look forward to that.

Thanks!

I just got finished my latest stream and I honestly wouldn’t recommend it lol. I start WvW raiding because that’s part of what I do, I play ranger in an organized guild group, but the WvW quickly got stale after the first few fights and it’s still ultimately just ranging things down.

I eventually transitioned to PvP and the match quality was just horrific. Even continuing to queue after the first match was pure masochism.

ANet can’t fix the quality of my teammates with a balance patch hopefully at least they get around to fixing a few of the more broken things sooner than later (burning or the main offenders of burn applications, ele “master of all trades, average at none” builds, etc).

Some additional notes: Sorry for the poorer stream quality. I found out that on this older desktop, I’m pretty much maxing out my GPU usage and it runs a little hot, which would cause a displeasing viewer experience I’m sure.

Once I’m back in college and am regularly using my much more upgraded laptop, the stream quality should improve. I’ll side by side compare the two streams and figure out if 60fps or 30fps bandaids that problem in the meantime.

Two Past Broadcasts this time. The match quality got really bad at some point as did my playing quality, but I rallied at the end, and Durzlla joined up with me for a few hours in the second stream and we won every match and I rallied to some degree, although my gameplay got a bit more mindless.
Part 1: http://www.twitch.tv/itsjroh/v/10569227
Part 2 with an eventual Durzlla feature: http://www.twitch.tv/itsjroh/v/10586375

Will work on some match highlights and upload them to youtube. I tried uploading the whole first VOD from the first stream and youtube got angry with me lol.

Just went live, heads up! Will be doing PvP from now until the guild starts running around 11pm to midnight my time (3 to 4 hours from now) and will probably stream through that unless it’s super boring in which case I’ll just call the stream at that point and start earlier tomorrow to get more PvP footage.

I played each class a fair enough amount and have to say, at least from my PvP standpoint, starting with weapons:

• Dragonhunter LB is good
• Mesmer Shield is Great
• Tempest Warhorn was pretty meh, like it didn’t do much of anything to compete with just taking staff over x/warhorn
• Reaper Greatsword was terribad. Outside of hitting stationary mobs, it isn’t even functionally effective, let alone not being a very great effective weapon either.

Specs themselves:

• Dragonhunter was pretty average. It didn’t add much to the guardian class and it only slightly changes the way guardians play.
• Mesmers don’t feel too changed mechanically, but at the same time, lots of depth and complexity with rewarding functionality to match was added, creating various new ways of going about engagements without making the mesmer feel like a class outside of itself.
• Tempest Ele probably loses a lot from trading one of its other traitlines for tempest, but functionality wise just gains more skills and more ways of playing, and even to some degree more survivability (as though that was warranted). Tempest pretty much takes the master of all trades, lackluster at none elementalist class and specializes them at being ever more masters of everything.
• Reaper shroud was pretty great. It was definitely strong, it has amazing combos (that “forever” whirl finisher and it’s damage could be put to great effect in the right fields), and really emphasized to me what an elite spec should be, aka a different but equally effective way to play the same class (once number and trait tweaks are in line).

Outside of that, I’d say really the biggest letdown across the board was the utilities. I couldn’t really justify slotting much of any of them personally. The seemed almost disconnected from the rest of the utilities the class had, and their wasn’t much depth you could build for into builds the way other classes can (common example being eles getting regen on cantrips and then traiting for gaining regen removing conditions). You really only got to use the one trait that makes each of the utilities tick and outside of making those utilities better, they still didn’t really mesh well in most cases (the BEST utility I think I played around with was the Reaper should that gave Might and Stability).

So, now, where does this leave Druid in the future in my mind?
Well, the utilities are arguably of equal importance to whatever the mechanic alterations are. Self support, group support, really, anything. Even offensive AoE utility, but basically as is, we have Survival, Signets…. and that’s really it as far as generic utilities go for PvP. I mean, Traps on condition builds still work but condition builds don’t exactly work in all areas of the game, and outside of Frost Spirit and MAYBE Sun Spirit, and those niche times when people ACTUALLY use shouts, we are pretty lacking in the utility functionality area, and what I experienced did not leave my very hopeful for the quality of life of the utilities being introduced, although I guess in my opinion, it would be hard to make any new utilities we get much worse than some of the existing ones.

The mechanic experience for me was hit or miss. None of them were really bad, but certain classes like I pointed weren’t exactly groundbreaking changes to the class, and my own preference and I think the overall tone of the majority of ranger players is that we would like that “groundbreaking” change more than just minor alterations to the existing mechanic.

Lastly, the weapon. Well, again, the weapons were hit or miss, but personally I think that this is comparatively the least important change we can get. Not that it won’t be valued, but that I’d rather the quality of the other 2 categories be staggering, and at that point I could live with getting a lackluster staff. However, what I experienced gave me hope for the weapon regardless, but we just have to hope that it’s a hit and not a miss (looking at you condi heavy staff. Don’t you dare be a condi pure weapon).

@Ryan;
Thanks for the tip, I’ll add it to my list of settings to try out on tonights stream. It’s appreciated!

@Manekk;
I’m honestly not sure what that is, it might be the video player plugin not being up to date or not playing nicely with your computer security or something.
This week I’m going to look for the quick fix of uploading my streams to youtube for the immediate future so that people with twitch problems can still watch. I’ll work to pick an editor and edit out the downtime and eventually dub over it if I’m ever doing a poor job of self-commentating while I play.

@Prophet;
Yeah I was running Marauder, and I’d even go zerker against the right team comp if I was feeling that comfortable. With the trait split that I run and the way that I play, I haven’t ever found myself dying really unless I get outplayed or focused, which are two things that are usually out of my immediate control hahaha.

Not to say I wouldn’t run tankier, but I would probably drop the Longbow and run full melee to do it with Skirmishing, Wilderness, and a preference third.

I find that the high damage amulets help me +1 or be “the damage” in fights and my team benefits, or the other team sends their +1 or focuses on me, in which case a competent team will appreciate me kiting around and relieving pressure and should be able to take advantage of whatever situation it ends up as (essentially the +1s cancel each other and make the teamfight a 4v4, or the other team focuses me, meaning my team can “counter push” one of them and we can trade evenly in a teamfight, ideally).

But that’s just my thought process.

Also, if the kudzu wasn’t an indicator as to why I don’t run full melee, among other reasons, I love my longbow haha

Hahaha here’s the link: http://www.twitch.tv/itsjroh/v/10322608

I hope it wasn’t too terrible for my first stream! First game starts around 9 minutes

I think I wasn’t articulating well and that I was a bit shy about the volume of my voice, but those are things I’ll have to work on as I stream more lol.

That or actually, I probably needed to just turn game sound down since that’s probably just the sound of my voice lol. I’ll clear that up on Tuesday hahaha.

Hahaha thanks Justine! The build reader must have defaulted to german, sorry. You can switch it on the site with the little flags on the upper left to english and other languages

I can go ahead and run those alternatives, no problem, but I can give you some thought processes about my selections:

• I use the hydromancy sigil more for escapes and kiting than I am for leeching, though I’ll have to go back and watch my gameplay and see, like you probably noticed and are now telling me hahaha, that my GS was probably used more offensely than defensively so that I would have gotten more mileage out of leeching.
• The reason why I’m running fire right now is that I’m lazy lol. Basically, I’ve kept the air/fire combo even though I factually have seen that the sigils were “stealth nerfed” partly because I was waiting for confirmation and partly because I really like how the fire sigil procs have an animation that “reveals” where people are in stealth that I’m channeling into. Force is the best replacement for DPS, and blood would probably be the next best thing for “sigil crit bursts” that can be chosen.

But I’ll definitely mess around with those options the next time I’m playing!
Right now I’m supposed to be up in 4.5 hours to go to the amusement park with the fiance though lol so 8/11 isn’t just the next stream day, its also the next time I’ll get to play again haha.

Alright, my first official stream is going to be live for about an hour until True Detective. It won’t be anything special, just me playing stronghold and talking ranger and the game with anybody that stops by.

I can do some research on them and see. I mean, I gravitated towards twitch because it’s the most popular and has the biggest backing, but I can see what’s out there.

I’m also considering setting up other media, aka, doing youtube videos of spliced together action from the streams to eliminate the boring parts and then potentially dubbing over the sound with gameplay breakdown, but that will take me a bit of time to figure out, especially since I just now got around to figuring out how to configure my stream and built up the confidence to “just do it” so to speak lol.

Something to note: I do have it set so that when I alt tab, the screen “freezes” so that I can keep some sort of privacy and protection against personal information I might accidentally show in passing and things like that, but that should clear itself up once I start doing facecams so that you can see it’s just my settings for my stream on my end and it doesn’t look like it’s freezing on your end at those moments AS WELL AS any additional streaming issues there is on Europe.

That REALLY is sad to here though, sorry that it’s like that in Europe, it must be frustrating as hell (it would annoy the hell out of me since when I’m living on campus all I have for tv is youtube/twitch).