Guild Wars 2

jcbroe.4329:

Puck.9612:

Knighthonor.4061:

Honestly, i have to wonder, if many of the people here who are crying that Druid is useless outside of Raids, ever even played the Druid as a Healer at all.

because at the same time during the BWE3 as the Ranger forum was yelling about how bad and useless Druids are outside of Raids, people were on the PvP and WvW forum yelling about how strong Druids are.

lol. I played healer druid and it was awesome. Just need better self defense because as people figured it out, they started to do the “Target the Ranger” tactic which left me screwed since Toughness stat is pretty lacking on Cleric gear and the heals cant counter full target of the Druid from dps heavy enemies.

but the class was great. I left the beta with a nice memory in WvW when it was a three side zerg war ground in which I managed to heal my outnumbered team zerg and keep them alive far longer than they would without my heals. Was a great feeling of Support actually matters for once instead of it just being a byproduct of DPS zerker builds.

The only “druid OP” threads I saw were posted before the weekend. Everyone considered them a free bag after they played against them.
Damage mitigation>healing. Druids can’t out heal coordinated spikes, and it’s very easy to just target druid first and chain cc/burst him down.

100% this. People weren’t making claims of effectiveness, they were upset it takes a few seconds longer to whack through a health bar being “extended” by healing, but every “Druid OP” post was either about our traits which have little to nothing to do outside of functionality, and our healing; meaning that at that point they were asking for nerfs to the only thing celestial form and to some extent the main feature of Druid could even do.

Celestial form was in desperate need of being support oriented and not just a healbot with exclusive usage in PvE content, and 9/10 times in PvP you’d be better off picking up the traitline and then not using celestial form ever except maybe to “flash” into it and drop 2 and 3 real quick and then immediately exit.

basically. pure healbots will never work in pvp. when youre not doing damage, peeling, and killing people, youre wasting time and getting killed yourself. spike damage is fairly nasty in live currently. some of the elite specs take this to the next level in HoT.

I made a sturdy druid using celestial amulet and grove runes, so perma prot. had some stab, wasn’t really dying. problem was, with about 750 healing power, I wasn’t able to keep players up. my top plays were LI + natural convergence combos on a point when people weren’t paying attention to me. it really had nothing to do with my heals. in a game where we’re spiking each other for 12-15k damage, mitigation is king.

now the only interesting thing about the druid in BWE3 were the offensive builds with marauder stats. lb/gs, staff/lb, and to an extent gs/staff all worked very nicely. we could roam, 1v1, support the team, hold points briefly. I was excited about the possibilities. offensive/hybrid druid rocked. I could count on 1 hand how many druids played this way, i.e. properly, during the beta, and we were hella strong.

the worst thing that can happen now is some sort of nerf to base healing of the druid to force people to wear healing stats. given our low base HP, cleric wont work in conquest because mesmers can spike for 15k on 3k armor. celestial stats don’t heal enough and tickle people.

the best thing would be to allow druids to excel at HYBRID builds that can do damage and support the team. leave the scaling . instead improve our avatar skills, weapons and a few traits. druid needs nothing but buffs to healing AND damage.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

In all honesty I think it’s too late in development to change anything on the druid besides minor skill functionality such as tweaking healing numbers or adding a boon or two

it was already implemented in BWE3. in conquest, hybrid/offensive was the best way to play the druid hands down. the builds were there and a few of us made it work. the worst thing that could happen now would be to nerf this playstyle by pandering to pve zealots and a mass of inexperienced pvp’ers who don’t understand the profession in any way.

what’s wrong with people dying to burn guardians?

they don’t bring enough condi cleanse.

pet condis cancel each other out instead of stacking. i.e. hawk and cat bleeds. this can be verified by enabling simple condi UI floaters.

Razor.9872:

Seems like nearly everyone here is assuming that the change to healing power scaling on these skills will actually nerf the numbers they do, rather than buff them. I may just be optomistic here, but I think the new scaling could quite possibly scale our heals past what they were previously (if you gear for healing).

all the pve’ers (a loud majority) want the base heals nerfed, and scaling greatly increased with healing power. they want more heals and they want to use healing gear.

these are excellent, realistic and reasonable suggestions +1

I would really like hornet’s sting (sword 2), to leave a trail of hornets that pulse 2x torment 3 times. a lot of our weapons have horrible condi output, and in the current meta s/t a/d just doesn’t cut it dps-wise.

but those SB buffs are an absolute must.

WH 4 suggestion I disagree with. it just needs a greater effect. if we go with the blinds, then it needs a 30% dps increase. id prefer to leave damage low and give it greater utility like boon stripping or another condi. OR an aoe effect like mad king runes.

this thing just needs to be instacast, period. it’s useless reactively. Enlargement is really good though. also it wouldn’t hurt if its baseline regen was buffed. regen builds are useless in this meta, and they will be even more useless when the new specs and their bursty play come.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Irenio, I think you’re making a mistake if you nerf the base healing of the druid by too much, thereby forcing players to go for healing power to make decent/good use of the new traitline

I have to second this. forcing us to use healing power in pvp will make us useless. healbots will never, ever work in pvp. hybrid specs – yes. keep base heals the same, improve scaling of certain skills. healing felt right with marauder stats in bwe3 and I wouldn’t want to see it go lower, i.e. it only made a little bit of a difference, sometimes.

1k ticks with 1.5k and 2.5k here and there – this is NOTHING when people are putting out 10-15k bursts. there is absolutely no point in nerfing base healing, it’s already pretty bad. just make it scale better with HP.

that rev had no idea what he was doing ^

^that’s not the point. hes saying UA gives rev another invuln. it allows the rev to dps, bait cd’s/endurance, and just tank a huge amount of damage.

lxghostxl.5097:

Needs allot of rework and options that does not push away the majority of Rangers (dps rangers)

not be forced to build cleric set.

make the gylphs useful unlike what we have now that is basically useless

this is not the case for pvp. pve, maybe.

thanks so much for this thread OP. this needs addressing as much as the chronomancer before launch. a well played rev is out of control.

Rain.9213:

I’m telling you this as someone who has used Revenant quite a lot and as an advocate for the class. Not as some scrub who just jumped on Revenant to see how OP it is. I played it prior to the UA buff and I played it after as well.
.

people who think UA is ok are very, very misled and have no idea what a good rev can do with it.

Kitty.1502:

mistsim.2748:

it really has little to do with pets. that’s just a SMALL part of what needs fixing. core ranger has 4 unusable weapons, almost a dozen unusable utilities, half a dozen bad traits, and yes, a bunch of bad pets.

the core ranger will literally be eaten for breakfast by the elite specs come launch, while the druid might have a niche role or two. we just don’t have the “new tech”, we don’t have the tools to fight em. we’re working with baggage from the days of vanilla release.

While I won’t disagree that the weapons in general all need to be fixed, we have 30% of our dps trapped in the pet, and it is very unreliable. Fixing pets is the most major/serious thing for the core ranger. The weapons are major but just not on the same level.

in pvp, the pet is maybe 10% of my dps. but I understand why this issue is greater for pve.

in pvp, we just need all pets to have useful F2’s.

Fay.2357:

mistsim.2748:

Fay.2357:

tl;dr: I got owned by supcutie and a great thief working extremely effectively together, but I don’t want to admit that I got owned fair and square, and have decided to blame it on the build instead.

nah, u managed to entirely miss my point. but thanks for contributing to the discussion.

The only thing you said in that post was complaining about how badly he beat you. We already know supcutie is great, the thief is great, and they were working together. This just another case of ’don’t want to admit I lost real bad’.

just stop trolling a serious thread. i said a lot more in that post, which you chose to ignore and spew your own vitriol, attacking me when i in fact wasn’t hostile toward anyone. I’m done with you, moving on.

edit: actually, say what you will bud. at this point, Gee probably read the thread and that’s all that matters.

Fay.2357:

tl;dr: I got owned by supcutie and a great thief working extremely effectively together, but I don’t want to admit that I got owned fair and square, and have decided to blame it on the build instead.

nah, u managed to entirely miss my point. i don’t have any quarrel with supcutie, or any specific individual running chrono. mind you, out of all the top mesmers in NA (played with/against most of them, there are about 5 names that come to mind), supcutie by far ran the most powerful build. the other guys just didn’t figure it out yet. and after 3 years of conquest, i simply know when something is over the top, as many others do.

chrono shares god-like status with the herald as of BWE3, and because theyre such well designed and fun specs, i don’t want to see them die. but i don’t want another d/d ele for 6 months post-release either. and this is why appreciate aeroxie and supcutie actually responding rationally, because they likely don’t want that either.

we all just want balance in the universe, and to hold hands.

ProtoMarcus.7649:

mistsim.2748:

celestial shadow superspeed doesn’t seem to work while stomping.

Superspeed =/= Quickness

Superspeed is the movement speed, Quickness is action/skills speed

oh shi— kitten me, I got used to QZ giving me everything. erased my post.

I did not find scrappers to be that impressive. they were tanky, but nothing we haven’t dealt with before, as some mentioned above. maybe tankier than a d/d, but does way less damage.

didn’t they just beat that boss with like 90% zerker comp? I believe some people were saying the druid(s) weren’t even necessary.

it really has little to do with pets. that’s just a SMALL part of what needs fixing. core ranger has 4 unusable weapons, almost a dozen unusable utilities, half a dozen bad traits, and yes, a bunch of bad pets.

the core ranger will literally be eaten for breakfast by the elite specs come launch, while the druid might have a niche role or two. we just don’t have the “new tech”, we don’t have the tools to fight em. we’re working with baggage from the days of vanilla release.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’ll just leave this here, most of the reveal feedback is confirmed by the beta as being needed, imo.

Druid Feedback Post

I agree with and support these changes.

mostly positive, but quite a few improvements are needed.

secondly, we are in DIRE need of core profession adjustments (old weapons, traits, utilities and pets that will never see any use), perhaps moreso than needing any druid improvements.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

There’ll be more supportive damage for Celestial Avatar by launch… possibly from trait modifications or from skill changes.

This is good. not trait modifications though because, well, we need certain ones to be effective. druidic clarity, celestial shadow and ancient seeds are essential for any offensive/hybrid build. my suggestion is that you add the damage to one of the avatar skills.

also bear in mind that avatar #1 is not usable on mobile teammates in pvp due to the cast time and tiny range. #2 is also extremely ineffective, because amidst aoe chaos, people wont huddle by the seed waiting for their condi cleanse. it needs to explode much faster, and/or have a greater range.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

If you want to focus on being the top offense then you probably shouldn’t be selecting the Druid specialization.

this worries me a little bit. at the very least, druid should be a viable hybrid option. a bunch of us are doing it with marauder stats, it’s not OP and it’s only reasonably effective.

it also worries me because CORE rangers will have no viable offensive options in HoT due to the power creep of the elite specs. not with 4 of our core profession’s weapons being entirely useless is power builds. the one power build that I was able to use effectively even in the current meta, the valk remorseless GS spec, will become non-viable due to how insanely strong scrapper, reaper, rev and chrono are in melee range. the condi bunker ranger, also melee, will be eaten for breakfast. not that it’s viable now.

in short, the powercreep of the elite specs will push power builds even further toward LB use. but remember, you guys added all those reflects in the game. ranger condi builds will remain non-viable. and the few viable power melee (ish) builds that work now will become food.

so what would you like to do with us?

p.s. in case you missed the feedback in the main thread, staff #2 requires a lot of tweaking and hopefully a much buffed damage component and better scaling with HP. staff #4 is very difficult to land, and when it does, the immob is insignificant. slightly reduce cast time and increase the immob to 2s.

Good luck man, and great job so far.

Nero Wrought.1452:

Honestly, I think we’re gonna need some more details about the team comps to be able to judge the situation.

Personally, I’ve been finding that it’s very difficult to deal with any sort of condi pressure. Was the enemy team doing anything to counter you along those lines?

couldn’t land anything on him between the blurs, invulns, blocks and invis. got him once or twice but it was a 3v1 constantly. virtually like a well-played d/d ele was after June 23rd patch. that lvl of broken, i.e. sure it’s vulnerable to X, but puts out a ton of damage and requires an immense amount of resources to down. in conquest it’s not about IF you can somehow get him, but about a) is it feasible, b) is it probable, and c) does your team have the skill. this is how well played d/d eles won tournaments.

there was another herald spec that played in a very similar manner, just as broken if not more. but when I attempted to start discourse in their forums, I got suspended so yeah. revs are in la-la land right now, everything is perfect and beautiful and theyre having so much fun. that’s what matters. but not a single thread discussing the OP builds. and I doubt anyone is even aware.

so I’m glad that chrono and revs are well-designed and fun specs. in fact, so is the druid but it aint broken OP. I expect a massive balance patch prior to release, otherwise welcome to rev/chrono meta for 6 months.

Ravezaar.4951:

I love Reaper after 3y as Necro my Power (hate Condi Meta) can finally stop running from enemies and stay and fight thos we still have some serious weak points. We cant disengage still, LF-Gen in 1v1 is terribad and we have slowest cast time ingame…

King of the Hill

Chronomancer (even Mesmers now this)

Top tier

Scrapper
Reaper
Druid
Herald

Average

Daredevil
Berserker

Low Tier

Tempest
Dragonhunter

I agree wit this ranking more or less, except id swap DH and zerker. zerkers are totally useless, whereas ive seen a few very well played DH’s who could lock down and blow up people while having decent sustain.

Chrono is the only spec that’s entirely BROKEN OP (a certain trait setup), and the herald being close behind.

no, I corrected it. Pack Runes are most efficient.

I’m extremely worried that Rev’s broken pvp builds wont get addressed before release. would love to hear some feedback about them, and hope that Roy reads.

thanks for responding man, real nice of ya. my OP was very troll-ey. but I did get worried when I saw it in action =) still worried.

but from what we’ve seen Gee knows what he’s doing so hopefully the build doesn’t get killed. doubt it will.

Rym.1469:

mistsim.2748:

druid is very strong right now and it should get better once a few kinks are ironed out. the heals are real. we need a bit of on-demand stab, I hope Irenio is workin on that.

I was running Elite Shout with CDR. Enough Stability for me.

yeah I switched to it as well. unity glyph is really bad right now. I also picked up enlargement on my offensive build.

thanks man… I just noticed that =( probably for the best.

JKLeetro.6935:

One thing that I saw on forums that REALLY concerns me.

GLYPH IS NOT POPULAR.

Like seriously, it is not popular at all…..

some glyphs are okay. for example, tides and equality are quite good on offensive builds. rejuvenation is decent, I used it quite a bit today on my support hybrid.

the real flops are unity, empowerment and alignment. empowerment needs to last longer, not sure what they were thinking with alignment, and unity just cant maintain the tethers. unity’s secondary is amazing btw, if your teammates know to stay close. tethers need to be at least 600 radius range.

Aomine.5012:

mistsim.2748:

protip if your celestial energy is always full, then you always have a full condi cleanse =P

Translation:

Use staff all the time to get a cleanse. (Otherwise it’s too slow to be of any use)

You still need WS to have enough cleanse. Otherwise you’re like stuck in staff because you can only cleanse with Astroy. Plus staff has no burst = staying in it too long = lose of dps/ burst potential.

The current system is way too clunky. Should work more like Shroud to have practical uses.

that is not a correct translation. that’s what you want it to be.

if you go GS/Staff, you don’t need protective ward and u can just grab Remorseless and MoC, if u don’t like taunt. equality glyph dazes the thief for 4 seconds, instacast. not to mention u can traverse 2400 range in seconds.

Chokolata.1870:

I am running the WS,BM, Druid Marauder/Traveler Staff/Longbow variant.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTjEqQJL2yCOsAVLWyEM4ZaOdo+M5icPumkVA4AUwqD-TpBFABCcIAEvMgc7PkwFAYhHAAAHBAA

It is a pretty kitten good roamer build.

this looks really good. I’m gonna try it over my remorseless/MoC variant. it’s a tough choice, MoC makes GS #4 a 3s daze, equality glyph becomes 4s, and avatar #3 is 6s. I’m trading that for extra taunt cc so it might work out.

did you try GS/staff btw? I’m finding spamming staff #1 with air/fire sigils to be highly effective. mostly because no1 can shake that beam from them. it’s not a projectile and it pierces. so I don’t need another long range option.

Ancient Seeds are proccing all over the place. we have lots of daze =) definitely adds to the theme of the druid, and gives us much needed CC options.

looks fun. I prefer the staff over any other long range weapon atm cuz of #1 and #3, which are OP.

shortbow has way too many problems, i.e. it just doesn’t do damage. if you need the daze from it to proc AS, then just get your dazes elsewhere. we have more daze than mesmers.

protip if your celestial energy is always full, then you always have a full condi cleanse =P

nice, thanks for the tip. thing is, remorseless is just frosting on the cake. I like the tiger’s
leap i’ll test it out. I will definitely grab the smokescale when it becomes available, so this build will have a ton of stealth. might replace a bird with the tiger. also the wyvern’s charge might be good.

right now I’m wrecking people. Celestial Shadow is so amazing for your team. people are getting really really stuck in that whole healbot/cleric mentality. I wish I had time to record a few matches. all i can say is don’t be afraid to go a little glassy and invest heavily in survivability traits/utilities.

I would also like to caution the devs to be careful when buffing some of this stuff. 80% of the feedback is from a bunch of lost newbs and pve’ers. druid mostly just requires small tweaks.

Aomine.5012:

Sorry to break your dream.

Druid is only needed in WvW and potentially raid, and nowhere else, since it has on offensive and defensive supports.
No one except bad team really need a dedicated healbot.

For a party of 5, it’s too great of a sacrifice to carry a healbot who can only heal and does nothing else.

I’m sorry but this is BS. you just haven’t found the right build. topping up and locking opponents down for players who know how to sustain themselves is incredibly useful. healing a bunch of bads does nothing and makes the druid seem pointless. there is a variety of strong offensive builds that can support, 1v1, roam, and team fight. have a look in the ranger forums, I posted the build.

there are also tankier builds with grove runes, s/wh, and celestial amulet that work just fine.

sucks how we kinda have to guess lol

here.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnEqAlsgVsCOsActgl/AD+s2WvrLvuMQAopfVD2BjYM-TpBFABCcEAe4CAIeZga2fYhHAAAHCAA

youre welcome.

for anyone looking for a fun marauder build, check this out. very hard to pin down, super mobile, high sustained long range dmg. support your mates with avatar 3, 4 and 5, get stealth. pin people down with Ancient Seeds. keeps avatar bar full at all times. very obnoxious.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnEqAlsgVsCOsActgl/AD+s2WvrLvuMQAopfVD2BjYM-TpBFABCcEAe4CAIeZga2fYhHAAAHCAA

try it and you will see that staff 1 does not need any buffs. it’s actually extremely demoralizing because the sustained damage is very high and u cant shake the beam.

Kitty.1502:

mistsim.2748:

Kitty.1502:

mistsim.2748:

^in a sense this is true. “just healing” will never work in this game. druid needs to be doing quite a bit of damage to make a difference and to make him viable

And there lies in the problem, if you are using druid as a typical druid with the staff you won’t be doing any real significant damage or worthwhile damage.

correct, which is why people should try hybrid or offensive druids.

I am running a power ranger with the druid line which is fun.

Yeah it’s a blast.

in terms of going “full support” the best middle ground ive found is s/wh/staff with celestial stats and birds for damage. it’s pretty good for 1v1’s, and the support and survivability are still there.

Leodon.1564:

Kreed.2768:

I think you’re confusing this with avatar’s #4 skill, which is indeed a portable water field. However, that one you can’t blast yourself, since it’s a channeled ability.

I was disappointed to find out you couldn’t combo blast Avatar#4 with #3. Makes sense to have a water field on at least one staff ability.

4 is actually a channel, u cant do anything else while channeling

oh are u away from the game? someone stumbled onto it =P i think they just forgot to put it in the tooltip. i like double blast finishing the water field, it’s sweet.

i like the suggestions but why are u making SC a light field? it’s currently a water field and it’s perfect.

^perfect feedback. basically matches everything i wrote.

Kitty.1502:

mistsim.2748:

^in a sense this is true. “just healing” will never work in this game. druid needs to be doing quite a bit of damage to make a difference and to make him viable

And there lies in the problem, if you are using druid as a typical druid with the staff you won’t be doing any real significant damage or worthwhile damage.

correct, which is why people should try hybrid or offensive druids.

i just wanted to add one more thing:

Verdant Etching

this trait is actually kinda useless in pvp, as is the Seed #2 in avatar. look at competitive pvp. if you stand still while waiting for the seed to pop, youre dead. the radius is way too small and it takes too long to go off. so this requires major iteration.

Photinous.4628:

Give it time and you guys will realize that druid, while an improvement over ranger, is not even close to the other elite specs in PvP. Scrapper has ridiculous tankiness and sustain, way above our level. The aoe that tempest craps out with the overloads is insane. The gravity well from chrono cannot be stun broken so you will just insta die. The damage from dragon hunter is absolutely OP as kitten.

this has been the case for me as well. now imagine a DRUID healing all those guys and locking people down. also if played well, youre virtually unkillable.

^in a sense this is true. “just healing” will never work in this game. druid needs to be doing quite a bit of damage to make a difference and to make him viable

Ross Biddle.2367:

Good Mesmers players have been able to clean up way before chrono was even a wet dream in a random devs head.

not at all, i play against all the esport kiddies every day in the top mmr bracket. this chrono build was something insane.