Guild Wars 2

Mcrocha.3891:

Druidic Clarity- Breaks stuns.

Glyph of Equality- So this skill has a stun break now. Thanks much for that change. Think it opens up some great build possibilities with glyphs and MoC now. 4s instacast daze on a 24s cd when traited.

Natural Convergence- gives 2 stacks of stab at start of cast

Seed of Life- Blinds enemies when it blossoms

Glyph of Unity- Cd increase?

These are some of the changes I noticed that I didn’t see mentioned. Some of the changes are really good and if AF generation and whatnot gets sorted out, Druid can be pretty strong.

wow those are some incredible changes. I knew about SoL and NC. GoE being a stun break is freaking huge and the devs literally heard us out on that. ive been so busy running my OP staff/WK build that I didn’t even have time to play with glyphs yet. this is indeed great news.

I have a feeling that LL will may get a slight nerf to maybe 4-6s ICD or something like that because it’s just broken right now. It would still be amazing.

the one and only thing that will get nerfed fo sho is dat smokescale lol. but man, it feels so good to actually have some burst for once.

Lord Snow.3257:

From what I’ve seen, the only thing Druid works as atm, is bunkerbuilds running staff. Staff is useless for anything else anyways, but it’s the only way alongside Troll Unguent to have acceptable AF gain.

nah, u don’t really need to “bunker” as a druid. if u run lingering light, your team can spam blinds on everyone. Astral Grace and Celestial Shadow are basically god mode, so we can easily run marauder, or even carrion with traps. staff with air/fire sigils and rauder stats hits super hard, so for me generating AF has been ok. I just hate how constrained I am to staff.

SkiTz.4590:

Zatoichi.1049:

i am very sad to wake up to this news. I am downloading now in hopes to get right on druid to test things, now I wont even bother with it… ok lets make a revenant

You won’t regret it. Rev is an absolute blast to play , you won’t even look back and say “man I wish I stuck with ranger”

oh man, it’s been awesome on my end as well. killing revs all morning with my marauder druid. sucks you haven’t found a build that works for you, all you really have to do is try. but trying is hard i get it. thats why i posted the build in a thread below. oh well.

SkiTz.4590:

But honestly, this spec is RIDICULOUSLY healing focused.

not really, not in pvp. with the right build.

xev.9476:

Anyone else notice that using staff 3 sometimes puts you into combat, even if there’s nothing/no one around you?

yep, tahts a bug for sure. report it to the bug forums and hopefully irenio sees it here. more specifically, it’s the end (blast finish) portion of it.

in pvp, you have to use the third trait line in the menu to pick your elite spec =)

the druid is amazing in pvp, check out my offensive/support build thread further down in the ranger forum.

LegallyBinding.4937:

It takes so much away from the Druid in PvP.

could you be more specific? I’m not having issues generating avatar, healing, support, doing damage, etc. while using staff.

my problem is simply not being able to run druid builds without staff.

I think the worst part of it all is HOW they did it – without consulting us, testing it, or asking anyone’s feedback. in the history of ANet, the worst decisions ever made were of this type.

u just point and right click =) sometimes i’ll use tab as well.

LegallyBinding.4937:

IMO I have no problem gating CAF behind staff. But given that healing charges it less now and that it dissipates out of combat, the whole system feels awful and clunky.

if youre using staff, then reaching avatar form shouldn’t be a problem at all, even with the decay. maybe 20s into a fight u’ll have it.

astral force:

- needs to be less dependent on staff for generating it
- needed to have been gated better compared in BWE3

in BWE3, my bar was always full, and my avatar was always available. it was stupid. I didn’t need it, I didn’t want it all the time. I don’t mind the decay.

what I mind is that weapons other than staff cant really generate astral force. condi builds without staff cant generate AF well. leave the decay, but improve our energy gain with core ranger weapons.

just makes everything so smooth. I love how intuitive target switching is now. I can aim my skills on the fly. I can highlight teammates.

what do you guys think?

well I wouldn’t nerf anything right now until our core weapons and avatar mechanics are fixed =) please don’t take away stuff without buffing us in other areas.

hi guys, here is a lingering light offensive/support druid for pvp:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhZakSFaZxSWwhF4axSmgBPTzpB1naQkbi1ksCAHgSOWaA-TpBFABCcEAK4EAIeZAHeAAts/AAHCAA

I had a few people in game asking me about what I’m running. I know everything is whacky and broken right now, but this build is what’s working for me right now.

the gameplay is completely idiotic to be honest, I like it, it works, and a 10-year old could play it well. youre basically stacking 25 might and giving it to your smokescale with WHaO. then youre whacking people for 12k+ or forcing them to use up a bunch of CD’s. leave pets on passive.

the smokescale is there as your burst damage. he’s very easy to control, and his UA skill has a fairly short CD. the wyvern’s charge is amazing. low cast time, very accurate. in fact, all the new pets are perfect for what they do, imo.

other times youre running around with swiftness, quickness, and 15-25 stacks of might just melting people with staff #1. I only switch into s/wh to stack some might and blast finish stuff.

warhorn (and regen from shouts) is also for proccing lingering light on people. u can also do it with all the staff skills. it’s a 3s ICD, u give everyone (including yourself) blinds and 600 heals without any HP. LL is procced per INSTANCE of heals, so it doesn’t matter how much you heal for. this is truly the ideal GM for an offensive support druid.

cast staff 5 water field, blast finish with Astral Grace and WH5.

pop into avatar when people are downed for LI and NC, then out to proc your celestial shadow.

with the combat camera, you can target friendlies simply by right clicking on them.

Avatar has energy problems. as I mentioned elsewhere, they either need to vastly increase energy gain with weapons other than staff, or they need to remove the decay. my preference for these changes is leaning toward slightly buffing energy gain, allowing the decay, and increasing duration of the avatar slightly.

the decay makes sense to me (for pvp). if it’s always available then it defeats the purpose of having a “form.” what needs to happen though is that energy gain needs to be increased across all non-staff weapons. this also points to how kitten weak our core weapons are. like try getting energy running anything other than staff…you’re lucky if u get to use avatar once per fight, if youre not healing your mates.

I like the druid very much in pvp, and it’s important we don’t try to use the elite spec to fix the CORE ranger problems (this is super important for the devs to know as well). buffs and revamps to old weapons and utilities will only make the spec stronger, and that’s where we need to focus our efforts (in addition to tweaking energy decay/gain rates).

Prophet.1584:

mistsim.2748:

it’s nowhere close to unplayable. they just need to reduce our dependency on staff. if they want to keep the energy decay, they should allow us to gain it quicker. if they leave energy gain as is, take away the decay. very simple change.

otherwise, avatar was made a lot stronger in pvp with the NC stab and SoL blinds.

I only got about an hour to play before work and wasn’t able to unlock the elite spec. Does healing or using the staff make any difference?

uh, yes.

it’s nowhere close to unplayable. they just need to reduce our dependency on staff. if they want to keep the energy decay, they should allow us to gain it quicker. if they leave energy gain as is, take away the decay. very simple change.

otherwise, avatar was made a lot stronger in pvp with the NC stab and SoL blinds.

Holland.9351:

lol, including yourself?

meaning that when you heal yourself, you blind on next attack and heal for 600 without any healing power. same applies to anyone receiving your heals. I don’t think many understand how strong this is.

Lingering Light is “super strong” (I wont say OP). it’s basically blinds for everyone, including yourself. on a 3s ICD. that’s with every new INSTANCE of heals. u can use warhorn, staff 2, staff 1, whatever. not to mention u can also spam blinds in avatar.

the staff, the pets, the new runes, lingering light…are all amazing. everything but the avatar itself lol. I flash in and out of my avatar for its offensive capability, and celestial shadow. otherwise it’s useless.

I was running this weird staff/sb poison build with traps, trapper runes, and carrion stats. it was surprisingly effective and fun lol. just that evade on the staff and on-demand stealth are huge for our survivability.

there are also some other really interesting new runes for us.

Aidenwolf.5964:

mistsim.2748:

right now I’m just running around spamming staff #1 with quickness, marauder stats, and 25 stacks of might between myself and my smokescale. I occasionally go into avatar to daze, heal and get my stealth.

Pretty much my experience with the Druid. 1 spam.

but I’m 2-shotting everything tho.

instead of making our new pets so strong, they should have buffed our utilities and weapons instead. likely whats gonna happen within a day or two – smokescale nerf, no changes to anything else.

right now I’m just running around spamming staff #1 with quickness, marauder stats, and 25 stacks of might between myself and my smokescale. I occasionally go into avatar to daze, heal and get my stealth.

I really hope this is a bad bug…

sorry, I should have stated explicitly, by only doing damage

I had a whole bunch of condi builds in mind that did not use staff, and theyre basically not viable at all.

that’s ok, at least our smokescale hits for 11k. that’s basically all we asked for.

right now, it’s not possible to generate enough energy for avatar without using staff, and without healing. especially when it decays instantly after combat. so you’ll absolutely have to tweak some numbers. big time.

in other words: cant use an offensive build without staff.

it’s virtually perma blinds for everyone now. just keep the heals going.

tested it out in a few matches. didn’t even feel the difference because I was almost always in combat. energy bar fills up fast.

it only prevents us from using avatar as an opener.

it doesn’t matter I guess, Lingering Light is so OP that I’m ditching AS altogether.

yep yep, doing all that. not proccing, with my damage. even while the target is still on the ground, it’s not proccing

the knockdown on wyvern’s charge isn’t proccing Ancient Seeds. the only reason I wanted to use this pet was for this combo. the knockBACK from the wings doesn’t proc it either. I hope this is a bug!

370/tick with cleric amulet. but dat range tho.

cd needs to be 60s

but ive always been ok with entangle only punishing those with no cd’s/cleanses. it also forces them to use up those CD’s getting out. that’s kind of the purpose of entangle and AS.

just some food for thought with AS…it can be AOE, and it works on cc’d players in general, you don’t have to be the source of the CC. it’s a trait well worthy of GM status.

^u got it. lr/qz/sos is basically a must for me. trapper runes might change that tomorrow.

doesn’t ancient seed rootlet act like the entangle one? i.e. the longer u sit in it, the more immob gets stacked. I think it was working fine for me in BWE3, unless they nerfed it. entangle and AS totally kittens up profs that don’t have on-demand pbaoe, high power damage, or multiple condi cleanses. the root has at least 3k HP. at least.

p.s. most people don’t use hoelbrak or melandru…that was wvw meta like 2 years ago.

Khael.7325:

mistsim.2748:

not at all. MoC is fine as all of our dazes have cast times. LI needed a nerf because 6s was indeed too long, but 4s daze on a 0.5s cast is fine. there are so many blinds, blocks and invulns out there that soft CC like daze just doesn’t do that much.

This is the type of response I was hoping for. I hadn’t thought about all those things and didn’t know about the cast times. I thought the glyph was instant for some reason. Anyway, hopefully those factors will really help to balance things out. I guess we’ll see in less than 24 hours! Woot so hyped for HoT!

you know what, glyph of equality is instant after all, but slotting it takes away some extremely valuable utilities, like condi cleanses or stun breaker. making glyphs work in general in any build will be difficult. but equality is one of the better ones because it can at least stun break in avatar form.

LI does have a cast time of 0.5 I believe.

I think traps will work with druids who want to support their team while dishing out some damage. I think we’ll also have like perma stealth and SS with Celestial Avatar and trapper runes. it’s interesting to say the least. I’m gonna try running settler, if not then celestial.

not to mention how situational the Marksmanship tree is…we have to give up so much to use it.

Chokolata.1870:

They have started adding short CD stun breakers. The berserker spec has one as does the daredevil.

the core ranger needs low CD stun breaks as well. it just fits our skirmishing playstyle, and we need it badly.

not at all. MoC is fine as all of our dazes have cast times. LI needed a nerf because 6s was indeed too long, but 4s daze on a 0.5s cast is fine. there are so many blinds, blocks and invulns out there that soft CC like daze just doesn’t do that much.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

With the amount of evades we can have access to with the right weapon choices we don’t need amazing stunbreakers.

SOURCE: Evading through zergs in WvW for a solid 6seconds. SB, S/D, LR + dodges = 7 evades.

this is simply not true when playing against top mmr players. sorry to often use this line, but it’s true. in conquest, it’s easy to get stunlocked, and when youre actually focused down, it’s conceivable you will get spiked down 100-0 in seconds. so one stun breaker every 60 seconds just doesn’t cut it.

for what it does, LR needs a lower CD. yes, even lower. it would make sense to leave its CD as is if it had an offensive function, i.e. pbaoe mini stun or confusion like people mentioned. but it doesn’t.

for what it does, SoR also needs a baseline CD of 48s. this is just the bare minimum though.

Solandri.9640:

Lightning Reflexes is still bugged, right? It becomes disabled when you’re knocked back or stunned, defeating the purpose of it being a stun breaker.

Correct. This has gotten me killed occasionally while entangled by other rangers.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

mistsim.2748:

I’d also like us to be able to enter combat without the pet and summon it as needed. This is a very simple QoL change that would help us out while sheathing, and in large scale battles to preserve the pet.

Yes exactly, and also to hide what pet you are going to be using if you choose to unstow and immediately F2.

Wouldn’t that add a nice piece of strategy to the game? ANet, can rangur has strategy?

Rangurs assemble and support this idea so Irenio can see.

Shoe.5821:

my only problem with precombat stowing is that it counts as a pet swap when you pop it out. not sure if it should

They can work this out. Pulling out the first pet shouldn’t count toward swap mechanics.

I did suggest in another thread building a new mechanic around pet arrival, depending on the family. Like an aoe boon, debuff, cc, or whatever where the pet appears. It has a nice thematic purpose to it, instead of the animal just appearing out of thin air. There should be a cast animation for this.

But id just be happy with having pet stowed when entering combat without ANY bonuses.

Dolt.2731:

LR is amazing, even w/o ws.

Without WK, SoR is a better choice imo, because it also comes with a Condi cleanse. But the cd is too steep.

Kitty.1502:

I think this combo will be powerful and help us survive a great deal. .

I’m worried about getting stunlocked in between evades, while out of stealth. A single interrupt mesmer could end this type of ranger with 2 consecutive stuns. Not to mention cc from multiple sources

I’d also like us to be able to enter combat without the pet and summon it as needed. This is a very simple QoL change that would help us out while stealthing, and in large scale battles to preserve the pet.

I just can’t make any viable builds without WK and survival utilities. Thanks for your feedback.

I just can’t work traps and glyphs into any sort of viable build

Very cool build, makes me excited for spvp. Have you ever gotten wrecked due to lack of stun break, or has the stealth/evades been sufficient? What ammy would u run in spvp?

No stun breaker = insta dead despite stealth. This is my suspicion, but maybe not.