Guild Wars 2

They should fix guard tomes somehow, would be nice to see support from guard in a unique way that other healers cant provide.

But as said above, druid has its niche with its grace of the land trait and utilities that provide raid damage. But its all personal preference between tempest and druid, both works. If a future raid wing has bosses where u take steady raid damage, a tempest could be more ideal.

Im with OP.. dem immortal rangers that shoot highest hitting AAs from afar! And when u get close, they pop invisible, the little rodents.

Why must stuff be done in a rush? Do content at ur own phase, u wont miss out as u still have ur max lvl and gearstats wont increase.

Vayne.8563:

nacario.9417:

What does casual mean though, what is it that makes it unpleasant for casuals? Do you want to facetank mobs till they die? Now we have to use more of our skillbars compared to core tyria autoattacking i swung a sword, hey i swung a sword again!. Isnt it a fresh breath of air experiencing something new, the jungle is scary, and if u better yourself you can overcome most parts of it. Find other casuals to roam around with.

Not everyone has the same skill set. There are people in my guild in their 60s and the core game is sometimes challenging for them.

Hell, I’m 53 and I’ve worked some very competitive jobs in my life. My competitive days are over. I play games, generally, to relax. I’m good at them, but very often, yes, I want something easy and relaxing. I don’t have anything left to prove.

That said, I don’t mind the challenge when I’m immersed and having fun, which I definitely am in HoT. Which is why I’m offering help to people who might not have the same experiences I do.

Those are good points, all of us gets older in time. Voicing opinion is good as there are many playertypes Anet wants to cater to.

I go full zealot for the first and last boss. For second boss i swap to cleric rings trinkets and amulet as it is better if the druid both heal and tank. Rune of the monk, sigil of transference, and rice cake gives an additional nice 30% hesl output.
If gold is short, dont get zealot, go for magi instead to lower your toughness (if someone else is tanking). Other than that our role is to heal and increase the raid damage through grace of the land trait and utilities. Zealot does make an impact on damage though, for instance yday we did a bit sloppy vs gorseval but we killed it on the very last second, parts of it cuz i do more staff aa dmg outside celestial form.

Content is given to us, but one cannot expect Anet to handhold us the whole way. When I heard of raids i was mainly a solo pvper with no connection to anyone/didnt do much pve. For preperation I made sure to be in two active guilds, one with a core and an offgroup, and the other guild being a community one that runs 2 3 4 raids nearly daily. It is also a pluss to be a bit active and vocal in chat so that people get to know u, that u got the goods. Once people notice u, that u want to improve, u will be given a shot for raids. By doing this im now in this guilds core and we’re working on the third last boss. Often we dont have enough people on for this core run, so sometimes we tried getting 1 or 2 pugs in via lfg. A few of them turned very skilfull so now they too have a slot when spots are open.

Since ur a little late OP, start by finding guilds that look for raiders, or even big community guilds. Have all guild chats open to get an overview. Make sure u know how to play and gear ur classes, otherwise people wont run with u. I cannot stress this enough, having skilled players for raids is the true challenge, not the raid mechanics themselves. Do research on boss guides beforehand as people expect raiders to know basics by now.

So really, it’s all up to you OP, dont be that salty benchwarmer.

I dont see anyone wanting to use sword on ranger for raids at least, the forced leap on AA is a big dealbreaker, not being able to react in time as you leap into blue/red circles.

MuhQ.8012:

Sure, in the off times you often fight with the same 9 other people in different constellation for multiple matches. The pool of pvpers is not as large as their “company talk” wants to suggest.

/e: what? normal words are now kitten?

Which is why Anet is being silent about this soloq pondering. There isnt as much pvpers as Anet or Colin talked about in his letter, at least in offtimes where u can end up with same people. Having a soloq and teamq will make queue times longer and since we have nothing to do in Hotm people will be more frustrated.

Mosferre.1246:

Don;t even get me started on eso. I came here from 9 mths in ESO.
I had 4 v16 Chars and you think the grind is bad here, the champion point system in ESO has been an absolute disaster. The LAG is horrific, there are more bugs put in to the game in updates than removed on each weekly update and there are very few hot fixes. The landscape and environment is generally worse and there is very little to do once you’ve maxed everything. Coming back to the champion points, I was on about 400 and something. The top players were on 1-1500 or so and there was a hand full who had already gone over 2400.

Now, I wouldn’t say that GW2 is a walk in the park. I have one lvl80 and working on my second now, but I would say that removing the Basic Guild options for smaller guilds was a strange move. And I won’t get in to Crafting yet as it confuses the hell out of me – I just need to spend some time understanding it.

I do however, love TP and the economy – which for me is a big part of the games – personally.

I too came from ESO :P I quit right before the Champion system as I saw how timeconsuming and requiring it would be.

For those who dont like HoT, dont play HoT and stay in core Tyria? Anet stated that stuff u do in HoT is related to HoT (like masteries), so hopefully they dont go back on this and u can start on an even playing field in the next expansion.

But aside from this, many love this change, because we are all different playertypes. It’s great to see harder mobs in the new zones, if people would only try to better themselves or group up.

As for masteries, I can see the hassle with all the experience needed – but in reality you dont really need all of them, like the raids, you only need the gliding and mushrooms which are easy to get. Masteries is a long time gate, as with legendary armor, we are not meant to have it all NOW, but half a year down the road. But people dont see this because currently theyre given choice but theyre used at being handheld, we have the option to max masteries NOW or wait. The only thing I find a bit unfair is the recent nerf to spider farm, I was there and I finished all my mastery exp in no time, while now others have to spend much more time gaining said exp, replaying events. At least theyll make more map currency, which we all will need at some point for collections etc.

Minos.5168:

OneKlicKill.4285:

Yes, you take away the exclusive skill based rewards. A huge driving factor in keeping the skilled players interested in actually playing, take that away and it becomes very difficult to find groups (probably impossible once everyone’s cleared it once cause now you can just farm it on lower difficulty. Completely removes the reason to participate in higher level raids.

And here’s the key issue, I think.

Raids aren’t as “fun” as they were promised to be.

I found Fractals pre-HoT to be enjoyable. Rewards were decent. I ran them daily.

Then they nerfed Fractal rewards in the hopes that people would try raids.

If raids were enjoyable, then even the 4g + possible Ascended loot + boss-specific drops should be more than enough to keep people grinding.

What is it with raids that isnt enjoyable? Many enjoy them and give reason to log in as one has a challenging goal to work towards, nowhere else in this game u have that (well we have premade spvp..). Raids are forgiving and are super once u beat that boss

What does casual mean though, what is it that makes it unpleasant for casuals? Do you want to facetank mobs till they die? Now we have to use more of our skillbars compared to core tyria autoattacking i swung a sword, hey i swung a sword again!. Isnt it a fresh breath of air experiencing something new, the jungle is scary, and if u better yourself you can overcome most parts of it. Find other casuals to roam around with.

If people are so into legendary armor, if they added raid difficulties, they could change the glow on legendary armor based on what tier raids were done in.

I dont see raids as profitable, we’re not here for the gold, it’s for the challenge and experience with the promise of legendary armor at the end (which hopefully is such an awesome skin that itll be the be all end all).

Mortifer.2946:

nacario.9417:

If you want to get somewhere in this game, to experience the higher end of content, you cannot play just 1 class (unless you have close guildies to carry you). Make sure to have a few classes at 80 and geared, thats how you get around, becuase the meta and class usefulness shifts as the wind every few months.
I dont see why someone would take a DH for DPS, healing or tanking (other than first boss), but that’s just cuz I like to min-max, but there are so many out there who are the same, and that’s okay, because people have several classes for each situation.

Thank you dear elitist for your input. I will quit my RL and start equipping all 9 characters so I can finally play. …your kind is what made this game so horrible…or the game became this horrible and attracted your kind? Hmmm

I think you should reserve your judgement as we dont really know each other, and one cant call me elitist based on what I said. Maybe I am enligthened, yes, that is the word.

You can raid with whatever equip you like, you just have to find likeminded as yourself. Then you’ll be a happy person. Whether that will get you past first boss and beyond one cant tell, but at least you got something to keep yourself busy.

From my perspective I like to raid with people who truly know how to play their class, can react to multiple things happening at once, and have the gear. Because based on past experiences with the opposite, one literally can waste hours into raids every evening, getting nowhere. And that is okay, as long as one accepts that players are different in every way, but also accept that we want different things. Why should I waste hours cuz someone didnt bring the right class, gear and the know-how, when it can be done faster with the “right guys”, so that I have more time with real life? At the same time I am also helping out people now and then in the guild that are struggling, or simply helping by donating gold/mats into guild treasury. We all must provide to the community we are in, in one way or another.

What happened to the three years of free content we got pre HoT? We get the same treat here more or less

If you want to get somewhere in this game, to experience the higher end of content, you cannot play just 1 class (unless you have close guildies to carry you). Make sure to have a few classes at 80 and geared, thats how you get around, becuase the meta and class usefulness shifts as the wind every few months.
I dont see why someone would take a DH for DPS, healing or tanking (other than first boss), but that’s just cuz I like to min-max, but there are so many out there who are the same, and that’s okay, because people have several classes for each situation.

I disagree. We need something that is truly unique in this game, currently Skin Wars 2 is too easy to obtain and win. We have content that cover all types of players. Finally we have an armor, which has the same stat as ascended, that is only gained through hard work. And it should stay like that. Raids in GW2 are challenging, but more forgiving than your average mmorpg. True challenge lies in each individual, their ability to comprehend og adapt. Once you surpass this, half a year from now, raids will be easier.

There is nothing else in this game that is hard, and that other “hard” can be worked around by gold, like Eternity

Theres really no point paying for a Vale guardian kill run though, as the whole point of doing raids is to get legendary armor – and for that one must kill every boss since it’s tied to collections.

Problem is, giving up a signet of the wild slot is huge because u want to fully utilize fully all ur utility slots. In gorseval its a must to maximize dps so u bring sun spirit frost spirit and glyph of empowerment. Signet of the wild doesnt tick when ur hp is full which is most of the time.

To gain AF fastest make sure ur pet is attacking boss (healing is also done around ur pet), use staff 1 constant on boss as u move, staff 2 gives AF, staff 5 into staff 3 is epic heal. (Tho staff 3 alone s good on target), glyphs gives, while u either use glyph heal or traited healing spring. U can also leave astral form earlier when healing isnt needed and u know u need AF quick as theres burst healing needed inc.

I like this style as u have to know the fight and prepare/ time it, at the same time with this method u can use it back off cd, though faster if teammates are below hp so they take healing (which thankfully works in raids as they always eat some damage).

Crapgame.6519:

Grats.

Any boosts, PvP weekends, etc?

And people say gw2 isn’t a grind

I dont understand this sentiment. What is a grind? By that logic anything in this game is a grind. But for OP and many more it’s about the journey in PvP, the experience and fun on an even playing field.

Anything can work really. What it takes is 10 geared players who are good with their class and knoe how the raid encounter work. That is the true challange and affects healing required.
I play druid and try to do my best to keep up grace of the land as much as possible as it can increase raid damage up to 15% in short intervals, as well with raid damage boosting utilities (while tanking). Im sure other healers have their own stuff to bring, play what you like, but more importantly find the right people to play with otherwise itll be a painful and lengthy experience.

As above poster though, tempest is really what else ive seen. You have ventari revenant, but i have yet to see one.

double post
15/char

I agree with this welcome change. You no longer can facetank mobs and theyre not standing still infront of you doing the same one or two animations.

I have a feeling part of the dungeon income nerfs was due to this very grey area, where Anet most likely had to deal with quite a few support tickets of scams etc.
Other than that it’s nice to get a quick kill as my take on raids is that they are not the true obstacle, that is finding 10 players who are skilled enough.

None can really give a clear answer to this, but I like to look at mmorpgs a bit differently from normal single player games (with online features), that they are more of a long term goal/progression. If you like the GW universe, combat or w/e floats your boat, then why not buy it.
For me it was a clear yes as I only play one mmorpg at a time, I dont play other games. Playing GW2 solely without other games and without HoT is just a hinderance in my opinion.

Its true with zerk n sinister viper, but for tank n healer it can be more varied, it’s more about hitting the toughness or healing sweetspots.

At least so many options gives an illusion of choice, where it is easier for the less informed to gear and play wrong/not optimal.

I like to stow my bow inbetween battles, but purely for practical reasons, carrying a longbow in ones arms is quite heavy for a young sylvari

Deniara Devious.3948:

This is more than enough proof that the new elite specs are overpowered compared to the base classes.

Or could it be to some extent due to players wanting to play what is new, and turns out to be on par with vanilla classes? Excluding the warrior though.

Whats challenging is finding 10 players that can play really well.

Last evening I one hit KO a daredevil in our guild hall.. he had me low but RNG gods were gracious, i hit him in the sweetspot 7,3k 9k BAM. It felt great and i was at the top of my game.

I made a thread like this right after HoT launch but no dev reply, and surprisingly little interest from fellow plauers as well.

vespers.1759:

I hope i never get some of you in a raid. There is literally no reason for a druid to run nomad’s or clerics. Their DPS DOES help and if every other kitten class can run a glass build including condi ranger there’s no excuses for a druid to not do the same.

Running zealot’s in no way affects your ability to heal or give party buffs. You also contribute far far more by doing some dps while you heal.

As for alternatives, there aren’t any that are good. Everything else is just subpar. run cleric’s until you can get zealots and never touch nomad’s.

Except that druids r meant to camp staff and the damage it does is so low it doesnt matter. Druids offer raid wide damage, which is why i feel a cleric druid is better for the raid as it can also fulfill a tank role at the same time, giving room for an extra dps. Ofc this requires the raid to be individually skilled, which raids r all about.

SoftLight.2175:

dont take it personal. but then why dont you type in a title as a question?

something like “is heal and tank on druid the best option?” no you didnt.
you said. “So the ideal raid druid IS a tank&healer” that´s a fact.

see what i wanna tell you? its not about how of a nice buddy you are or what great ideas you have after reading your post but about the first impression someone gets.

You are really being edgy today. I already explained myself in the second post, and here you are again so offended. And yet you provide nothing. Now remove yourself and be important somewhere else

SoftLight.2175:

i´m not even willing to read anything that has a title like “the optimal x” or “the best build”

so actually you re saying that the build you play is the best build and everyone else build even if it fits their teamcomposition way better is just worse than yours right?

nacario.9417:

Just my two cents, feel free to give your opinion/experience.

You are in your right to be offended, however Im not trying to imply that Im using the best build because I havent listed traits etc, just the idea behind it. My reasoning is this, if a raid chooses to have a druid, then we are not there for our individual damage – so why go zealot, though I can see this if the group has another class that is tank as staff AA on druid improves a lil.
But if the druid is there it brings raid damage, but based on my narrow experience in Gorseval it looks to me that druids are optimal (if in the raid composition) as both tank and healer, giving room for another DPS class.

This is what I was hoping to get some feedback on/strat.

Before raids started I made zealot gear, burning over 500g, but I see now that the damage we do in itself arnt that big/important based on Spirit Vale encounters. For instance, more and more are beating Gorseval with a class that is both tank and healer, often a druid. The ranger/druid is great by offering 10% damage from empowerment glyph, 10% damage from Frost Spirit, burn from Sun Spirit and potential 15% from GotL trait. For heal I prefer using Healing Spring as it builds up AF nicely, while I use unity elite for addition heals (its a quick casttime as well). If your party members are skilled theyll avoid taking unnesscary damage while blasting waterfields which should be enough, especially for the DPS race Gorseval is.

Are there any druids here that are both tanking and healing? I think I wanna do this, so time to give clerics a go. Being zealot is currently obsolete, the damage we do is to low compared to the extra DPS member one could get than having 1 class for tank and 1 class for healing.

Just my two cents, feel free to give your opinion/experience.

Hey! I’ll be raiding with guildies from hereon, we’re attempting gorseval and I hear there have been kills with 1 class being the tank and healer, also namely the druid which Ill be playing as.
I was wondering if anyone could give some pointers of what the druid tank (or tank in general) has to do in VG and Gorse, and is your impression that it is “doable” and most optimal having this in one class? I assume this would also require more of the individual player kitten far Im finding myself healing quite constantly (due to others mistakes).
I am familiar with the raids basics, but since everything is so new I’ll gladly take advice/tips.
It would mean I’d have to change my zealots into clerics, but one for the team i guess.

Thank you for your time

tym.3791:

No fun if you have to spend all your time running for your life, instead of enjoying the game, exploring the map, and checking out the fun stuff.

But the jungle is meant to be a scary place!!

Mitch.4781:

Already seeing it in my fairly friendly guild. A secret core “raid” group going in for a few nights in a row, not asking anyone else if they want to come. Seen this repeated in all the guilds I’m a member of.

Thank God they don;t actually drop gear with higher stats is all I can say.

You need to understand that as in life, every player is different. Some are good on their classes (skill, reaction time, geared, knowledge, map awareness), some are bad, there are many reasons for it, but that’s just how it is. Some bad players acknowledge their state, they then chose to either improve or stand down. The worst is those who do not understand that they should improve their game, and therefore does not understand why other people wont PvP with them, why class X is OP but not theirs, why guildies wont raid with them (hence why we have all these QQ posts across all forums).

Beyond this game players have lives to life, some more busy than others with tight schedules. What is beyond frustrating is when you have a good player that is raiding with other less informed, and then they screw up the teams progression because they simply are not good enough (skill, reaction time, geared, knowledge, map awareness) and ontop of that expect others to raid with them. I dont claim myself great, but I always strive to improve my own gameplay, and after spending 2 days with a raid consisting of said players, I just had enough. Many dont have time to sit for hours failing a boss mechanic when it’s clear that it goes nowhere.

How did they nerf it? I remember my quick way to 161 mastery lvl there, they gave like 5k exp with all exp boosters n lots of good loot, even tons of airship parts. I feel sorry for those not 161, unleds there is a new farm

Justin ODell.9517:

I’m really curious as to how you guys are figuring out if the other team is a pre-made. We don’t tell you, and looking at the data there are very few party rosters compared to solo.

Is it just match quality being bad? Are you just recognizing player names?

Why are you asking this question though, currently and apparently in Leagues, there is only 1 queue where both teams and soloers share. Is it a surprise that premades and soloq players will clash? Do you recognize the concerns players have regarding putting these two in the same queue?

My take is that itll hinder good soloq players when they reach a certain point in Leagues, where they’ll be more often facing premades that are not doing too good vs other premades in higher league. That will put many soloq players off, as many dont have time to play with teams at set times, yet they want to advance as they individually are good.

Roy Dreadstorm.2093:

i don’t really know if the ele is superior but it could be since this nerf :s so i really don’t know what to think… soon people will know dat takin 1 good tempest ele or 2 is better in heal/damage/buffs than a druid support , they will not try to waste their time and would optimise their sucess chances

Can the Tempest support that is built for healing on boons do great damage? While my zealot druid’s AA from staff and pet isnt all that, its still something, pluss the 35% potential raid damage we can keep up. I dont see if Tempests can bring that, while each healer brings something unique. But my experience is only for VG, and so far it looks like it doesnt really matter what healer we bring, it’s all in the hands of the 10.

What exactly has impacted your playstyle, and in what way? What is difficult now from the day before?

Edit: it is also to my knowledge that anyone within the radius of VG will take some passive damage, giving us the possibility to heal. Im not saying the change is for the better, just seeking knowledge

Roy Dreadstorm.2093:

btw u failed at vale guardian (not so much failed he’s almost down haha still gj ) so maybe u should run zerk like everybody and let urself being heal carried by a tempest ele

Is Tempest healing superior compared to druid though in this VG fight? The team I was with took chunks of unneeded damage and I managed to top em off at the right times (of course they all supplemented with water fields), we died mainly cuz ppl was standing in blue/orange to much/were stressing out in later phases.

For reference I was using full zealot with some zerker offset. My impression is that anything works for VG, the most important is that everyone must know the fight + move the boss right and must be good at their class/skill synergy (like waterfield blasts). I feel druid at least has its place with well timed burst heals, 10% x 2 raid damage from Empowerment glyph and spirit + another potential 15% from GotL. The knockback glyph does Wonders took as it can “remove” 3 seekers.

Im not so happy about my own damage though despite me being zealot, but if teammates are geared it is possible. I also switched out sword to Axe for the split phase as sword AA just teleports us around into blue circles.

Im not having any issues after the change, I generate enough AF to instantly use it when it comes off cd – though this involves carefully going out of CAF if healing is not needed so that I have some AF already. It does feel like you need to be more aware of when to use CAF and AF management. But sitting in staff while hitting boss, healing allies, damage from pet/healing, healing spring, I have no issues with AF. What I do have issues with though is this below, it was so close and last try >.<

Evan Lesh.3295:

There were a few reasons for keeping players in HotM when queued:

• It forces new players to recognize they have completely different builds in PvP maps.
• You won’t miss the match accept because of load screens and get dishonor.
• We can make a better user experience (match accept and map voting) without having to worry about interrupting whatever a player might be doing elsewhere.

In order to allow queuing from outside HotM, we would need to change these things.

• We would need tech to remove players temporarily from queue during load screens.
• Create better tutorials or gating for new players so they don’t hop into PvP unprepared.
• Revisit the way the match flow UI works.

So why can you not increase the user experience inside HotM, like adding a dueling arena/place/instance.

It is not fun standing around doing nothing while waiting for queue to pop. Having a place there where you can duel one can also test other players you meet, from there you can make friends, it could be its own community.

Ritt.3069:

OP, I’m going to teach you something.

How to shut down a Revenant, 1v1 edition.

Unrelenting Assault:
-CC it during the 3/4s cast time (ez)
-Evade
-Hug a wall
-Block/Invuln
-LoS during cast time
-Stealth unless you have a Reveal (and even that is evadeable)

Glint Heal:
-See him going to Glint form? He will use heal soon, if you keep pressuring him
—>Don’t hit heal of stupid

Shiro Heal:
-See him using Shiro heal? Just evade/block/blind through the life steals, and you may effectively nullify a burst AND a heal.

Surge of the Mists:
-Not much of a telegraph, but as soon as you see him going Staff, he will use the skill soon. Strafing around him may make it miss some or all of its attacks. It’s only really strong if multiple attacks connect.
-Stability and side-stepping
—>the rest of the staff skills don’t hit kitten.

Blocks:
Nuke/cc after the cast, or interrupt the block completely with an unblockable cc.

There you go, please use these methods nwxt time you 1v1 a Rev and you should have an easy time.

Revenant is a class that has plenty of weaknesses. Revenant feeds itself on the mistakes of his opponent. Don’t feed the Rev, and you’ll have an easier time.

And with this guide OP’s team will have a higher chance in the pro league

Sicarius.4639:

It was done in the first two days (not including DnT), pugs and those using very little communication are finishing or coming extremely close too.

Also, Wildstar were trying for the whole ‘hardcore’ level of difficulty look how many people stuck around for that…

At least gw lore is old and have its roots, this game had a solid playerbase. WS was a bit too extreme since it was new, and the attunement process really was quite rough in itself. Im thankful that ascended will always be best stat.

elite specs arnt more powerful than core specs, they simply offer a new way of playing your class. Sure that new way may be powerful, but thats cuz its strong in the new that it is doing. The DH does good ranged dmg and does good onpoint defense with traps… because it never had access to that before.. many prefer fighting a DH over the old burn guard, which is still stronk.

everything is tuned over time, something is always a bit stronger, but hopefully anet will keep things refreshing by switching metas

dw its part of anets plan to kill zerker meta, time to wear soldiers! or use UA for 2 sec evade

And so the UA crusade continues, Hot join champs reunite!