Druid's & 10 targets

After a semi-hiatus, I happily returned to GW2 several months ago. As such, I missed the finer points in some of the update notes. One such change was to a couple of the druid's skills increasing their ally target limit from 5 to 10, e.g., Grace of the Land, Frost Spirit. My question is, are there any other classes/builds (especially buff/healing) whose ally target limits got increased from 5 to 10? I have looked but I do not see any changes ... not sure if I am missing something. If no other classes have the ability to effect 10 allies at one time (i.e., 25 might to 10 allies with Grace of the Land whereas a Rene healer can only effect 5 allies), what is the purpose of having any other healing class/build in this game? I am confused by this. But, perhaps I am missing something. Any clarity would be appreciated.

Grace of the Land was changed so that it no longer is a unique buff. Instead it gives stacks of might. The reason this change was made for grace of the land and spirits was because it means that in raids only 1 druid is needed for spirit buffs to the entire squad. This means that instead of two spots being set as druid spots only 1 is set. This allows for more diversity in what teams bring. They can bring another healer like an ele which actually has better healing but less support then a druid if the party needs more healing or they can bring another dps. Banners by the way for warriors also affect 10 people.

Warrior warhorn skills also affect 10 players now

@Tzarakiel.7490 said:Warrior warhorn skills also affect 10 players now

I noticed that to when I got back on playing my Warrior. Wasn't sure since it's been a while.

Cool, I was not aware of the banners or warhorn, either. Interesting.

So changes were made to druids and warriors for raids, but not for other classes who can perform similar tasks. For example might generation from a rene healer still only affects 5 allies making druids the only class wanted and needed as healers. It seems we have gone from a 'soft' holy trinity to a true and 'hard' holy trinity with what a druid can bring to a group and the chrono as tank. While I agree that groups can do runs without one of these classes, just as in another game you can do a run without the true holy trinity, the trinity now exists and people will always drift towards using it. This goes beyond the so-called unimaginative meta structure. The dev's have literally set druids and chronos apart from other classes that do the same task. I understand this has now trickled down to T4 fractals where everyone wants one druid, one chrono and the rest dps, even tho they are 5 mans and supposedly were specifically not designed to incorporate the traditional trinity.

While I have always loved the uniqueness that each class has had, I am enjoying Anet's move away from one class being needed for a particular ability (e.g., warrior for might, guard for aegis, mesmer for alacrity). And while I cringe at the thought of the classes becoming homogenized, it seems now they are starting to set classes further apart by creating devoted tanks and healers. While it is possible to have a successful raid run with no druid - shock, I know - why do it? When one druid can affect all 10 party members, why bother? And the problem here is that I have already noticed that in the eyes of the community druids are the best healer class now. So while a FB or a rene healer can bring great heals and awesome boons (FB: aegis, protection, might, stability, cleanse, regen, retal, swiftness, vigor; Rene: might, alacrity, condi resistance, dmg boosts) they will be discounted as never as useful as a druid... even in 5 man content. Long live the druid... :sad panda:

I do not see why all healing/boons/ally effects for all classes,with the exception of some driud and warrior skills, are limited to only 5 players. This really needs to change. The 10 player limit needs to be for all classes, not just a select few who are deemed and demanded as 'essential' in one particular part of the game. Raids are a rather special case and I see the reasoning and value of the changes, but these class advantages affect all the rest of the content in the game from open world to pvp to fractals. It's throwing the balance there out of whack. They should change all buffs to 10 players to balance things better and let the players decide who fills what role from there.

With Raid parties of 10 and squads of 50, it definitely needs to move past the old 5 man party limit.

Edit: You would think with some 5 limit skill restrictions upped, it might allow some room for those unwanted classes.

if it were possible to raise the effect limit to 10 allies for all skills only in raids... maybe it isn't that easy, or anet is still considering the balancing issues.

Though it does seems an unfair advantage that only a specific skills got their cap raised to 10 to suit raid compositions.

Warrior and druid had limit incresed to 10 players so they do not take 2x2 raid spots but only 2x1.This means they were even more powerful then before.After that spirits, banners and passive buffs (ap, spotter, ea, pinpoint) were nerfed.

I agree renegade spirits should be a 10 man thing not a 5 man.. and this goes for all other classes.. it’s sad to see. Because this is the only reason why people pick Druid over everything else

10 man venom share for thief :D i need it xD

@LadyHawk.5319 said:After a semi-hiatus, I happily returned to GW2 several months ago. As such, I missed the finer points in some of the update notes. One such change was to a couple of the druid's skills increasing their ally target limit from 5 to 10, e.g., Grace of the Land, Frost Spirit. My question is, are there any other classes/builds (especially buff/healing) whose ally target limits got increased from 5 to 10? I have looked but I do not see any changes ... not sure if I am missing something. If no other classes have the ability to effect 10 allies at one time (i.e., 25 might to 10 allies with Grace of the Land whereas a Rene healer can only effect 5 allies), what is the purpose of having any other healing class/build in this game? I am confused by this. But, perhaps I am missing something. Any clarity would be appreciated.

Imo, it's a respond Anet made to player's post in regards of having 2 druids META. Allowing a druid to cover all boons and spirits for the entire squad, instead of needing 2 druids to do so. So that players can have an alternative class for the 2nd healer aside druid, but doesn't turn out like what's planned. Only made druid overpowering other classes with the coverage.

@Eramonster.2718 said:

@"LadyHawk.5319" said:After a semi-hiatus, I happily returned to GW2 several months ago. As such, I missed the finer points in some of the update notes. One such change was to a couple of the druid's skills increasing their ally target limit from 5 to 10, e.g., Grace of the Land, Frost Spirit. My question is, are there any other classes/builds (especially buff/healing) whose ally target limits got increased from 5 to 10? I have looked but I do not see any changes ... not sure if I am missing something. If no other classes have the ability to effect 10 allies at one time (i.e., 25 might to 10 allies with Grace of the Land whereas a Rene healer can only effect 5 allies), what is the purpose of having any other healing class/build in this game? I am confused by this. But, perhaps I am missing something. Any clarity would be appreciated.

Indeed. People have these fancy "reasons" for bringing 2 druids to every single place (excluding squads with solo-druidhealer):

1. Sharing spirits for more utility. (You can bring a DPS soulbeast for that.)
2. Superior CC (Not true as there's other heal builds with equally much.)
3. Full druid's utilities for both subs (GoE+Spotter which don't make a noticeable difference in condi subs since those 2 mainly affect power builds.)
4. Superior boon output and making sure that might is maxed even if neither of druids are good. (There's other healers that bring guaranteed might and fury for 5 just as well on top of their own perks. And Kitty's actually out-mighted druids on other heal builds.)

Kitty agrees that having one druid in squad is a good idea due to stuffs it can bring but 2 druids is a waste in her educated opinion due to aforementioned reasons. But Kitty's kinda lost her hope of community widely accepting other healers (and/or tanks that aren't chrono) unless druid and chrono are deleted from the game since everyone's so invested in their druids and chronos and don't want to gear/learn/play anything else (or even think about it) and most support players would quit at that point. Don't think so? Weaver mains knock the door. Knock knock.

Btw, Kitty might have exaggerated a bit but her point prolly gets across.

With the addition of 10 targets for might and spirits, raids only need one druid. With the addition of 10 targets for banners, raids only need one warrior. This, I believe, was the goal of the devs/raid community, as has been stated, so that other classes could be utilized. Ok, fine. The problem is it has set those classes, particularly the druid, apart from the others. Let's not forget the chrono. Now with Chrono we have one class that can share 9-10 boons !! This is ridiculously broken !! So we have 3 classes set apart from all the others for raids but this trickles down to other content, specifically fractals. The 'meta' for fractals is Chrono, Druid, Warrior (banner-slave), +2 dps. That doesn't leave a whole lot of wiggle room.

I have always loved GWs because you could bring nearly any class to a fractal or dungeon (with the exception of necro - insert sarcastic snicker). Assuming all things and player abilities are equal, you will be just fine. You will win the day and have a good time doing it. But not anymore. For T4 fractals you have to fit the mold or go home. Of course, you can have your own personal/guild group made up of whatever you want. But if you are pugging, or forming a group where you cannot dictate it's components, it will most likely be required to fit the form of Chrono, Druid, Warrior + dps. Hmm, would this be a tetralogy instead of a trinity? .... Btw, I have multiples of all classes, with the exception of druid and support chrono, and I play most of the builds effectively or better. I feel that these two classes are being crammed down the community's throat and I simply cannot fathom the thought of having any kind of enjoyable play time on them. But if you want a healing renegade, FB or auramancer, I'm your gal ! ;)

"More like the community is choking itself. Devs just listened to their cries of "but why do we need two druids/warriors for every raid??"

Seems to me anet picked the wrong solution in powering up those specific skills to 10 targets, instead of adding similar utility to other classes. Thus, as the previous comment mentioned, the "obligatory" characters are now even more entrenched in the meta, instead of improving variety.

Granted, it'd be difficult to figure out a proper alternative to banners. They couldn't just change the bonuses to boon spam (as they did with grace of the Land), can they?

I'm a little disappointed, went to check out my druid main after reading this thread, but it looks like the group support skills I use most are still at 5 targets. (Glyph of Rejuvenation, Search and Rescue, and Mighty Roar.)

Druids are just amazing in my opinion. What other class can res multiple people at once when they get knocked down? Druids provide outstanding heals/boons/mass revives. That's why Druids are number 1 and have been for a while. My guild does raids daily we always bring 2 druids one that focuses on boons and another that focus pure heals. <3

@GabbyGoesHa.6079 said:Druids are just amazing in my opinion. What other class can res multiple people at once when they get knocked down? Druids provide outstanding heals/boons/mass revives. That's why Druids are number 1 and have been for a while. My guild does raids daily we always bring 2 druids one that focuses on boons and another that focus pure heals. <3

But the rev out heals any Druid? So why bring a Druid healer... the only reason you would bring 2 Druids is if they are both knew and can’t maintain 25 moght for the time lol.. rev can give what any Druid can but 10 targets that’s the only down fall

@GabbyGoesHa.6079 said:Druids are just amazing in my opinion. What other class can res multiple people at once when they get knocked down?

Blood magic necros and heal-engi can. If squad is stacked, they can also ress whole squad, not just 5, with 1/6 and 1/3 of Nature Spirit's cooldown. Necro can also port half a downed squad to stack to get them out of danger zone, for ex. if lots of people go down with wall approaching at SH.Heal-engi's Toss Elixir R-ress also has 900 range which is useful for ex. when tanking ranged Deimos and OK fails to block the mind crush or 50% Saul downs the squad. Ofc some DPS builds can also use it, but with shorter duration and longer cooldown (90s without Tools, 76.5s with Tools).