Gotejjeken.1267

It is dumb because it has nothing to do with WvW progress--the term 'reward track' is a misnomer anyway because of how the system rewards passive 'pipping out', but the warclaw one takes that to another level. You can farm the 200g in any mode or straight up just credit card it (would be great if gems to gold conversion was removed but that's another topic), there is really no 'reward' there. It's similar to how most 'achievements' aren't 'achievements' at all--practically get them for turning the game on and other stupid things. I'd prefer these things be rank unlocks; you can of course follow a blob around for those ranks and not do anything super meaningful, but it's better than paying gold and running back and forth between your home camp every 10 min to get it.

I agree with this: They should really limit build swapping to inside structures only. I was baffled when I found out you can do it anywhere as long as you aren't in combat--too many variables there to balance around.

I kind of like the idea of full credit for just supporting at the cost of doing little to no appreciable damage. It seems more inline with actual strategy than giving support specs the ability to also damage (even through attrition) in order to get credit. Sure you could have 'healbots' that just run around following people for credit, but even then that's better than now where you have people running support stats, sitting at spawn, and running out for five seconds just to flip and then going back to spawn. Those people would instead have to find other people to support in order to get credit. I don't think CC should ever do damage again, I think if there are classes affected (seems mostly warrior) then they should be reworked to have a viable split of damage and CC. As you CC to control a situation, and this should entirely be separate from skills you use to damage things. The 'all in one' mentality of old is just bad design. If the 'support specs do no damage' and 'damage specs do very little support' were implemented that would go a long way to solve issues. You couldn't have tanky specs spamming power/condi damage anymore, you'd have to choose.

Hate to say this but... At this point you probably are better off just using ascended for your swapping needs, as it's doubtful resources will be allocated to making modifications to the legendary armory with an expansion coming out. Especially since having one legendary is a lot for most people, not to mention multiples that are hot swapped for convenience. Add to that the fact legendaries are really best used in equipment templates anyway due to the unique ability to select stats--if you have one weapon you never change stats on then you might as well buy an ascended and skin it with the legendary skin...no one will know the difference. Essentially while quite annoying to some people, these issues seem low priority in the grand scheme of things.

I think this could still be pretty effective-sure you'd lose ancient seeds and entangle but could still rack up some good damage with the bleeds you still have / and annoy people with roots from staff #4 and pet CC's. Dunno, might make for some fun memes...

I mean, you're asking too much for a spec to have both great group healing potential and great solo potential--in a single build at that. I mean healbrand and medikit scrapper are top healers but you don't see them roaming around on their own all that often, if really ever. The problem with druid is it is extremely competent at selfish play (really all ranger specs are), and to change it to more group oriented you'd have to give some of that power up. They've nerfed healing a few times because of this exact issue--I don't think reversion is the path that they have in mind. Basically what I personally don't want is things like staff #4, celestial shadow, ancient seeds (to a degree), etc. messed with for the sake of more group healing--that just leaves a mess. And they will tackle those because there has to be compensation if we go down the 'support' route. Essentially what they started out with is not possible, druid cannot be both a competent healer and competent CC / roamer all in one.

I run something similar to that but with MH axe and Nature Magic instead of Skirmishing--just a bit more boon oriented at the cost of some ferocity. That or I run immob Druid causes people LOVE those 😄.

Yeah there are nitpicky things, but those exist on every class. Like outside of staff #2 and yeah CA1 I don't see anything that just 'doesn't work'. The glyphs work plenty fine--sure unity is a 'meme' but it worked well enough in its role to get a nerf not too long ago. I just don't see anything that needs redesigned--I mean the original point of this topic was that druid should have access to more plants instead of celestial bodies. Visuals, but then became mechanics, and the usual's show up: 'druid is useless because no dps', 'ancient seeds hurt me', etc. So to me its a matter of the community learning what druid currently can do in the present and not what druid should be doing.

The reason you can't is because of the CC access. From a competitive standpoint staff is the absolute best kiting weapon ranger has--it literally has everything. Most people have no idea how to use it and thus ignore it, but it's hard to die when properly using a staff unless you get very outnumbered. Essentially Druid is competitively viable due to how good staff is, how effective CA/personal heals/stealth are, and the CC access it has...they'd have to rework all of that to increase damage potential. I personally don't see why anyone wants that when we have soulbeast for damage. For me, only rework I'd be fine with is moving ancient seeds to personal CC only, making wisp do something useful, and putting stability on glyph of stars. Everything else functions fine in terms of actual druid role and current game state. As at this point, Druid is way more CC oriented than healer oriented, and that kind of seems the direction after PoF when the 'true healers' came on board.

I don't see why anyone would play differently when there are traits to increase damage the farther you are out from a target, and besides the farther you are away means they can't hit you without using some gap closer, so it's a win-win. I mentioned open world as we were on the subject of PvE, and as far as I'm aware no one really uses LB in raids/fractals as there are better weapons for sustained DPS there. If we switch to something like WvW then LB is almost always used at extreme range--the sic' em SB is literally meta for this exact reason. Whether you are ganking or +1'ing with it, there is no benefit for being any closer than max range.

I think it's meta because for short/quick encounters you can stand at 1500 and blow your entire bar (sic' em SB style) and do great damage. At least that's what I see repeatedly in open world, and sure it's a use, but not one that really promotes thoughtful play.

See this: Sure there are the diamond/mith/etc. ranks that don't need skirmish tickets anymore and use WvW as a chatroom, so they just run in a random corner to stay active--but most people do the above. Run out and cap then go afk until participation ticks down, then repeat.

I use opening strike a lot with Winter's Bite, as can get nice damage off it on refreshes with Remorseless. The minors do make no sense though since you can't take partial trait lines, so it's just spreading the same thing out that could be condensed into a single minor. Also, I think 'flat damage' would be a coefficient of 1? I'm not sure how that applies to attack of opportunity though as it just increases outgoing damage after its calculated. Where is there any coefficient here?

I'm just trying to imagine a mosshart transform in PvP or WvW.... These changes seem extremely PvE oriented, and open world PvE oriented at that...as I don't raid, but I'm not sure what raiders would think of a giant mosshart runnin' around when they're sweating over their DPS meters. If we were to entertain a shapeshifter it'd be more suited for a soulbeast overhaul since you merge with the pet there. Finally, I know DnD set the rules that druids are tree hugging hippies, but the sun is required to grow said trees, so logic concludes they are also celestial.

Too many afk corner runners to have unlimited tickets

Dulfy was also playing mesmer in the vid you linked... Clearly reading comprehension isn't a strong suit in this topic--I specified 'no mesmer' run not a 'no port' run, and both videos show some variation of mesmer.

I'd like to see a 15 minute no mesmer run if you can upload one. Because 'mesmers can port you' is the worst excuse this game has for JPs...they should have outlawed ports like they did mounts and I guarantee you'd see this forum flow with salt.

I second this; I've done it numerous times and I can say it is long, tedious, poorly designed and overall annoying. You need full gliding mastery to even complete it without a port and it tends to bug out if you don't literally stand on every checkpoint.

I've done that thing I believe three times now because of Aurora...don't look forward to doing it again. Wish they'd just tick it off if you've completed it prior....

Seriously now, who actually watches GW2 streamers, let alone WvW streams? The only thing I've personally watched are WvW drama vids on YT and even those are lackluster =\.

Yes, because every park ranger I encounter stands at a distance and fires arrows into trespassers....

If you want to RP as a plant that's cool and all; just know there are no plants without the sun (and occasionally moon in the case of moon flowers). Only on the ranger forums can we go from a discussion of how ranger feels outdated to a discussion of what 'nature' actually means....

The sun is a pretty important part of nature, but think we're getting down a rabbit hole of 'agree to disagree' here.

That's because you are stunned after being dismounted allowing for bonus damage. It has little to do with the rapid fire channel and everything to do with how mount mechanics work. Which is why I think the topic creator is one of those that just rides the mount around like its immortal (since it can't be CC'd); they then meet LB ranger and come here to cry OP.

I got so bogged down in debating the definition of burst I didn't read the topic creator's figures close enough... 1750 range with arc? What are you doing, riding your warclaw around in a circle by the sentry as a ranger fires at you from a wall or something? 30k damage? I'm not sure that one is possible to begin with--but if it is you'd have to have 25 stacks of vuln on you, be utterly glass, and be sleeping at the wheel to even see a figure like that. I'm assuming this is the case and the 30k is counting warlcaw health so you're just being insta-gibbed because can't figure out that warclaw is not immunity. Though with the topic creator's chosen name I guess we should have all assumed how this topic was logically going to turn out...