Theory: Condi Druid changes were made to justify bigger nerfs later

[Seventh Ranger.3968]

As a fellow Druid enjoyer myself, it was nice to see condi Druid feeling strong, but also concerning, because we all know how much Anet hates Ranger, and in particular Druid. I have a sneaking suspicion that the changes to condi Druid were made to justify removing Ancient Seeds (which was admittedly slightly annoying to deal with), and also to put it in a slightly overperforming state, so they could justify nerfing Druid back into the dumpster where they think it belongs. 20 gems says they nerf Druid into the ground in a patch or two.

[Levetty.1279]

It will defintly get nerfed when the expansion relases and it can use dagger, which is a shame becuase I hate dagger.

[Peter.3901]

Knowing anet for ages is most likely that they will nerf druid and 5 random things just to satisfy the weekly fetish on nerfing rangers.

20 gems too

Edited July 7, 2023 by Peter.3901

[Joncal.9623]

I'd say they'll nerf dps druids before the general population catches on we can dps. Because currently it's still "OMFG SH!T DRUID HEAL"  in fractals. 😂

Edited July 7, 2023 by Joncal.9623

[Mic.1897]

Lots of doomsday in this thread

Life doesn't have to be so miserable guys at least we have condi druid now

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 hour ago, Mic.1897 said:

Lots of doomsday in this thread

Life doesn't have to be so miserable guys at least we have condi druid now

For once, we agree

 

The GW2 fan base always has this "something bad is going to happen" mindset

[Levetty.1279]

2 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

For once, we agree

 

The GW2 fan base always has this "something bad is going to happen" mindset

Because something bad is always going to happen.

[Beddo.1907]

Trust me, Anet doesn't need a reason to nerf Ranger.
You can tell by the spirit boon duration.

[Mell.4873]

I don't think they will nerf it, I mean to get full condition damage you can't provide Alacrity or be a Pure healer. When the expansion does release all other Rangers specs will get Staff so now they can Heal especially Untamed with the awesome Staff Ambush. 

I don't see Druid specific nerfs, maybe Blood Moon. Instead it's more likely if we see any nerfs it will be with Core. 

[Dante.1508]

To be fair ranger had it bad for so long expecting nerfs is a normal Ranger trait at this point.

[Mauti.3520]

What kind of tinfoil hat meeting is this?

ArenaNet hates Ranger? wtf?
Druid is doing fine and it's pretty obvious it's solo bench is a bit inflated but it's realistic dps is completely in line with the rest of the bunch. ~39/40k There is no reason to nerf this and ArenaNet should pretty well know. Maybe they will tweak how Bloodmoon works with pulsing Entangles and buff Eclipse instead (which clearly underperforms as the Grandmaster DPS option imho compared to Bloodmoon).

chill guys. Right now the numbers are a bit off for some builds, in particular the PvE Boon Support builds. That's it. And some first tweaks are already announced for July 18th.
Apart from that Ranger and Druid doing fine with even some improvements down the line.

 

[Mauti.3520]

18 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

It will defintly get nerfed when the expansion relases and it can use dagger, which is a shame becuase I hate dagger.

MH Dagger is only barely an improvement for Condi Druid at all over Axe. The Reason is that Celestial Avatar let's you play around the bad AA of Axe, which isn't the case for Condi Soulbeast which is much more reliant on a good condi AA chain (i.e.) Dagger after swapping of Shortbow.

Also Dagger 2 is of much lesser value to any Non-Soulbeast Ranger, as  Soulbeast triggers the added poison effect from itself when using it in merge, while as a Druid it comes from the pet with much lower stats.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Mauti.3520

[Dadnir.5038]

The devs don't hate anything... It's just that they are a bit lacking when it come to foresee the consequences of their "tweaks". Which lead them to have to handle the small but extremly vocal sPvP community.

[Joncal.9623]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The devs don't hate anything...

I bet the elementalist community would like a word. 😂

No, but in all seriousness I agree with you. 

[Peter.3901]

10 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The devs don't hate anything... It's just that they are a bit lacking when it come to foresee the consequences of their "tweaks". Which lead them to have to handle the small but extremly vocal sPvP community.

In the ranger community there's a golden standard to predict any kind of nerf:
 

If something is working, then it's already a reason for a nerf.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Peter.3901 said:

In the ranger community there's a golden standard to predict any kind of nerf:

If something is working, then it's already a reason for a nerf.

I'm pretty sure that every single profession subforum have the same saying.

[Mewsha.3561]

Eh I think the truth is somewhere in between.

You have to be crazy to think that professions like Guardian are not well taken care of patch after patch, but I don't think the developers really hate any profession. I just think they struggle to understand some within the context of meta dictated by the community.

On paper Druid Support seems like it would dominate the end game scene.

Its healing can easily carry any team that builds around it, but that's the thing. Nobody is going to build around healing alone, so the threat of it eclipsing something like HAM does not exist within the confines of how the community engages with the content.

The meta is strictly enforced by the community and justified through the limiting nature of the LFG. It's boon support, boon dps, and three dps. The only time the community steps out of that is if the encounter is broken by something like old Heal Scourge on Boneskinner.

This is a problem that the developers led us to by encouraging near 100% boon duration, specifically for alacrity and quickness. Therefore their hesitation with giving alacrity duration to Druid, and arguably tying it to CA alone, doesn't make sense within the context of how the game is played. A build is only good if it can fit into the meta. I think the recent Druid changes are just a sign that they're a bit out of touch with the community.

For Condi Druid I wouldn't worry about a nerf anytime soon. It's a sleeper pick and condi builds in general are not hyped up. I think with SotO we're going to experience a significant power creep, and I'd expect a lot of professions to either match its current benchmark or surpass it They clearly want us to be doing more damage otherwise they wouldn't be opening up the meta with the arrival of new weapons for every elite spec.

 

[Dadnir.5038]

8 hours ago, Garrick.3150 said:

You have to be crazy to think that professions like Guardian are not well taken care of patch after patch,

I'm pretty sure the guardian community believe that the devs have been out on a witch hunt against them since EoD release, nerfing and ruining the gameplay of firebrand again and again.

Fact is that everybody believe that their main is the one that have it worse yet it's just the devs things based on their "data" and how loud the sPvP community is. Pre EoD, everybody believed that the devs was biased toward guardian and necromancer, a few month in EoD everybody believed that they were biased toward Engineer, not so long ago everybody believed that they favored warrior and nowadays everybody believe that they have some sort of inconditional love for elementalist.

At the end of the day, the reason druid is in it's current state is because competitive mode players can't stand:

• foes with good survivability and druid with it's healer design got many way to sustain itself
• being punished for hitting mindlessly their foes
• foes that use conditions

While most PvE players just want their main to be acknowledged as part of the strongest team rooster that will allow them to breeze through the content effortlessly and reap the pixel reward.

[Peter.3901]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I'm pretty sure the guardian community believe that the devs have been out on a witch hunt against them since EoD release

Guardians will get twin pistols, rangers will get maracas after a kitten hammer, guardians are just the most beloved profession, always been.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Peter.3901

[Levetty.1279]

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I'm pretty sure the guardian community believe that the devs have been out on a witch hunt against them since EoD release

They are getting a hotfix to fix an issue that is affecting multiple elite specs but they are only fixing it on Willbender.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Really have to start putting the intended game mode in these topic titles.  

As Druid may be performing in PvE, but is way underperforming in competitive.  

[anduriell.6280]

On 7/8/2023 at 8:58 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

The devs don't hate anything... It's just that they are a bit lacking when it come to foresee the consequences of their "tweaks". Which lead them to have to handle the small but extremly vocal sPvP community.

It is not about knowing or not knowing, it is about the devs despise and  hate that they have to deal  with the pet class. Simple as that. 

They do not play with it because is a chore thus they do not care to design it fun.  They also don't want a ranger to shine above their favorited classes like guardian or engie. I do not have to remind you this is already said by them so we are not making things up here. Balancing a pet class is hard. Apparently they don't like to work hard. 

The ignorance goes as deep as to not know what the elite skill of an specialization does.

 So yeah: If druid has anything nice they will nerf it. 

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

They also don't want a ranger to shine above their favorited classes like guardian or engie.

That's because you write things like that that I can't take what you write seriously.

Pre EoD, people like you were spreading the idea that the devs had a bias toward guardian and necromancer, a few month into EoD the same people were spreading the idea that the devs had a bias toward engineer, again a few month later those people were spreading the idea that the devs had a bias toward warrior and you might be out of date in your bias spreading but right people spread the idea that the devs are biased toward elementalist. In a few month those same people might believe that the devs have a bias toward revenant, ranger, mesmer or thief. Heck, I can recall that at some point the belief was that the bias was toward revenant, there was even the dev's quote going along the line: "The best players play revenant and the best players tend to win".

2 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

I do not have to remind you this is already said by them so we are not making things up here.

Nope, they never said what you claim they said. What you interpret from what they tell the community is only up to you.

[Levetty.1279]

12 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

That's because you write things like that that I can't take what you write seriously.

Pre EoD, people like you were spreading the idea that the devs had a bias toward guardian and necromancer, a few month into EoD the same people were spreading the idea that the devs had a bias toward engineer, again a few month later those people were spreading the idea that the devs had a bias toward warrior and you might be out of date in your bias spreading but right people spread the idea that the devs are biased toward elementalist

It is almost like we had a very public changing of the balance team

[Dante.1508]

On 7/8/2023 at 1:50 PM, Mauti.3520 said:

What kind of tinfoil hat meeting is this?

ArenaNet hates Ranger? wtf?
Druid is doing fine and it's pretty obvious it's solo bench is a bit inflated but it's realistic dps is completely in line with the rest of the bunch. ~39/40k There is no reason to nerf this and ArenaNet should pretty well know. Maybe they will tweak how Bloodmoon works with pulsing Entangles and buff Eclipse instead (which clearly underperforms as the Grandmaster DPS option imho compared to Bloodmoon).

chill guys. Right now the numbers are a bit off for some builds, in particular the PvE Boon Support builds. That's it. And some first tweaks are already announced for July 18th.
Apart from that Ranger and Druid doing fine with even some improvements down the line.

 

Obviously never played at release...

On 7/8/2023 at 7:38 PM, Joncal.9623 said:

I bet the elementalist community would like a word. 😂

No, but in all seriousness I agree with you. 

An Revenant, Warriors... 😏

Edited July 11, 2023 by Dante.1508