Ranger - Staff and Druid rework suggestion

[Halbarz.3854]

Personally I feel like the ranger is a bit of a hot mess at the moment. Every patch has been a nerf-fest and at this moment it feels as the class lacks options to create unique fun builds.Most builds in the end up doing the exact same thing. (except druid healer)

I strongly believe that the druid spec should re-visited by the devs with some new / updated traits. The staff also needs to be reworked in my opinion so it serves more of a purpose and opens up to have more creative builds with it.

(below is just a suggestion)

• Solar beam - damage a target and those in between while healing the area around said target. (Aoe Heal around the boss/player we target)

• Astral wisp - heals the players it travels through and grants regeneration while circling the target it inflicts damage and heals those around it. (chance to apply blind)

• Ancestral Grace - Become a wisp of natural energy, traversing to the targeted location. When you reach the target, heal nearby allies and grant protection to allies near you. Recharge is reduced if you heal another ally. Daze foes for 1 second.

• Vine Surge - Send forth vines that immobilize enemies and cleanse conditions from allies. (make the vine shorter by make them wider.

• Sublime Conversion - Summon an energy barrier that causes enemy spells to heal upon impact. Allies that pass through the wall gain boons. (Speed, quickness, and regeneration)

If also some traits would be changed I think the staff could be used for a lot more different builds.Currently, the traits do not really impact the staff skills itself that much would is rather sad.

Are you happy with the staff and the druid spec or how would you change it?

[BadSanta.6527]

I think all of Druid thing should be rework , Druid was made for raides only and it’s about dam time it will change .

[Halbarz.3854]

@BadSanta.6527 said:I think all of Druid thing should be rework , Druid was made for raides only and it’s about dam time it will change .

I agree with this 200% I love using the staff on in gw2 for all my characters, sadly on the ranger the staff is the most boring weapon of them all.The Spec as you said should also be reworked.

I really hope Anet will rework the druid, but I am not sure if the community really wants that.For me druid is the most useless spec of them all (from all classes) as it caters to 1 group.

[Veryl.1923]

I hoarded Fractal Lyrics like a pig so I can keep switching infusions when I'm playing soulbeast to druid.Unfortunately firebrand and other classes have exceeded healing abilities and healing as druid feels really clunky to something like a firebrand.I don't have an idea how to make druid more equal to firebrand in a balanced way skills apply the way they should,But I'm unable to play fractals right now since I've always loved being a healing druid.

Commanding HoT still is fun being druid since I can heal my whole squad in a few seconds if stacked a bit,I'm not sure if raids still apply for me as a harrier/magi druid.

In WvW healing scrapper is most wanted as support next to a scourge...Druid seems just to slow or too weak, although I've experienced the new updates like celestial form already able to use before a big fight,And the way glyphs appeal to me is an improvement, although I think in a game-mode where kiting portals or kd's is a necessity...Even wearing 18+ healing infusions in WvW seems rather useless because skills that really real in bursts are (celestial 1) and area's too small for healing spring, and sometimes I'm just annoyed how mandatory skills become when people run meta in any mode.

I've only got one suggestment, Could the skill with the tablets be targeted to a team member and can a skill like that follow the player in order to keep the whole team alive while kiting, or running?

[Durzlla.6295]

Personally I’d love for them to really hammer home the duality aspect of Druid, make it so the staff and the glyph (non avatar) skills are all very offensive oriented, around locking down enemies and opening them up for damage, with some minor healing, and then make the avatar state just the epitome of support with condi cleanses, boon generation and healing.

Druids in a really weak spot because they have this like minor idea of a design but haven’t fully embraced it, not to mention they keep kicking Druid while it’s down and really need to revert some of these damn nerfs.

[BadSanta.6527]

First I would like to delete avatar form . Let’s face it it is bad, and to be honest from company like anet I demand some thing better. And staff , glyphs common both are just sad . You had the opportunity to make Druid like the nature mate (if you didn’t want to go to shape shifters) Druid is more like maple story cleric

[Halbarz.3854]

@"BadSanta.6527" said:First I would like to delete avatar form . Let’s face it it is bad, and to be honest from company like anet I demand some thing better. And staff , glyphs common both are just sad . You had the opportunity to make Druid like the nature mate (if you didn’t want to go to shape shifters) Druid is more like maple story cleric

They can keep the avatar form if they want so it still has a purpose for raiders and etc. But they could add a debuff to it, switching from the Avatar back to "normal" = reduces damage by 25% for 7 seconds.The Staff could be reworked to by a Direct damage, CC weapon (like a Vine Bomb, AoE we drop that covers the area (staff 5 on the ele size) with vines. damaging and CC'ing everything)

Glyphs are out of place in the open world for the largest part.

I think Anet did an amazing job with many classes but with the ranger I feel like they do not really know what to do with it.It's sad that we never see a Dev posting here as it would really be good to see what they have planned for the ranger.

Soulbeast is great but also limited, I am at the point that going back to my original gw2 build is more fun :(

[starlinvf.1358]

@Halbarz.3854 said:

@"BadSanta.6527" said:I think all of Druid thing should be rework , Druid was made for raides only and it’s about dam time it will change .

I agree with this 200% I love using the staff on in gw2 for all my characters, sadly on the ranger the staff is the most boring weapon of them all.The Spec as you said should also be reworked.

I really hope Anet will rework the druid, but I am not sure if the community really wants that.For me druid is the most useless spec of them all (from all classes) as it caters to 1 group.

Trust me.... the Community wants it badly. PvP might care the least, but Druid used to be a bunker that could hold itself. In Openworld and WvW, Druid enjoyed a short stint as a group healer, but it suffered greatly from one of Ranger's underlying design issues (which I'll get into below). Fractals and Raids only took them because of Grace of the Land and Glpyh of Empowerment, and only because it was unique buffs that could stack on top of other buffs. The strong burst healing was just a nice safety net, but something tempest could do better when spec'd properly AND without losing other strong utilities such as Ice Bow and Condition management.

I often got the feeling the Druid and Spirit Vale were distinctly designed with each other, since the Druid's other skills seemed to have niche uses for each of those fights. However, where every other HOT Espec addressed major limitations of Core for each class, Druid did nothing to help address Ranger's biggest problem, and arguably doubled down on it.

What I'm talking about is how its designed and balanced with a PvP mind set, and has a huge amount of contention in how its power balanced. Its a problem thats only overtly shared with Revanent, and stems from all the weapons, traits and skills having very distinct use cases, and intentionally do not scale strongly in their own right. I also got the impression that the Dev in charge of these wants to micromanage control of the meta builds, and you can actively see this in how the traits are laid out in a way that makes stacking obvious trait choices almost impossible in practice.

Another thing I've noticed unique to Ranger and Rev is how how they're strongest outputs are only achieved by extremely complicated combos, paired with very specific traits, that have to be perfectly executed to succeed. Ranger in particular has (that I'm currently aware of) more "charge based" buffs then any other class, and has been slowly losing time based buffs whenever players find effective ways of using them. They're also a class that struggles to have its skills scale between PvP and WvW, and Ranger in particular has very frustrating methods of condition cleansing.

Perhaps a better way of putting it is Both Rev and Ranger are forced into sustained (both damage and defense) playstyles, in a game that more greatly values Bursting. The path ways to bursting are there, but the obstacles to it feel very deliberate in how they are placed. This would probably not be much of an issue, if not for the fact that those strong builds not only have to go all-in, but require careful set up to take advantage of. This is why when successful, the results are stupidly overbearing..... but trying to deviate from it costs you your one reliable opportunity for victory. Waste any of your needed skills on anything else, and your success odds plummet, but also risk dying before you can get your combo off.

I don't feel this struggle in most other classes, besides Core Necro, as most skills and traits have wide applicability, or utility choices do a good job of covering shortfalls in the rest of the build. Ranger's only saving grace happens to come from the strong baseline impact of its skills.... but that doesn't scale well into advanced buildcraft, or parts of the game where synergy gains are more important then the basic effect.

[Hordek.6137]

This is sad to me considering I just maxed Druid and planned on it being my main. Is Druid really as useless as this post would suggest, in an unbiased opinion please.