Guild Chat - Episode 3
Guild Chat - Episode 3
- Title
- @TwitchCon, the druid, ranger's elite specialization
- Host
- Rubi Bayer
- Guests
- Irenio Calmon-Huang
- Date
- September 30, 2015
- Official video
- YouTube
The 3rd episode of Guild Chat aired on September 30, 2015. Rubi and Irenio go through the ins and outs of the ranger's elite specialization live at TwitchCon September 25-26 2015.
Transcription[edit]
Introduction (0:22)[edit]
- Rubi Bayer: Welcome back to Guild Chat. I am your host Rubi, from ArenaNet's Communications Team, and this episode of Guild Chat is covering something I know longtime players have been looking forward to for a very, very long time. Let's take a look and see what it is.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: So...
- Rubi Bayer: (says something unintelligble to Irenio)
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Yeah.
- Rubi Bayer: Let's see what Colin had to say about that last January at PAX South. Let's take a look at that video. (says something unintelligble to Irenio)
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: What's that?
- Rubi Bayer: I can't hear anything.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Oh, yeah.
- Rubi Bayer: So, they might be having some technical difficulties showing the video, so, I'm going to put you in the hot seat. This is the Game Designer who's been leading the charge on the druid, Irenio Calmon-Huang.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Yep, hey, what's up. It's a pleasure to be here and finally get to talk about the druid.
- Rubi Bayer: Yes.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Been kind of, you know, zip-lipped this whole bloody time and it's... it's a huge weight off my chest to finally get to talk about it, because, as I'm sure many of you are aware, we can't talk about things until they're actually going out, don't want to make promises, but it's been eating at me.
- Rubi Bayer: Yeah, it's going to be pretty much great. Um, let's start with a kind of overview of what the druid is all about. Can you, kind of give us a foundation for this?
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Okay, so, the druid is going to be bringing heavy healing. Heavy healing, to Guild Wars 2. Unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's going to be a really strong support, and it's going to be really powerful in the new and upcoming raids situations.
- Rubi Bayer: Those of you excited for raids, by the way, we are going to be talking about that tomorrow, so don't miss that.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: It's not only going to be useful in raids, but also in potential World v. World scenarios, and fractals, dungeons and most of the content of Heart of Thorns, where there's going to be a lot more pressure on the player that you simply can't dodge to survive. The berserker meta... the berserker meta is not going to just cut it.
- Rubi Bayer: You look really, really smug about that. I just want to point out that you look...
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Oh yeah. The berserker meta is something that has been great fun, but it's not super healthy for the game, and we're kind of pleased that we're actually able to take steps towards greater variety of builds.
- Rubi Bayer: All right, well, why don't we go ahead and dive in. Um, I have my cheat sheet because we have a lot to go over and I'm afraid I'm going to say it wrong. Um, so, like we talked about way back when it (unsure about this word) out, the druid has a staff, and the staff skills, um, they're kind of about positioning. Um, you can speak to better than I can, so I'm like... I know it's... it's support through positioning.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Yeah. So, as I mentioned, the druid's going to be pretty heavy healing, and a lot of that is going to be coming through the form of positional support. Um, the staff one skill, the auto-attack, is going to be a beam attack on a target, and it will do damage to the target, of course, but any allies between you and the target will actually be healed by being in the beam... the path of the beam.
- Rubi Bayer: All right, so that one's Solar Beam, and we can take a look at that. Those of you who have been watching for a while will notice that the tradition of moose continues.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Indeed, we can't really get away from the moose. At least, I can't. It's just too much fun to see them prancing around.
- Rubi Bayer: (says something unintelligble to Irenio)
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Um, yeah. So, Solar Beam, the numbers you're seeing, they're... those are with pretty much no stats. So, take that into account. They're going to be more awesome.
- Rubi Bayer: No stats, it's okay.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Yeah, and the second skill is going to be Astral Wisp. With this skill, you cast out an astral wisp on to the target, and it begins to circle the target, dealing damage initially, but then any allies that it passes through will be healed in the process as well. So this is really useful support for anyone that's in melee.
- Rubi Bayer: Nice. All right, and, up next, Ancestral Grace is one that I kind of enjoyed. I wasn't entirely good at it- you had a lot of fun watching me screw this up.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Yeah, Ancestral Grace is quite a bit of fun. It's a positioning-based skill, well, it's a movement-based skill that gets you into position to wherever you want to be. You can use it for escapes, you can use it for closing a gap and it heals allies at the location where you end up. So, this is kind of also a burst because it creates a blast finisher at that locale.
- Rubi Bayer: Nice, and the forth skill on staff is Vine Surge.
- Irenio Calmon-Huang: Yeah, this is the skill that many of you saw during the initial trailer for Heart of Thorns. This fires off a cascade of vines that shoot towards your enemy, doing damage and immobilizing them and also any allies like those moose happen to be in the video are freed of any movement-impairing conditions in the process.
- Rubi Bayer: We did make the moose allies for just a little bit, so you are welcome. We felt kind of bad about all the terrible things we were doing to them. All right, and the last one is Sublime Conversion. What does this one do?
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Note: The text below was auto-transcribed and not reviewed. It could be that text appears for the wrong speaker. |
Rubi: What does this? One do.
Irenio: So Sublime Conversion is a means of essentially taking any damaging projectiles and eating them, but not using destruction or reflection like we've seen through in many other skills in the game. This one actually takes all those projects that are coming in during the time and turns them into healing projectiles, so they will continue onwards. But if they strike you or any allies, it will heal you.
Rubi: Right. So anything it passes anything that passes through, there is no longer doing damage. It's actually. Healing you any projectiles?
Irenio: Yes, any project we pass through there from, you know, grenades to rapid shot fire. Any missiles from Scepter attacks, they all simply become healing pellets. Now they're like. Candy told me that you actually want to get. And I'm nom nom.
Rubi: I feel like you dropped the ball somewhere by not calling something. I'm nom nom. So the thing about this skill that I had asked I I know that I wanted to know about about things that are coming from above and what he explained to me, this is where positioning becomes super super important because anything that comes above is not passing through that wall. You're going to need to be watch your positioning and get to where.
Irenio: It's coming in at an angle and it's at an angle to still have to that. Well, yeah, actually, I mean, you're not just positioning the wall, but you'll position yourself and any allies that can see the topic like, oh, hey, get behind that thing because that turns something be doing damage to you 100% into instead. The opposite it's it's amazing.
Rubi: All right, so do you want to look at the utility skills?
Irenio: Please say yes because they're so cool, right? Yeah, we can do some utilities just for you, Ruby.
Rubi: OK, thank you. So these are all glyphs, right? The druid is. Going with glyphs on. The utility side glyphs are the.
Irenio: Traditionally, this has been the the main one of the mainstays of the elementalists, where they change forms and depending on what form they're. In the does. Something different. The Druid is also going to have multiple forms now. An additional form that it can go into and the glyph will change depending. Upon what form you're in?
Rubi: OK, first one is.
Irenio: Glyph of Rejuvenation. So this is a heal skill, but the druid is again a heavy healing class. It's the the basic version of his skill heals you for a lot and heals allies in the range, which is a pretty decent range for less than you get.
Rubi: All right, so this one in, it's in this form and we talk about the one later, this form is a. Little selfish, but that's OK.
Irenio: So this is the selfish version of this is. Generally held true for most of the skills. What about clip of alignment?
Rubi: That's what we have.
Irenio: Up next, what does this one do?
Rubi: Right.
Irenio: So with alignment? Is a defensive skill as well. What this does is it applies conditions, cripple and weakness, to any foes in the target area and give you a chance to escape mitigating damage. Being supporting the process. And it's a pretty decent wide area application, so you can do things like bust into melee for a moment to break this out, save your allies, and then you throw down like rejuvenation at the. Same time to, you know, give a little bit, yeah.
Rubi: So already I was giving me a few tips as we kind of went through this and figure out how things were working and starting to put some of these together that we looked at one that you mentioned to me. I have to look at this. Again, so I don't screw. It up, you can use this and then use Ancestral grace if you're enough to get in there and combo. Yeah, like I just mentioned.
Irenio: Like I just mentioned, you can do so if your allies are under the gun, you can weaken your enemies, reduce the. Damage this incoming ancestral grace right on top of them. Give some healing slash a liver rejuvenation. There's a lot of possibilities that you create by using the global alignment to give yourselves an ally.
Rubi: Opportunity to really recover. OK, Glyph of Equality. Kind of evens the playingfield a little bit if you're hurt.
Irenio: Yeah. So look at the quality is a day's application. This essentially again buys you more time. This also does a mass area interrupt can strike up five targets and most of these glyphs have a radius of at least 300. So you're able to really flush this out and line it up. I mention also does a decent chunk of damage. Same with clip of equality.
Rubi: All right. I love the next one because I'm kind of bad about get excited and running there and then get overwhelmed. It's like, yeah, people like you or why I made this glyph of the tides.
Irenio: Glyph of the Tides. This is an AOE knockback for a 360 radius, so you can really knock back, take out again, create an opportunity for you and any allies to escape or interrupt potential problems that any enemies are creating. I expect this one will see a fair amount of use in PvP world. Be world. These are situations where basically taking someone out of position they want to be in is really going to. Give you a role that's.
Rubi: Very impactful. All right, one more clip of Unity is this is one that I'm having a little bit. Of trouble mastering but.
Irenio: I'm gonna. I'm gonna take you back. Because we actually skipped 1.
Rubi: This is why I had the teaching empowerment. I am so sorry Griffin empowerment. Apparently I don't. Like,
Irenio: sorry.
Rubi: Yeah, no worries.
Irenio: So, Cliff empowerment, what one actually does is it's a it's a, it's a damaging support utility. What this does is it boosts all allies near you. The damage that they do for the next 5 or 6 seconds is increased as well as your own, so this is kind of a time when you want to let people know, hey, I'm about to do this, break out all your huge damaging abilities and let's really like chunk. Not a boss. Hit things. Yeah, exactly. And now we can move on to the final glyph, the.
Rubi: Don't forget now I'm mad. It was my own fault. Tell me about Glyph of Unity. I already know. Apparently really want to get to that one.
Irenio: OK, so the clip of unity is. It's your least skill it's doing. We have really done before. What it does is it tethers you to allies. So in your base form, what this does is any damage that you take during that time gets propagated. You deal damage to all enemies that you have heared yourself too. So this is like you take 10 strikes. All enemies that you've tethered with this it's three enemies, 4 enemies, each one of them is taking 10 strikes of damage from you for doing that.
Rubi: You're still taking it too? It's not.
Irenio: Bypassing yet. Right. That's right. So there is a trade off, but this is when you want to do things like, you know, throw on that the glyph of alignment in order to weaken the damage that you're taking because the damage that you take, you know, you're going to take less of it going to take the same amount of damage. So you can also do things like with some of the old skills, rather the core skills for the Ranger papulus stone. And you're gonna take no damage. And every strike that they have put, they put on you during that time. Going to be taken in.
Rubi: Return nice. All right, so these are really, really fun on their own, but they are getting better because we also have, there's an inverse of all of them through. I'll let you do it because. It's pretty great, alright.
Irenio: So I guess we now have to talk about the new class mechanic that's being added to the Druid.
Rubi: Beauty celestial transform.
Irenio: That's right. So the celestial transform is a new mode that you can actually enter using your F5. You build up your astral force using attacking, attacking, and healing. Healing is gonna be far more effective for doing this, and when you do, you transform into a celestial avatar, you gain a completely new set of weapons. Any clips that you have equipped turn into the social form mode, becoming slightly better, a little less selfish, so we can go over. Each of those skills now yes, please.
Rubi: All right, Cosmic Ray is the first one and what does?
Irenio: This one do so cosmic ray is your one skill when you're initial avatar form. And what this does is it a no cool down targeted ground application of just straight up strong healing. So you could essentially really pump out a lot of healing when you're in this mode and support all of your allies who might be, you know, reeling from damage that you were unable to mitigate beforehand. This gives you the opportunity to recover from that.
Rubi: All right. Let's talk about Seed of Life a little bit. And what that does in. General, we're gonna see that more than once.
Irenio: So seed of life is the two skill what this does is it places a blossom that grows in the ground and. When it bursts, it heals allies and cleanses conditions as well. It's very likely in the near future we're gonna add another little bit of functionality to this skill that we haven't done that just yet, but it's under very close review because it it's it's feeling juicy. But we're trying to give it a little more, something to really differentiate it from the.
Rubi: First skill. Well, an exploding hill. I'm on board with as it is and I'm happy. To hear there's. Even more coming right? Alright, so Lunar Impact is what we have up now. Double checking every. Single time because I'm scared to skip something again. They're pretty great, right?
Irenio: How you doing now?
Rubi: Lunar impact. This day's enemies and heals allies. That's right.
Irenio: The third scale on your celestial avatar form. What this does is it drops a lunar missile on you, dazing enemies, and healing allies in the process. It's a pretty strong days, so this is also something you can be ready for to pop intellectual form to say break a break bar or something else. Give your your allies opportunity. Kind of two in one that you don't have to use. Multiple skills for if you're not intellectual avatar forms to achieve.
Rubi: You mentioned a bar. I wanna take a second. Going through as we talked about this, you really had a heart of thorns in mind. I wanted to.
Irenio: Make sure was useful going into the expansion or yeah, heart of thorns is more vicious, more brutal. You you are in a lot more danger just in the open world heart of. Thorns than you were in in the old versions of Tyria, so.
Rubi: It's really fun, danger.
Irenio: It means that everything that you're doing, you really need to be strategic. You need to you can't. Just again, Zerker met your way around and completely wreck everything that you run into. You have to be very tactical. You have to be pretty strategic. What you do is really going to affect your allies. And you're really going to. When you see a druid coming over the horizon, two. Yeah, pull your bacon out.
Rubi: Of fire. I kind of love the phrasing so, but that is that is what I like about this. It's something that is going to rise up to the challenges that are coming in heart of thorns. So all right title surge is.
Irenio: Up next, and this is the celestial version. So Rejuvenating Tides is a channeled ability that is a huge heel. It's a constant. Using heal for like more than 1000 per tick. It also creates a water field at your location, so this is something that's really visible allies. See this? It's it's time for them to break. Out all of. Their finishers and heal everyone to full super fast. This is likely to also get a little something, something that's that differentiates it. So it's not just healing, but adds A damaging component of support.
Rubi: Awesome. And finally, Natural Convergence. This is my runaway.
Irenio: So natural convergence. What this does is it immediately starts to cripple and harm enemies in the range.
Rubi: Like when you start casting.
Irenio: And yes, what you're still casting and if it. All enemies were still in that range, are immobilized and bled for five seconds. So this is a huge potential setup again. Also another something that can really just completely wreck a brake Mart. So locking down 5 enemies in an area for all your allies who simply demolish. Like you are the enabler in any kind of raid or, you know, dungeon scenario.
Rubi: So and again, this happens when you start casting. As soon as you begin casting, they are crippled and slowed.
Irenio: That's right.
Rubi: So if you work well with those around you, you could really set.
Irenio: Up some devastating I mean this is also a hey, there's the potential for counterplay. Your counterplay is get the hell out of there, because if you don't, you know that you are about to take a real beating.
Rubi: Yeah, you are now locked down and bleeding.
Irenio: Yes, that's right.
Rubi: Oh my gosh. OK. Alright, yeah, that one that was going to hurt if you do it right.
Irenio: But the counterplay got the hell out. There is these utilities brother. Sorry, these abilities need to be used very tactical. You can set things up in order to make sure. Hey, look. Yeah, an ally. Just lock someone down. This is the time to. Use that because suddenly they can't potentially escape unless they stun, break, pop. A lot of stuff in order. To get out of there going to want to and stand back really, really fast too.
Rubi: All right. Do you want to take a look at the traits and see what all we can do because there's a lot of manipulation of all of these skills within the traits. All right, celestial being.
Irenio: OK, so Celestial Being is your minor one. That's what gives you access to the the elite specializations celestial avatar form. So that gives you, you know, the five new skills, the access to. Glyphs. Yeah, that's. And the staff, that's your baseline functionality.
Rubi: Right. And following up just right down the line in the order that they are Druidic Clarity.
Irenio: So did you read it? Clarity 10. Gosh, one moment. I've been working on these for so long. Sometimes I get muddled.
Rubi: Conditioner condes. OK. You are suffering from confusion.
Irenio: No, no, that has been cleansed away as I have just entered my celestial avatar form. Because what did clarity does is it removes when you enter social form all. Conditions on you, so this is. Hey look, I can now use select avatar form to get myself out of any situations. That's hey, I'm not liking.
Rubi: Like an awesome. All right. And I can help you if you get confused again, I'll close it and read off my CHEAT SHEET because. That's why I have it cultivated.
Irenio: OK. So Cultivated Synergy is a it's a supportive healing ability, but that's when you use your heal skill, your ally or sorry, your pet, your pet is your ally, your allies.
Rubi: It's totally it's valid.
Irenio: That's right. You and your ally pet both heal in an area around you, so you can double up with this. If you happen to be standing near each other so you get double the heel there, that's, you know. One of you would get alone, right?
Rubi: Primal, like those now feels like a.
Irenio: Trivia show what does it do? OK, so Primal Echoes is your staff skill. What this does is it reduces the recharge on all of your staff skills and it makes it so that when you swap the staff. You daze all enemies in an area around. You and this also triggers when you are leaving celestial form, because leaving celestial form you have that new set of weapon skills. You're not getting stuff back if you happen to be using it, boom instantly days. As soon as you.
Rubi: Leave special form. All right, next minor is Live Vicariously.
Irenio: Live Vicariously, is your minor too. What this does is this gives you the support that you would otherwise be rather that you were giving to your allies by every time you heal an ally, you are also healed. This makes you very, very sustaining and stable because you're outputting a huge amount of healing to your allies.
Rubi: OK.
Irenio: If you want to, you get you start to get low, you can pump out healing to allies, heal them, and you don't have to make that decision between being selfish and being. You can do both at the.
Rubi: Same time makes it really easy to. Be generous with your. Thank you. Let's see. So let's.
Irenio: Unless you're right away. When I love it, Celestial Shadow is another ability that happens based on when you're in special form. Yeah, what's? Specifically, when you leave celestial form, this applies an AOE super speed and an AOE stealth to you and all allies around you when you leave it. So you can actually choose to leave celestial avatar form early in order to kind of create this chance for you and allies to get where you need. To be and mitigate a bunch of damage.
Rubi: And verdant etching, verdant etching. I'm just gonna make pronunciations now I'll be.
Irenio: Over here. OK, Verdant Etching is your glyph skill. It reduces recharge your lips and it also makes it so that every time you cast a glyph, you plant a seed of life that heals allies and cleanses conditions around that location.
Rubi: That's that seed earlier that we mentioned. So if you see that popping up, you're going to. Run for it.
Irenio: If you're anywhere near, yeah. I mean, this is again, this really plays into the role of you being supportive and also gives the Druid something that covers the condition weakness that Rangers have often had.
Rubi: All right. How about Natural Stride?
Irenio: So, OK, natural stride is a movement based ability. What natural stride does is it gives you effectively 33% movement speed increase. That's equivalent to having witness on you constantly, so long as you do not have a movement impairing ability on you. So this is great for getting from place to place. Worldview world, not moving, just open World Travel.
Rubi: All right. We are going over to natural mender, which again makes it easy to be generous. With your healing, yes it does.
Irenio: So Natural Mender increases your outgoing healing. Guess what? When you heal. So if you chain a bunch of healing together in like, a really big burst, as you do so, every successive heel because it's a stacking ability, gets stronger and stronger and stronger, and it stays that way. For a good while.
Rubi: All right, move on to the last round. And that's grace of the land is. Your next one, OK.
Irenio: Grace of the Land is the first of your Grand Master traits. What this does is it makes it so that every time you enter celestial avatar form incoming condition damage to UN allies is reduced by 1/3. Incoming condition damage is reduced by 1/3. This gives you a. Huge amount of mitigation and it helps protect your allies when situations where say ohh someone forgot to get out of the fire. Yeah, don't be that guy but. Case you are that guy, the jury can actually save you long enough for you. To make up for your mistake.
Rubi: All right. Still, don't be that guy.
Irenio: Yeah, don't be that. Don't make them have to go this way, but it's pretty powerful anyway because very freely. You're just gonna have a lot of damage conditions on you come hard thorns and this can really give people another opportunity to do what they need to do. Survive long enough to take down that big baby. Who is really?
Rubi: Messing you up. All right, and lingering light. This is the one that I'm probably going.
Irenio: To go for my Ranger so Lingering Light. What this does is this. So every time you heal an ally, the astral whisk your staff to ability gets played on that location. So on your location. So this kind of makes it so that ranged unlike how asterisk. Plays that whisper around the enemy that you target, thus helping melee who are in there taking a beating. You can be standing out at range because the staff is a ranged weapon and any range that happen to be near you can just kind of get nearby, not they don't stand directly on you, but then they can pick up the ceiling. You are now putting passively around your location and you. Can actually move around in order to make it so that it passes through them even more frequently and has decent range too, so.
Rubi: 1200.
Irenio: Yes, it has a pretty hefty range and this is useful because again, it's a very positioning based ability. This gives you a lot more range of moving. You can kind of close to mid range. You can stay at long range depending on where some of the range on your team might be.
Rubi: So you can be pretty far out there and lingering light is still do its thing. That's right, nice and ancient seeds is the last one. So OK, this is just like making this makes it worse. And worse for the people you're fighting, it really does.
Irenio: So what entangled or sorry, what Ancient Seeds does? Is it actually plays some entangling roots? If you strike an enemy that happens to be dazed or seceded in some other fashion, like if they're not back, if they're stunned. If they're dazed, you hit them while they're in that phase boom, they're getting entangled for five seconds, immobilized, bled. It's going to be pretty painful for them and so if you happen to say. Days or knocking back several enemies with I don't know, with the tides, maybe. And then you hit a bunch of them with, say, another glyph or an area ability. It's going to hit each and every one of those. It does have an ID, but if you use a single ability that strikes them at the same time, all of them. Are going to be affected by disability by the. Strings all right.
Rubi: Ok. So that was our full run through of the trades, right, like some of those things.
Irenio: I hope you're looking forward to it. Some of these things may still change, but that's what we've got for.
Rubi: You right now awesome. So while we. So what we were going through the skills earlier, you may noticed a pet you haven't seen before you were running? With a Tiger, were you?
Irenio: That's right. There are new pets that will be available in heart of Thorns, the. Tiger is only the first among them, and this is.
Rubi: All right, this is for all Rangers, not just a druid.
Irenio: That's right. So. This kind of thing that all Rangers are getting access to in the heart of thorns, they can acquire these new pets. The first among them is the tiger that you saw earlier, the one that you're now seeing is the smoke scale. It's a dinosaur that you can tame and what this this dinosaur can do is it can create a smoke field around itself that while it while it remains in it, it evades constantly and is immune to all conditions. So this makes us potentially very tanky. Pet enemies will still go after it because it doesn't simply make them untargetable, but you give this your pet a good chunk of. Survivability, right?
Rubi: And we're looking at the Bristleback now because way too cute for the damage he. Does. I'm sorry. He's horrible.
Irenio: The Bristleback is a very brutal condition. Applying little guy, he is a dinosaur, but not of the same family as the smoke, so they get different family skills and what the ridgeback. Is it consistently shoots its signs out at its targets, frequently applying bleeds to them, and it's F2 makes it so that. It's next several. Attacks by bleeding with every single strike.
Rubi: Now we've been on the receiving end of a couple of these in the week events, so you guys probably know. As well as I do how much they.
Irenio: All right, this is the Electric Wyvern. So you are getting it. Well, you're getting baby wyverns in heart of thorns. The electric. He is one of two and this one. They are both members of the same family and the activate ability for the Wyvern is that it performs a head charge, stunning and knocking up any enemies that it happens that happen to be in its path. And very tired.
Rubi: That is fantastic. The both back with the wings too. I absolutely love that. He does that, yes.
Irenio: One of its family abilities, and yes, that knocks back enemies on the first actual strike. One of the thing I didn't mention is at the end of the the electric wyverns charge after it's, you know, knocked up any enemies that it had struck in the process. It also leaves a lightning field at the end of its charge, so that's another opportunity for you guys to, you know, create more play. Use finishes there, yeah.
Rubi: Here's my guys fire river and this is. My Rangers new pet.
Irenio: Right. The Fire Wyvern. It is another Wyvern, but which one does something that's pretty. Awesome this is. So bad. Act that we've gotten. It's activated ability sends it into the air. And just as you just saw is around creating a circle of fire that breathes out. Pulsing fire, dealing damage and leaving a fire field at that location. It's also immune while it's in the air, so enemies that we're attacking it. Have no idea what to do other than move on to something else, and if they're not in that area, say you know, lock them down with alignment or you know. Macro convergence. That's right. Or you happen to be running with convergence. Yeah, they're caught in a field taking constant burning and you can blast for that buff up your mic for you and your allies or, you know, apply burning, burning to projectiles. World finishers. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty potent.
Rubi: She had her third birthday recently and this is absolutely going to be her birthday gift. For me after. Hot lunches. All right, so we've seen everything. That the druid has on its in.
Irenio: Its bag of tricks? Not quite. I actually realized that we we skipped out a small section. I can run through those really quickly for you, which? Were what the? Glitches do when you're in celestial avatar form. Please do alright so with alignment brother back.
Rubi: Turning these inside out.
Irenio: With of rejuvenation, you're healed skills we mentioned earlier on that each of the glyphs something different. You're special avatar form with rejuvenation. It's initially a selfish child. What it does when you go into special form instead of healing you or like 5 or 6000 and your allies for a few thousand per you know one or two, we turn it around, you go to slash offer, you get deals for one or 2000 and all allies. Five of them in the area get fueled for. 5 or 6. 1000 Plus you know, any healing you might be running. That's like the potential for a 5000 or 25. 1000 plus heal.
Rubi: A quick note, bear with our increased confusion, confusion that we're taking. It is super loud in here. It's a. Little harder to. Focus the. So what? OK, no idea.
Irenio: Did you say something? Yeah, we're a little loud here at our booth and a. Lot of. People running around.
Rubi: Yeah. So what's next step?
Irenio: OK. So Next up, we've got the little alignment on the flip side, Vince instead A5 mutual ability to your allies. So instead of applying conditions to your enemies, what this does, I'm going to take. It back for just a moment and This is why I gave you sheets. That's right. Even I need these for some of the ordering because we've. Now gotten a little off track, that's.
Rubi: OK, so you're allowed.
Irenio: So it kind of does the opposite of like each of these lists does something very lateral from the base functionality. Is so global alignment does damage cripples your enemies? On the flip side, what it does in slash avatar mode is it heals all your allies and removes conditions from them really quickly. And yeah, it's it's a very utilitarian skill. By doing so, because you kind of get.
Rubi: Both options. Yeah, I like that.
Irenio: Yeah, yeah, it's easy to remember.
Rubi: They just kind of. Turn inside out once you. Once you're in there.
Irenio: Oh, look, I can do the one thing or go to the other mode. Do the other thing that I need and so you kind of be very situationally aware to what your group needs. And that's not something that you'll frequently paid attention to in Guild Wars two up till now because the content. Hasn't been mandated of. Like if you were applying boons, if you were getting it was kind of got the secondary effect. Now it's like, hey, what do my allies need? Ohh, something big is about to happen.
Rubi: OK.
Irenio: I better. Get ready for that.
Rubi: Yeah, you need to do a little bit earlier. Prepare very quickly, right. So glyphs of equality.
Irenio: For the quality equality. What it does base stance is daisies and damages enemies in the area that is on the other side is just an AOE stun break. Those allies as well, so this will sunbreak you and your allies get a little caught out. You can simply turn that around, give your allies the opportunity to, you know, undo the damage has been done and things like you'll see that in raids where a boss might happen to lay the smack down on you and allies before you can react, you can really give your allies a chance to get out of that situation.
Rubi: And let's. Wealth of empowerment is the next one.
Irenio: So click empowerment. This plays into again the flip side, so it increases the damage that your allies. Deal for sub for. Like 5-6 seconds and again gives them a chance to really go off their damaging skills. It increases all their outgoing healing for that same duration, so this this tells your allies. OK, look, we got a little low. I I may not have very many abilities available to me right now here. Quick guys do the stuff you need to in order to cover for me.
Rubi: I can help you out on this side too exactly and glyph of the.
Irenio: So glyph of the tides. It's a big it's an area knockback when you do it in base form. It's an area pole. It draws all enemies in the area. The nearby range straight onto you. Again, a very enabling hey, look, we're gonna really set this up for. Oh, say, I'm already industrial form. I pull all those enemies in and immediately start my natural convergence. They have to run much further to try and get out otherwise. The hammer is going to come down. It's going to hurt.
Rubi: And glyph of unity. This is the tether. One right so.
Irenio: The tether deals affects all of all of your enemies, deals damage to them for every time. You take damage opposite side of it. The community, all allies nearby are tethered, and whenever you are healed, all of your allies who have you have tethered to are also healed. It's huge. You could potentially just do that and justice, heal your allies really, really quickly. There's a ton of potential synergy here because you have traits like live vicariously whenever you heal an ally, you're healed. You are you and all of your allies have potentially full, very, very quickly huge recovery.
Rubi: So you've got your staff skills, you have the ellipse, and then you can turn them around with celestial form.
Irenio: That's right.
Rubi: It's it's a really extensive skill set.
Irenio: So you're getting quite a bit with the, you're getting 5 weapon skills, you're getting 5 new celestial avatar form skills. You're getting five list skills. You're getting 5 skills. On the other side and you're getting a selection of 12 traits and that's. Yeah, they can modify how you want. To play the drum, yeah.
Rubi: Just depending on what you what your preference is so. You still get to play how you want. That's right.
Irenio: And then on top of that, all you're getting 5 new pets though all Druids. Sorry all Rangers. Are getting 5. New pets, not just roads, not just droids.
Rubi: That was the question I asked. So we're we're being sure to not let me forget that. That's right. Well, do you want to put them all together and see how it looks in combat? OK, let's take a look. Let's take a look at. So this was a thing that I already was doing and. Kind of showing me what what I can do.
Irenio: Yeah, that's right. So here we're going in on one of the P enemies, line them down and then immediately, like I mentioned, having your fire Wyvern go a little bit crazy placing a tether on them so that any damage that they do, unfortunately this time not too much.
Rubi: OK.
Irenio: Immediately they would have been doing to themselves, throwing down Astralis so that you could see, hey, any damage taken immediately knocked back. Again, there are these abilities are also on pretty decent cooldown, so you can kind of really lock down your and you'll notice how the Druid is actually staying. Pretty healthy throughout this thing. Yeah, he's doing really well.
Rubi: How you? I just sit here and watch the Wyvern. I'm really enjoying the pets. I like their skills.
Irenio: Yeah, that's kind of video we've got right now because of the extensive development that Drew has been undergoing and there will be quite a bit more before Hartford actually comes out. We only have time to record this one play through, but it gives you a sense of what a lot of these skills actually look like put together. You can kind of cycle through each of these things in order to keep your enemies off balance and yourself pretty healthy.
Rubi: You know, you mentioned the Rangers overall and as we wrap up here, I did want to talk to you about. For just a second, because there are some. I'm sorry, but there are some concerns in the community about the Ranger as a whole. So I feel like we have to say about that, but you know.
Irenio: Yeah, that's. That that is perfectly legitimate and I have been over the past couple weeks in my spare time going home at night and reading the forms I have been listening very closely and I am hearing a lot of the concerns of the Community the Ranger Community has hopefully becoming the Community that there are not a lot of niches right now, but we're going to be looking at that a little bit later. Well, a little bit later in Twitchcon with some balance changes and that is just a very, very short. Few updates for the Ranger because I've been so swamped working on the Druid and I will continue to be there. Will be more. Changes coming, so you can anticipate that the the base, the core Ranger will be getting several changes to bring it back up into line and? Balance it with many of the other professions.
Rubi: Thank you. And you are going to be a part of Balance Preview later on in Twitch, so guys make sure you watch that and see what Irene has to say on there. But for now, that is the Druid reveal that we been waiting for all year. How good does that?
Irenio: Feel it feels amazing because now I can actually say, you know, post in the Ranger forums and talk to you instead of just learning, reading your concerns, because this stuff I couldn't talk to you about before so. I'm really looking for opening it up with you guys. All right, so I have a couple of questions to ask you to make a few predictions. A few predictions, please. What kind of predictions you asking me to make for the Ranger in general?
Rubi: Now I know. Now I want to make it harder because you look like for the challenge, but be nice to you. Where do you?
Irenio: See the Ranger. Where do you see the Druitt meta going so I can see the dream of being very strong in worldly world, the Druid is really capable of sustaining the the entire reserve train. You could have 20 or 30 guys facing off against 40 or 50 guys and you can really put things out to keep your 20 guys going long enough to. Live wreck the other side. The cascading lines. That's something that affects continuously. A bunch of people walking them in place for your elementalists your Rangers to smack them.
Rubi: All right, that is it for us today. Thank you very, very much. I know you. Were looking forward to this and.
Irenio: It has. An absolute pleasure, all right.
