Guild Wars 2

I have a very large interest in Druid. I understand how celestial powers are the most primal and natural of all magics, so I can get behind Druids having this form.

But what are the actual lore facts behind it? What’s the relation between celestial things and the mists? Are their celestial mages? How does one acquire such a godlike ability to become an avatar? Ect.

I’m not sure what the lore is, but the closest thing I can think of are the Celestials of Cantha, which are ‘spirits of the stars’. You could become ascended (“closer to the stars”) by defeating them, granting you the ability to see the spirits of the dead.

So the only thing I can guess is that it is somehow related. Maybe the Celestial Avatar form is almost like tapping into the power of Celestials like Revenants tap into the Mists. If Celestial power has some connection to spirits in the Mists like it has in GW1, then perhaps that is why it is so focused on healing.

That’s just a random guess, however. I don’t really know anything.

The original druids of the Maguuma were treants that acted as wardens of the Maguuma, and ascended into a spiritual form. There are indications that they were possibly human before they became treants (Ewan’s tribe as mentioned in the Scriptures of Melandru, perhaps) but that’s unproven. The old druids seemed to have a philosophy of balance – generally they appeared to promote new life and growth, but they did recognise a need for death and made use of darker powers at times.

There’s no lore on the specialisation, though – I don’t think it’s even been confirmed that they’re connected to the old druids of the Maguuma. That said, I’m inclined to think that the Celestial Avatar is essentially a lesser, temporary version of the apotheosis of the original druids – you’re not actually able to leave your old body behind, but you can infuse it with spiritual energy (the similarity with Death Shroud is probably no accident). The staff represents their nurturing aspect (albeit at a lesser level than the avatar), while the dual nature of the glyphs comes from the balance of aggression and preservation in the druids.

Where cosmic-inspired powers comes into that is unclear, but might represent that the druids had a wider view of what was in ‘nature’ than rangers have typically held – rangers viewing nature as being more Tyria’s biomes, while druids recognise that Tyria is just part of a greater whole that includes the rest of the cosmos – a recognition that allows them to draw power from farther afield.

Again, though, that’s all my speculation. I like to think it’s informed speculation, but as far as I know there hasn’t been anything official said.

Befor HoT rangers made lot of very good idea to make ranger viable. We tought a lot about something fusion with our pets. Diferent kind of pets gives diferent powers. Anet took away the idea, so rangers made the revenant and anet gave us what lefts, the most useless thing in the game (after pets), the healing. This is the lore of the druid

I may be alone in my position here but I personally like the ambiguity of some of the elite specs so you can describe how your own character pushes the boundaries of their profession.

Basically, what draxynnic just did. His explanations are sound and I’d borrow much of that to explain my Ranger’s progression to Druid, but it’s not limited to that. You could even go a different direction to accomplish similar.

When you’re left with no answers, don’t be afraid to form your own conclusions. This isn’t science, it’s just story telling. Just leave your conclusions flexible for when answers do rise to the surface.

PS: That all being said, I do wish the devs would put in some NPCs using the elite specs and telling more of their story of how they personally gained their new talents.