Guild Wars 2

This is a nice nerf I’ve been doing the story area thus far and have not gained enough AF to use the form once.

Can’t be gained outside of combat obviously too.

Roy strikes again?

That’s a huge change. Meh.

Meh indeed.. feels really really really lame.
I mean seriously kick a guy when hes down.

Reavan.8753:

Meh indeed.. feels really really really lame.
I mean seriously kick a guy when hes down.

Is the AF gain using weapons other than staff still obnoxiously slow then? what about staff and troll ungent? are they still the fastest generators?

So chronomancer it is then for me.

And here’s me thinking that we were going to be able to retain AF.
I know it sounds petty but this change actually makes me not want to play druid now.

Edit: We do keep half of our AF if we’re in combat at the time of exiting and there is no way to build AF OOC, you can still poke your pet in combat to generate AF with the staff.

This feels like a HUGE nerf. Not cool.

Outright horrible.

Feels like CAF is lasting much shorter than it did before as well. Not sure I want to run druid anymore.

I just noticed this change and OMFG druid is absolute garbage. I thought the 10 cooldown was bad enough but holy crap does anet know how to kill a good thing.

It doesn’t appear that they fixed the scaling on the staff either, so its not like you have a lot of healing outside of CAF no matter what you do. Terrible change if this is intended.

I genuinely hope this is a bug caused by the 10 second ICD – it feels like they just copy and pasted the code from the Warrior’s adrenaline bar…

I am really disheartened too i mean.. seriously it sucks alot now.

If i was doing this crap in beta i would have chose another class for sure now, I wasted time gathering HPs on ranger for this trash?

Troll heal is still the best heal for af gain but it seemed like it was nerfed, before it would fill most of a bar now its less than half, every weapon sucks at gaining AF now including staff though of course staff is better than others.

I suspected Id be sticking with basic ranger anyway.

Least we’ve still got super new pets right?

What’s the betting the smokescale got nerfed pretty hard too.

Lols, adrenaline treatment.

Yeah guess I glad I didn’t quite have the mats for an ascended staff.

Yea if this is Druid, I think I will pass. AF gain feels WAY slower than before when using staff, probably because TU seems to have been nerfed. AF loss out of combat just makes it plain clunky to play.

They need to change Celestial Avatar so that you can keep the astral force outside of combat. Warrior adrenaline fills up way faster than Celestial Avatar does even with the new change. In PvP, most fights will be over if you don’t use a staff before it’s used which is not a good thing.

Skullface.7293:

They need to change Celestial Avatar so that you can keep the astral force outside of combat. Warrior adrenaline fills up way faster than Celestial Avatar does even with the new change. In PvP, most fights will be over before it’s used which is not a good thing.

Plus, they have tons of different ways of generating Adrenaline. Swapping weapons, passively while in combat, full charge from 1 skill, additional charge from crits, additional charge from shouts etc etc etc

What an amazingly bad change. Simply amazing.

reading through all this makes me feel bad
for testing druid tonight… Oo

This is awful. I just had one game and I probably only managed to fill my bar twice from a combination of spamming TU and attacking as much as possible. I know they wanted to encourage us to use staff more, but it’s practically impossible to get into CAF with just LB/GS now.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Skullface.7293:

They need to change Celestial Avatar so that you can keep the astral force outside of combat. Warrior adrenaline fills up way faster than Celestial Avatar does even with the new change. In PvP, most fights will be over before it’s used which is not a good thing.

Plus, they have tons of different ways of generating Adrenaline. Swapping weapons, passively while in combat, full charge from 1 skill, additional charge from crits, additional charge from shouts etc etc etc

What an amazingly bad change. Simply amazing.

Simply amazing indeed…
I can’t think this is a bug because well… it would be something huge for people not to notice even if they were only testing in anet.

From going from a sort of ‘life’ shroud to a warriors adrenal bar..
I know most people would never bother with druid if they knew this from the start.
I am also glad I never invested in an acended staff.

Now I have to discover if there is any other class that suits me I never bothered much with other specs…

Really bummed out and was supposed to be hyped for launch, huge disappointment Anet.

What the hell : (

EDIT: I was hoping this was a silly “joke” but this change seems like such a silly nerf if it is really true. Hopefully, hopefully it is an unintended change. One can hope.

Saddest thing is that I was REALLY excited to do stealth openers with my team using Smoke Cloud → Lunar Impact → Leaving Celestial Form with Celestial Shadow. Now that can’t happen.

Druid isn’t even useable now…

Eurantien.4632:

Saddest thing is that I was REALLY excited to do stealth openers with my team using Smoke Cloud -> Lunar Impact -> Leaving Celestial Form with Celestial Shadow. Now that can’t happen.

So many things can’t happen now man its really horrible to play i cant play ranger any more like this its the last straw!

I got work today in a couple of hours so ill check back to see if they say anything but man.. I just don’t know anymore.

Well, any suggestions for a new profession to main?

Why make it decay?! I just don’t understand! I might not need to pop CAF at that moment when it fills up. Maybe I want to save it to run to the next point and use it on teammates who are low. Except I end up getting out of combat and it starts decaying and I have to slowly and painfully build it back up again.

Snowywonders.1378:

Well, any suggestions for a new profession to main?

I have a mesmer thats quite geared up and stuff I guess im rolling with that.
If things are not changed anyway.

Druid is a fail.

7 pvp matches. Zero times druid even activated because of the incredibly slow and painful build time and severe rate of decay on AF.

I prepared my ranger for HoT – with this change it was completely wasted time. I’ll need to play a different profession.

Hate this nerf with a vengeance.

So, AF regen is hard to build up like beta??? AF per dmg buff 200%…still too low?

I’m still downloading, but from what I’m reading here I’m starting to fear the worst.

Kalan.9705:

Druid is a fail.

7 pvp matches. Zero times druid even activated because of the incredibly slow and painful build time and severe rate of decay on AF.

I prepared my ranger for HoT – with this change it was completely wasted time. I’ll need to play a different profession.

Hate this nerf with a vengeance.

Same here man i was quite looking forward to this and instead of enjoying this launch I am really bummed out.
They never even had the courage to tell us about it first they just left it and LO BEHOLD GUYS WE NERFED IT TO THE GROUND YOU HAVE ADRENALINE INSTEAD OF A LIFE SHROUD, PS, ENJOY. – Anet

Snowywonders.1378:

Well, any suggestions for a new profession to main?

Stock Ranger is still fun, and might get some love further down the line (hahahaha sorry I tried to say that with a straight face).

Chrono Mesmer – still OP as frack and received no nerfs at all during the HoT testing. Safe bet to main. Will be god tier for months.

I will also try dragon hunter, because bow.

I think the decay is their solution to Druids being able to gain Astral Force out of combat (healing things with full health). Sadly this turned the whole mechanic to trash.

If you’re running around VB on your own? Forget about building up enough AF to be able to pop CA, healing my pet just doesn’t get it done. The only time I’ve been able to build it up at anything approaching decent rates is in the middle of a zerg during a meta-event.

Druid feels very clunky to play, we should be able to store up that celestial force charge and KEEP it, otherwise, how do we heal in a pinch outside of following a zerg around?

The adrenaline type decay is awful.

To top it off, staff 1 sounds like a annoying submarine radar or something now.

tested it out in a few matches. didn’t even feel the difference because I was almost always in combat. energy bar fills up fast.

it only prevents us from using avatar as an opener.

We should be able to build it outside of combat too or you know what, Make being outside of combat top it off to full automatically.

This is the complete wrong direction.

What? Shorter CAF + 10 sec cooldown CAF + 40% nerf to healing progress of CAF + lower healing output, unless healing power is high enough; was enough of a nerf. But Roy strikes again, Jeezes! Roy mind as wel super nerf Herald then too (sarcasm).

This is like a 70-95% nerf. I used to be able to go in CAF burst heal, go out, get in quickly, heal again, get out again, rinse and repeat. While that was a bit strong, the current state is horrible. I don’t even need to playtest, to know how bad ‘out of combat loose Astral force is’. Typical ‘oh my precious warrior got adrenaline nuked, you too ranger, because my Name is Roy’. Jeeze man is it so hard to let peope have some fun (with absolutely not ovepowered builds)? Zerker meta is gone? my kitten . This super nerf to druid healing, makes other professions literaly better again.

I was ready to ditch my engineer/scrapper for ranger, had all my preparations set up, farmed like a kitten too, to get some final gear, and now this Arenanet. Really? And I know the CAF decay is not Irenio’s doing. No Developper would like to see his creation nuked so hard. It’s Roy all over again.

Pretty clear reason why you need more than one beta test on a class. Here’s to hoping it a massive bug.

Thanks for not telling us about this nerf, Roy.

We appreciate it.

>.<

It’s comical, at this point. A change this significant and we only find out through people noticing it in-game. This, AF being significantly harder to accumulate, and lack of zealot amulet tells me that someone does not want ranger/druid to have nice things.

What is really strange is that when starting a match we have 100% Astral Force that immediately begins degenerating. I would be ok with Astral Force degenerating out of combat if there was like kitten delay after leaving combat. That way we could start the game using Celestial Form if we want to stack stealth or blast finish an allies field but still wouldn’t be running around with full Celestial Force all the time.

It takes away a TON of options since we can’t use CF when its not at 100% and we can’t use it outside of combat. What if I want to blast/stealth before a fight? Can’t anymore.

Getting short end of the stick is typical ranger’s treatment from Anet. What do you really expect?
Not having other weapons, other than staff, to quick generate CAF is more slap on the face than the stupid decay that made me ditch warrior few years back. Both still awful though.
This looks like a pvp balance.
Lol rip druid, day 1.

I’m so glad I didn’t preorder, I friggin knew they would screw this up.

And it’s design choices like this that makes me say Ventari will be better in the long run. There will be less goofing around.

I really dislike the way this healing spec is designed. CA form should be made a stance/toggle and adjusted appropriately so players can just heal without gimmicky mechanics.

Revenant is looking better and better honestly.

Swagger.1459:

And it’s design choices like this that makes me say Ventari will be better in the long run. There will be less goofing around.

I really dislike the way this healing spec is designed. CA form should be made a stance/toggle and adjusted appropriately so players can just heal without gimmicky mechanics.

Revenant is looking better and better honestly.

+1
This is a nerf, very unlikely a bug.
With no option to gain CAF quick other than staff and base healing nerf means hybrid build is out of window.
Druid probably has to camp 2xstaff on raid and full healing gears, while dealing bottom end damage. Once players figure out the meta which will involve the minimum healing as possible while maxizing damage, no pro group will need druid. Just a speculation but still … seems to be coming.

Of course it’s a nerf. We can’t have Druid being viable, now can we?

Thanks for killing our spec on Day freaking One.

• AF should be based on % of the healing/damage done
• AF should not deplete out of combat
• CF skills should have an AF cost attached to them and the loss over time should be slower (like 1% per second)

Not even staff is good at astral force gain anymore. The whole specialization is embarrassing.