Guild Wars 2

Just remove the mechanic completely and tune the spec around the CAF duration and recharge CD. 10s CD on a 20s duration seems fine anyway.

Astral Force is needless complexity.

Add an effect that generates AF when you’re struck

Celestial is about healing, would fit with taking damage to generate it or something

But yeah I’m very very sad about Druid’s state right now

Totally agree, why do we need to charge this thing if it’s already on a cool down. I don’t think Anet will ever get AF generation right, please just remove the whole concept of AF.

It was sooo much more fun in BWE3 : (

Ofc. It was a stupid idea to have two separate gates on CAF. WHY DID THEY MAKE IT HARDER TO ENTER CAF WHEN THEY DIDNT EVEN HAVE THE AF GENERATION RIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE? The only way a cd on the form is justified is if the form generates AF decently enough AND we are able to enter the form without 100% AF.

Neither of these criteria are met so Druid is dumpstered atm.

Astral force charges too little. You take a long time to actually complete it. The cooldown is contra productive. And the degeneration out of combat is absolutely a pain!

astral force:

- needs to be less dependent on staff for generating it
- needed to have been gated better compared in BWE3

in BWE3, my bar was always full, and my avatar was always available. it was stupid. I didn’t need it, I didn’t want it all the time. I don’t mind the decay.

what I mind is that weapons other than staff cant really generate astral force. condi builds without staff cant generate AF well. leave the decay, but improve our energy gain with core ranger weapons.

IMO, CAF should charge faster with staff than any other weapon. Staff is generally quite weak but its slight healing makes up for this by helping charge AF faster. That said, it should still be possible (albeit slower) to charge with other weapons.

Regen from WH 5 should also charge AF.

It decaying out of combat is ridiculous though. Just a very unfun mechanic.

mistsim.2748:

what I mind is that weapons other than staff cant really generate astral force. condi builds without staff cant generate AF well. leave the decay, but improve our energy gain with core ranger weapons.

Which is something that could’ve been done without further adding an extra gate onto CAF. All they did was: not address AF generation properly, make generating AF harder, and also limit CAF utility/effectiveness by adding a new gate to the form with a 10s cd.

This AF debacle is case in point as to why Druid should’ve gotten more than one BWE.

Don’t we suspect that they had intended to get some sort of Aspect thing as the main Druid mechanic.. couldn’t get it working.. and then had to fall back on the CAF idea as it was easy to implement at the last minute (aka deathshroud healbot).

By the time all this was done it had fallen so far behind that it was only viable to be the last spec to be officially released?

Thank god we only had one beta weekend. Look how great the druid works, obviously more testing would have just been a waste of time.

This is a really sad joke.

Really should make it the parallel to DS. No degen out of combat, and a bit easier to build. Right now it has both the restrictions of DS and Adrenaline but not even half the benefits of either it sounds like.

I think the worst part of it all is HOW they did it – without consulting us, testing it, or asking anyone’s feedback. in the history of ANet, the worst decisions ever made were of this type.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Really should make it the parallel to DS. No degen out of combat, and a bit easier to build. Right now it has both the restrictions of DS and Adrenaline but not even half the benefits of either it sounds like.

Pretty much. It’s a DS that generates slower, can only be used at 100%, and degenerates out of combat.

Worst aspects of both adren and DS mechanics, all rolled into one CD gated (and specific weapon gated if we’re being honest here) mess.

i am very sad to wake up to this news. I am downloading now in hopes to get right on druid to test things, now I wont even bother with it… ok lets make a revenant

Zatoichi.1049:

i am very sad to wake up to this news. I am downloading now in hopes to get right on druid to test things, now I wont even bother with it… ok lets make a revenant

You won’t regret it. Rev is an absolute blast to play , you won’t even look back and say “man I wish I stuck with ranger”

SkiTz.4590:

Zatoichi.1049:

i am very sad to wake up to this news. I am downloading now in hopes to get right on druid to test things, now I wont even bother with it… ok lets make a revenant

You won’t regret it. Rev is an absolute blast to play , you won’t even look back and say “man I wish I stuck with ranger”

oh man, it’s been awesome on my end as well. killing revs all morning with my marauder druid. sucks you haven’t found a build that works for you, all you really have to do is try. but trying is hard i get it. thats why i posted the build in a thread below. oh well.

mistsim.2748:

SkiTz.4590:

Zatoichi.1049:

i am very sad to wake up to this news. I am downloading now in hopes to get right on druid to test things, now I wont even bother with it… ok lets make a revenant

You won’t regret it. Rev is an absolute blast to play , you won’t even look back and say “man I wish I stuck with ranger”

oh man, it’s been awesome on my end as well. killing revs all morning with my marauder druid. sucks you haven’t found a build that works for you, all you really have to do is try. but trying is hard i get it. thats why i posted the build in a thread below. oh well.

Revs a totally new class…. imagine how many players are going to suck at it in the beginning? quite a few. everyones testing around…congrats, you beat certain specs with druid…. any class/spec can beat another class/spec… its a matter of individual skill more than anything

You do realize the opposite is easily said as well…. I’ve killed PLENTY of druids/rangers as well lol. it means nothing.

Phobos.3197:

Is this the warrior forum? You sound like warriors being unable to enter berserker form until the fight is 75% over because of rapid adren decay and long buildup.

Everyone seemed fine with adren decay when it launched though. Pay back? Fair deal? Let’s compromise and take away decay for both classes.

Except that Adrenaline is 30 stacks and you can generate it in multiple ways, multiple traits and skills that even fill the bar immediately.
If you want to play Axe, you can fill the Adrenaline bar 16% per hit, or when swapping weapons every 5s.

A Druid has to attack someone 130 times to build that bar up. Or heal 66 times.

If they want to make AF degen OOC, then it needs to have a set amount of strikes/heals to fill it, 30, and not fill by a %, both attacks and heals should fill it by 2 strikes each.

Think something that could help fill the bar faster is if pet attacks counted(from what I can tell they don’t) as a lot of the pets have multi hit attacks that could fill the bar up quicker.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Really should make it the parallel to DS. No degen out of combat, and a bit easier to build. Right now it has both the restrictions of DS and Adrenaline but not even half the benefits of either it sounds like.

I disagree that Druid form should be the same as DS which is the direction that Anet went. DS and CAF function too differently and require different mechanics in order for them to work properly. Anet is taking mechanics from other classes and slapping it on Druid without realizing that this approach does not work for a healing class. I explained this in the BW3 feedback thread and have copied and pasted it here as well:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Celestial Avatar Form: Entering this form now has a 10s CD… You now retain half your current astral force if you decide to break form early.

Positive changes overall but adding the 10 second cooldown concerns me because this a core design choice that probably won’t ever be changed (once implemented) but looks to be a poor long-term solution to properly gating CAF. It seems the logic behind making this change was to have it match deathshroud but if that is the case, it does not really make sense since the two transforms (Death Shroud and CAF) function too differently.

• Time gated CDs work for abilities like DS because the focus of DS is damage. Damage is something that is always desired/needed and is not time sensitive as to when you do the damage.

• Time gated CDs don’t work elegantly for situational abilities like healing. You don’t always need healing but when you do, you generally have a finite window to apply the healing (i.e., its situational and very time-sensitive).

Anet realized that CAF should be gated but applying a 10 second cooldown seems like a poor fix to the situation and has long-lasting implications. For example, if content is developed where mobs apply great amounts of damage in 10 second intervals, then Druids will remain strong since it can work around the 10 second CD of CAF. If content is developed where mobs do chunks of damage every few seconds, then Druid will have a poor time keeping the party sustained due to the 10 second cooldown. (I am assuming the total damage done by mobs is the same in both scenarios but the relative power of Druid is drastically different due to the frequency in which heals need to be applied.) This is a rather clumsy and arbitrary way to do things, and you are laying the foundation for poor game design imo.

From a player’s perspective, the following changes seem to just make more sense and fun to play with while providing a more robust/flexible time-gate on CAF.

1. Remove limitation of being at max AF to enter CAF
   Reason for change: Currently as a healing focused druid, your focus is to get to max AF asap so that you can heal in CAF on a moments notice. This is clumsy gameplay because it introduces a race to max CAF and then often sitting with max CAF for an indefinite amount of time, just waiting for an opportune time to change into CAF. (Again this goes back to why CAF should not be hard time gated since healing is a situational activity.) I believe this design choice was Anet’s first attempt to gate CAF but it was found lacking in BWE3. I believe this is just a poor design choice overall from a player’s perspective because its not fun to play with and there are better ways to time gate CAF.
2. Add AF cost to enter CAF but keep all AF upon exiting
   Reason for change: Adding an AF cost encourages players to build up a healthy amount of AF before entering CAF (i.e., this is a"soft time gate") in order to get the most out of every CAF transformation but keeps the power of making that choice in the player’s hands. (i.e., You can go in and out of CAF more frequently but with the understanding that you won’t be able to heal as much due to the AF cost each time you transform.) A penalty should not be given to the player (“You now retain half your current astral force if you decide to break form early”) to come out of CAF, to minimize the amount of “dead time” experienced by the player once everyone has been healed up to full. (Dead time is when a player will remain in CAF longer than he should just to “make sure” that no more incoming damage is going to be received.) This change will improve the player’s experience/enjoyment along with a faster/smoother gameplay.

These two changes will make Druid healing more compatible with a wider range of content since you can pace your heals better, and feel more strategic (i.e. more fun) since you have to determine if its worth going into CAF at any given moment.

Balancing can be done by adjusting AF costs, heal costs, AF generation, etc so that accessing CAF form is on the level desired by Anet.

Other examples of soft gating techniques (besides adding an AF cost mentioned above):

• Provide players with a x% boost for every level of AF bar generated (e.g., 1% damage boost for every 20% of AF bar filled).
• Tie CAF heal strength to the amount of the AF bar that was filled before entering CAF (e.g., entering CAF at half an AF bar causes your heals to heal for half the amount you would get from entering CAF at a full AF bar). Note: This proposed change is interesting to me because it mimics other games, like WoW, where the strength of a healing spell is generally tied to its casting duration (i.e., longer spell cast = stronger heal) but with a GW2 twist.

TLDR: Hard time gates like a 10 second cooldown are bad because it is too rigid/inflexible for the needs of a healing class which require access to time-sensitive spells. CAF gating can instead be achieved by encouraging players to fill up the AF bar as much as possible before activating CAF (i.e., soft time gates; see examples above).

Make CA a stance. Adjust kitten so it becomes a stance.

Locking and limiting a vital role is the most asinine kitten I’ve ever seen in an mmo.

Here’s the format.

Ranger Stance- boost damage because they suck.

Druid Stance- hybrid damage/heal

Celestial stance- heal and minor condition damage so people get credit. Fix radius because we are sick of stacking and you can only affect 5 people anyway.

Whatever… You know what I’m talking about…

Players are going to feel like they are playing an elementalist with a ticking timer on attunements.

Enough with the gimmicks. Seriously

Leodon.1564:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Really should make it the parallel to DS. No degen out of combat, and a bit easier to build. Right now it has both the restrictions of DS and Adrenaline but not even half the benefits of either it sounds like.

I disagree that Druid form should be the same as DS which is the direction that Anet went. DS and CAF function too differently and require different mechanics in order for them to work properly. Anet is taking mechanics from other classes and slapping it on Druid without realizing that this approach does not work for a healing class. I explained this in the BW3 feedback thread and have copied and pasted it here as well:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Celestial Avatar Form: Entering this form now has a 10s CD… You now retain half your current astral force if you decide to break form early.

Positive changes overall but adding the 10 second cooldown concerns me because this a core design choice that probably won’t ever be changed (once implemented) but looks to be a poor long-term solution to properly gating CAF. It seems the logic behind making this change was to have it match deathshroud but if that is the case, it does not really make sense since the two transforms (Death Shroud and CAF) function too differently.

• Time gated CDs work for abilities like DS because the focus of DS is damage. Damage is something that is always desired/needed and is not time sensitive as to when you do the damage.

• Time gated CDs don’t work elegantly for situational abilities like healing. You don’t always need healing but when you do, you generally have a finite window to apply the healing (i.e., its situational and very time-sensitive).

Anet realized that CAF should be gated but applying a 10 second cooldown seems like a poor fix to the situation and has long-lasting implications. For example, if content is developed where mobs apply great amounts of damage in 10 second intervals, then Druids will remain strong since it can work around the 10 second CD of CAF. If content is developed where mobs do chunks of damage every few seconds, then Druid will have a poor time keeping the party sustained due to the 10 second cooldown. (I am assuming the total damage done by mobs is the same in both scenarios but the relative power of Druid is drastically different due to the frequency in which heals need to be applied.) This is a rather clumsy and arbitrary way to do things, and you are laying the foundation for poor game design imo.

From a player’s perspective, the following changes seem to just make more sense and fun to play with while providing a more robust/flexible time-gate on CAF.

1. Remove limitation of being at max AF to enter CAF
   Reason for change: Currently as a healing focused druid, your focus is to get to max AF asap so that you can heal in CAF on a moments notice. This is clumsy gameplay because it introduces a race to max CAF and then often sitting with max CAF for an indefinite amount of time, just waiting for an opportune time to change into CAF. (Again this goes back to why CAF should not be hard time gated since healing is a situational activity.) I believe this design choice was Anet’s first attempt to gate CAF but it was found lacking in BWE3. I believe this is just a poor design choice overall from a player’s perspective because its not fun to play with and there are better ways to time gate CAF.
2. Add AF cost to enter CAF but keep all AF upon exiting
   Reason for change: Adding an AF cost encourages players to build up a healthy amount of AF before entering CAF (i.e., this is a"soft time gate") in order to get the most out of every CAF transformation but keeps the power of making that choice in the player’s hands. (i.e., You can go in and out of CAF more frequently but with the understanding that you won’t be able to heal as much due to the AF cost each time you transform.) A penalty should not be given to the player (“You now retain half your current astral force if you decide to break form early”) to come out of CAF, to minimize the amount of “dead time” experienced by the player once everyone has been healed up to full. (Dead time is when a player will remain in CAF longer than he should just to “make sure” that no more incoming damage is going to be received.) This change will improve the player’s experience/enjoyment along with a faster/smoother gameplay.

These two changes will make Druid healing more compatible with a wider range of content since you can pace your heals better, and feel more strategic (i.e. more fun) since you have to determine if its worth going into CAF at any given moment.

Balancing can be done by adjusting AF costs, heal costs, AF generation, etc so that accessing CAF form is on the level desired by Anet.

Other examples of soft gating techniques (besides adding an AF cost mentioned above):

• Provide players with a x% boost for every level of AF bar generated (e.g., 1% damage boost for every 20% of AF bar filled).
• Tie CAF heal strength to the amount of the AF bar that was filled before entering CAF (e.g., entering CAF at half an AF bar causes your heals to heal for half the amount you would get from entering CAF at a full AF bar). Note: This proposed change is interesting to me because it mimics other games, like WoW, where the strength of a healing spell is generally tied to its casting duration (i.e., longer spell cast = stronger heal) but with a GW2 twist.

TLDR: Hard time gates like a 10 second cooldown are bad because it is too rigid/inflexible for the needs of a healing class which require access to time-sensitive spells. CAF gating can instead be achieved by encouraging players to fill up the AF bar as much as possible before activating CAF (i.e., soft time gates; see examples above).

The reason we’re asking them to do it like DS is because we know that they can actually make a DS function without screwing it up. This…this is just worthless in its current state.

The decay is the part about this I really don’t understand. Druids are supposed to be healers, right? I know GW2 wants to be different… but really? I can’t think of any other game I’ve ever played where a healer does not have access to their worthwhile heals maybe only 10% of the time!

Solo jungle exploration? Not once was I able to build enough AF to enter CAF. The only way I was able to utilize it was locate the nearest zerg and follow it around and spam staff 1/2 while strafing back and forth to hit as many of those zergers with the beam as possible. Then? Then when the mobs were just about dead or already dead? I had enough AF for CAF… which, of course, is when it dissipates faster than ice melts in Hell.

As someone who has played a dedicated healer in every game, I was so excited for druid… but now… you’ve given us a healer that can’t actually HEAL anything, since you can’t build enough AF fast enough (even on staff), and you can’t save your charge for when you really need it.

Get RID of the adrenaline like effect. It’s ruining the spec.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

The reason we’re asking them to do it like DS is because we know that they can actually make a DS function without screwing it up. This…this is just worthless in its current state.

I do strongly believe that this is a mistake though because you are building an elite spec based on a faulty foundation. Healing needs to feel very free flowing and reactive because that is the nature of healing (i.e., its situational and time-sensitive). However, Anet is going the opposite approach with these changes and making Druid into this rigid elite spec that basically says, “You can only heal during this short window of opportunity, whether you need healing or not”. You can take this approach somewhat with DPS oriented abilities but not with healing.

Defensive mechanics (healing) need to be flexible enough to deal with offensive mechanics (DPS) or else there is no point in going defensive.

Edit: For instance, defensive measures such as counters (blocks, aegis, stuns) need to be quick casting to deal with offensive abilities which are usually longer casting. Healing has to follow the same principle; you cannot put it on a timetable and apply the same mechanics that you would apply to a DPS model. These are basic game design decisions so it boggles me that Anet is going the exact opposite approach with AF/CAF.

Leodon.1564:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

The reason we’re asking them to do it like DS is because we know that they can actually make a DS function without screwing it up. This…this is just worthless in its current state.

I do strongly believe that this is a mistake though because you are building an elite spec based on a faulty foundation. Healing needs to feel very free flowing and reactive because that is the nature of healing (i.e., its situational and time-sensitive). However, Anet is going the opposite approach with these changes and making Druid into this rigid elite spec that basically says, “You can only heal during this short window of opportunity, whether you need healing or not”.

Defensive mechanics (healing) need to be flexible enough to deal with offensive mechanics (DPS) or else there is no point in going defensive.

Personally, I think they should do a blanket buff to resource generation, get rid of the OoC decay, and maybe increase the cooldown slightly (to 15s or so) if they really need to. At the moment, it’s all but worthless with the staff, and never sees the light of day without it.

This is what a last minute elite specialisation looks like.

Deadset, all the ideas for AF generation are just a waste of time, imo, not trying to invalidate them, so no offense intended. I just think that they can never balance AF generation for all our weapons, nor make CAF valid in PvP or fun anywhere else, it will just never happen.

So, just delete it completely and leave us with the CD only. Million times easier to balance, mechanic works with all our weapons and its just more intuitive in general.

Sicarius.4639:

This is what a last minute elite specialisation looks like.

nah because it was much better in BWE3….

This is by far the worst druid design I have ever seen in any computer game in the last 30 years.

This must be the most gated short duration class mechanic I have ever seen in a game ever.

Bad

Game

Design

Seriously though, losing astral force out of combat is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.

Is it too soon to ask the developers to create a toggle or options menu feature to remove the frustration bar from the druid spec line. When I spec down the druid trait line, there is this annoying bar above my endurance pool that partially fills with every combat encounter as if it were intended to be there for some reason….

aha soo glad I didnt buy this trash

Kilrik.6320:

Is it too soon to ask the developers to create a toggle or options menu feature to remove the frustration bar from the druid spec line. When I spec down the druid trait line, there is this annoying bar above my endurance pool that partially fills with every combat encounter as if it were intended to be there for some reason….

Lel gg m8. +1

Kaiyanwan.8521:

This is by far the worst druid design I have ever seen in any computer game in the last 30 years.

This must be the most gated short duration class mechanic I have ever seen in a game ever.

Bad

Game

Design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLk_Pr5pU5Q

Can’t beat this … lol.

After much play and thinking, the AF decay ITSELF is not THAT bad. It’s just the mix of VERY LOW AF GENERATION + All the gates.

If they wanna keep the AF degen, just make it at LEAST 3 to 4 times faster to generate it. Make the CAF skills worth it, and the glyphs too.

But really, remove the degen.

Well seeing as we are a wreck still, good job you don’t need a healer to do the hardest content in the game…

https://youtu.be/CEqUG0Gq0lo

I spent waaaaay too much time on this. But it sums up my feelings for Druid so far.

Aylpse.6280:

I spent waaaaay too much time on this. But it sums up my feelings for Druid so far.

Made me laugh. Good times, good times.

Would be nice if the class worked at all.

worked hard to get my AF up, then I went out of combat…….

Why could they have not have left it like it was in BWE3 and nerfed buffed it from there with feedback from there rather than spoiling the initial experience after the hype.

Roeore.6274:

Why could they have not have left it like it was in BWE3 and nerfed buffed it from there with feedback from there rather than spoiling the initial experience after the hype.

We knew this would happen tbh #rangerproblems

Roeore.6274:

Why could they have not have left it like it was in BWE3 and nerfed buffed it from there with feedback from there rather than spoiling the initial experience after the hype.

I wasn’t happy with the beta version of the form. It’s a healbot form, they lock it behind generation and timers which is lazy design.

Played all day yesterday (8hrs throughout the day). LB/GS, WHaO.

Other than the occasional champ event, there were NO instances where I was able to use Celestial avatar, including zero times in several pvp matches. It took about 60 seconds of sustained combat just to activate. That will never happen in sPvP. It will almost never happen roaming. It will rarely happen in small group combat.

Celestial Avatar is for ALL rangers. It needs to WORK, for ALL rangers. That means it needs to be reliable for condition damage, non-TU heals, and non-staff gameplay.

Please change Celestial Avatar to:

• Charge off of SotW (Glyph utilities count but this doesnt???)
• Charge off of regeneration (this should be so obvious)
• Charge off of Spirit of Nature (Glyph Elite counts but this doesnt???)
• Charge for a more competitive amount for non-TU #6 heal skills.
• Charge for a more competitive amount from power AND condi dmg.
• Get rid of AF decay. Maybe it only charges in combat, fine, but we absolutely should be able to show up to a point and start saving lives. We can’t right now, because we have to get to the point, then spend nearly 10% of a match locked in combat just to get enough AF to heal with CA.
• Make a fully charged CA last for more than 5 seconds. I mean seriously that is pathetic.

Of course there is a concern that CA could be “too available”. No worries, you guys PREEMPTIVELY put a 10second lockout on it. Worried that with all those regen’s ticcing we will charge CA too fast? Put a lid on it: Maybe we can only generate a max of 7-10% AF per second, or maybe the contribution of regen sources is very low.

On principle, our pre-Druid sources of healing should definitely count for something.

Raven.9603:

Played all day yesterday (8hrs throughout the day). LB/GS, WHaO.

Other than the occasional champ event, there were NO instances where I was able to use Celestial avatar, including zero times in several pvp matches. It took about 60 seconds of sustained combat just to activate. That will never happen in sPvP. It will almost never happen roaming. It will rarely happen in small group combat.

Celestial Avatar is for ALL rangers. It needs to WORK, for ALL rangers. That means it needs to be reliable for condition damage, non-TU heals, and non-staff gameplay.

Please change Celestial Avatar to:

• Charge off of SotW (Glyph utilities count but this doesnt???)
• Charge off of regeneration (this should be so obvious)
• Charge off of Spirit of Nature (Glyph Elite counts but this doesnt???)
• Charge for a more competitive amount for non-TU #6 heal skills.
• Charge for a more competitive amount from power AND condi dmg.
• Get rid of AF decay. Maybe it only charges in combat, fine, but we absolutely should be able to show up to a point and start saving lives. We can’t right now, because we have to get to the point, then spend nearly 10% of a match locked in combat just to get enough AF to heal with CA.
• Make a fully charged CA last for more than 5 seconds. I mean seriously that is pathetic.

Of course there is a concern that CA could be “too available”. No worries, you guys PREEMPTIVELY put a 10second lockout on it. Worried that with all those regen’s ticcing we will charge CA too fast? Put a lid on it: Maybe we can only generate a max of 7-10% AF per second, or maybe the contribution of regen sources is very low.

On principle, our pre-Druid sources of healing should definitely count for something.

When did anet say CA is for ALL rangers? Its not.

Its for druid, which, for me, is a new abomination of a class, its not even remotely related to core ranger.

Who has the easiest time popping into CA? Druids that are more healing speccd than normal.

You think a power ranger is going to have an easy time popping into CA form? Nope. Not with anets marvelous changes and general cluelessness with the ranger profession.

This is a DRUID mechanic. Not a core ranger mechanic

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Just remove the mechanic completely and tune the spec around the CAF duration and recharge CD. 10s CD on a 20s duration seems fine anyway.

Astral Force is needless complexity.

At first I didn’t, but the more I played last night, the more I agree with this. AF generation is always going to be too difficult to balance. For instance, I was rolling a bunker Druid for a while(insanely difficult to kill 1v1 btw). The AF generation was decent, but I was running staff/TU so overall the fill rate felt about right. If the numbers are changed to give faster generation from damage, then it would be easier to fill up on a damage build, but bunker would also be incredibly easy and would subsequently be hard as hell to kill.

It’d be too difficult to make CAF viable for non staff/healing specs because then the staff specs would be very good. But with your suggestion then the bunker/healing specs would still have the utility they need on demand, but it would also give the damage/non healing specs the ability to viable make use of CAF. We’ll see what happens.

My experience last night..

Zap enemy with staff 1 and strafe to hit team, while team is running all over moving and dodging attacks. Crappy amount of healing

Staff 2 radius sucks and barely does any noticeable healing. Players standing that close to enemies were getting eaten alive anyway.

You can’t even tell who needs healing so you spam stuff which leads me to staff 3…

Staff 3 was to jump in to enemy group, hit CA form, spam stuff… because two of five staff abilities, plus glyphs if you have them, plus the new Druid designed self/team heal are all about needing to stack to be useful… So jump into fray, spam stuff and dodge roll out. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

Staff 4 is a joke because you are just using it to use it. Players can’t even tell if there are conditions on others so just spam it. The immobilize is negligible and you have to aim it instead of having it like other “snap target” ranged attacks.

Staff 5 is a waste in this red circle meta…

No stability meant at times I’m getting knocked around while trying to do this “role”.

Some enemy models are big so the point radius for ranged aoe heal on staff 2 and CA 1,2 seemed useless. Plus I players are moving around like chicken with their heads off so it was “drop heal and hope for the best”.

Yes, in the ideal set up against an AI, and if your team is stacked up and not needing to dodge damage, then the Druid can do its job. As is, though, players are running all over dodging red circles, while avoiding melee hits too, we can’t see health bar and we are also needing to bob and weave to keep ourselves alive…

So basically this is spam useless staff skills. CA is spam what you can because of timers. Waste of time because it’s not about skill, it’s about spam stuff that has a negligible effect in “real” combat setting.

Want to fix staff? See that necro staff? See the radius on necro staff??? There ya go… Make it a medium damage and medium heal set up.

Want to fix CA??? Make it a stance and adjust powers to reflect it, adjust radius of skills, design it so you can stay in form until downed/killed… This would be the high heal and low damage condition role.

Listen, I don’t mean to be negative, but I’ve gamed a long time, and while I’m not near the best “twitchy” player around, I spent many years playing heal, support and disruption in a game called city of heroes… Gameplay was 10 times faster, “professions” and powers were designed far better, play and counter play was far superior… and surprising enough they had capes (you guys can’t even do that in 2015 with superior tech) lol…

Here it’s auto attack, stack-spam-hope for the best… All while we are not given the right UI tools like simple health bars and your aoe targeting system, for both players and enemies, sucks…

Very early on I brought this up when I started here because I came from a vastly superior combat game during the WoW era, and we are basically given this modern “junk” and UI to play.

Seriously, you guys need to sit down and see where a game like city of heroes got it right with powers, combat, stealth, healing, support, build flexibility and customization, roles, targeting, conditions…

There is a reason that players call gw2… Dodge wars, condition wars, Gwen wars…

Sorry, but I’m tossing hundreds of dollars at this game and it’s been such a waste.