Beta Weekend Druid Feedback Thread

Beta Weekend Druid Feedback Thread

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Posted by: Irenio CalmonHuang

Irenio CalmonHuang

Game Designer

Next

Hey all.

Now that the Beta Weekend Event is live and you’re able to check out the Druid please post constructive feedback here.

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Posted by: TheFantasticGman.9451

TheFantasticGman.9451

Build I settled into for my playstyle for BWE3 Druid after a few hours of experimenting:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsXTnEqAlsgVsAuCCctgl9ADOumX/rL3uAwoj5CEwGBnMMTNB-TBSBABFp8jOzfXt/wNq/0qSQU03AwTAIvTBApAiYMA-e

Druid Feedback:
1) Astral Force gains too slow on damage
a. Please make it 1.5%

2) Wyvern knockback is extremely annoying
a. Please make it a knockdown
b. Attack speeds are way too slow
c. AOE was where it was at and not where it need to be (in melee range)

3) Nearly no damage done in Astral Form
a. Add damage

4) Quick Draw doesn’t work with the staff
a. Make it work

5) Natural Convergence radius too small
a. Needs 600 unit range

6) Can’t blast my own water field when in Astral Form. Meaning, when I hit 4 it takes so long to change by the time I hit three and the blast hits, the water field is already gone.
a. Make it so I can blast my own water field in Astral Form

7) Natural Convergence rooting… ain’t worth it for the risk
a. Please increase the damage

8) Staff damage on 1-5 is just pitiful
a. Increase it substantially

9) Healing Glyph on is bad
a. Can barely feel it

10) Glyphs in general aren’t worth taking
a. Add some additional effects (like stun break and stability aoe or offensive boons) and/or damage
b. Range needs to be 360 range default on all of them
c. Elite needs 600 range

11) Heal Scaling is still bad
a. Astral Form doesn’t burst heal for enough
b. Add better healing coefficients

12) Liked the Tiger and Smokescale pets
a. Didn’t use the Bristleback but that bug is annoying when it can block most of my screen

Pre-Edit: It takes too long to build astral force without healing… Pretty sure that was intended though.

Speaking from a PVE-only point of view…

(edited by TheFantasticGman.9451)

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Posted by: Dojo.1867

Dojo.1867

Problem: Astral Force generation feels inconsistent. Some weapons (staff due to healing) or skills (troll unguent) fill it extremly fast while others do almost nothing forcing people to take those skills and thus greatly limiting build variety.

Solution: Astral Force is now generated as a percentage of damage dealt and healing done, no longer based on the pure number of dmg/heal instances. This makes other healing skills as good as troll unguent and also allows a weapon like greatsword (which hits only few targets) to compete with f.e. longbow which hits many targets. Overall astral force per damage should be greatly increased (right now 1/10 of heals, should be about 1/2) allowing builds without staff to not depend 90% on their healing skill to generate force.

Problem: Why would I even use glyphs in astral form. It is time limited and the healing skills are extremly powerful making you spam those as much as possible.

Solution: Make only a part of it time limited (like 1% loss per second) and attach an astral force cost to the celestial form skills (1: 1%, 2: 5%, 3: 5%, 4: 10%, 5: 20%). This allows you to use them more intelligently and also fit in your heal, utilities (like glyphs) and elite without feeling like you waste time on them.

(edited by Dojo.1867)

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Posted by: Olcon.9506

Olcon.9506

Quick question:

Is this thread specifically about the Druid, or can we put feedback regarding the new pets here as well?

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Posted by: Irenio CalmonHuang

Previous

Irenio CalmonHuang

Game Designer

Next

Welcome to post new pet feedback here as well.

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Posted by: Vamp Rook.7835

Vamp Rook.7835

Welcome to post new pet feedback here as well.

New pets don’t work…

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Posted by: Stilgar.6437

Stilgar.6437

astral form autoattack and/or #2 skill should deal some damage. Make it 100dmg or however small, just enough to get credit for loot/event (joining a party requires only minimal dmg done as long as your party-members contribute enough). Kinda sucks to leave AF regardless of the circumstances just to tag enough to get any loot/event credit. Rangers are already weak (and so is staff in particular) with regards to mob-tagging, this is really needed.

Im assuming healing for credit would be too hard to implement. would also be way overpowered in really large scale fights like www, much easier to tag 40 allies who then tag 5-10 targets each for you. Token dmg on autoattack is good enough

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Posted by: XDeadzX.2581

XDeadzX.2581

The new pets have wonky stats.

The bristleback has 50k HP, but only 2000 vitality. Out of line with every other pet. It also has the same condition damage as devourers, yet it’s bleed does more damage per tick for the same stacks.

The Smokescale has similar stats to a bear, but it does a bucketload more damage than a bear. Not sure if just abilities, but it’s pretty strong compared to bears for toughness/vitality. Slightly less vitality.

Glyph of Rejuvination has no pet component, it does not heal your pet for a large amount. It files your pet under “allies healed” which is very minor, and it prefers players over your pet so no pet heal if you’re in a group.

Staff laserbeam prefers to damage over heal. Probably better this way, but it should prioritize whatever is closer to the druid IMO. Or the target, one or the other is better than just preferring three damage targets over two and a heal etc. No control currently.

The new pets don’t “die.” They simply stop attacking and regen health at your heels. They don’t get a downed-state bar of a huge health pool like other pets. Not a huge flaw, likely an oversight. Just means they come back from dead in combat about twice as fast as otherwise (~2 minutes instead of ~5)

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Posted by: esparta.7028

esparta.7028

pets can’t be used at pvp right now, and glyphs only display information when equiped, moreover the staff don’t display the message when the target is out of range.
Oh never mind now even standard pets only show up at pvp, i just can’t pull them out at wvw and pve

(edited by esparta.7028)

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Posted by: CandyHearts.6025

CandyHearts.6025

Beta just started so I can’t really give much input but

I am in love with my Smokescale pet. It’s the most fun I’ve had with a pet in ANY game I’ve ever played thus far.

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Posted by: Kailee.8790

Kailee.8790

Ok after testing, healing druid is completely worthless in pvp.

Secondly, even with the movespeed bonus from traited druid skill, in addition to the signet for 25% more speed…. Reapers are outrunning you easily

Aside from that,… Staff 1 damage is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than a single AA on a bow by at least 2-3x minimally

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Posted by: Photinous.4628

Photinous.4628

It takes too long to build astral force without healing… Pretty sure that was intended though.

This. Druid is so dependent on staff, it’s ridiculous. Please let us build AF easier by taking/doing damage other than just healing.

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Posted by: Photinous.4628

Photinous.4628

Pets don’t work in HoTM? I can’t select any of them for PvP.

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Posted by: Krispera.5087

Krispera.5087

F5 is getting up fast if you heal, but for what use ? You need staff to fill the bar. Beside Natural Convergence for dmg, there’s no use for it. The DPS trade is not worthwhile.

Quick Draw doesn’t work with the staff, which is sad.
Ancient Seed doesn’t work with Spike Trap. Didn’t test other.

Solar Beam should be rectangular beam that hurt it front and not a targeted beam, it would help to aoe dmg and also heal. Like Guardian 1 staff, but rectangular and ranged.

Make Astral Wisp do AoE damage, the Druid needs it.

(edited by Krispera.5087)

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Posted by: nagymbear.5280

nagymbear.5280

Ok after testing, healing druid is completely worthless in pvp.

Secondly, even with the movespeed bonus from traited druid skill, in addition to the signet for 25% more speed…. Reapers are outrunning you easily

Aside from that,… Staff 1 damage is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than a single AA on a bow by at least 2-3x minimally

What makes healing druid completely worthless? Poor healing power scaling, or healing not required in this amount in pvp?

Khert Devileyes – Ranger / Mano Negra – Thief / Nagymbear – Warrior /
Elona Bonechill – Necro / Fionna Gymirdottier – Guard /// RoF

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

It takes too long to build astral force without healing… Pretty sure that was intended though.

This. Druid is so dependent on staff, it’s ridiculous. Please let us build AF easier by taking/doing damage other than just healing.

Uh, that’s by design…

Do you really think Anet is just going to up and make Druid some kind of impossible to kill uberbunker?

The point is that you build Astral Form by healing others, not as a form you build up your self to burst heals at will.

Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…

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Posted by: Sweeps.3059

Sweeps.3059

You loose all your astral resorce if you leave astral form earlier, also you build the resorce to slow.
The juvenile Flame wyvern F2 attacks where he is when you press the button and does not go to the target location and use its fire

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Posted by: mistsim.2748

mistsim.2748

It takes too long to build astral force without healing… Pretty sure that was intended though.

This. Druid is so dependent on staff, it’s ridiculous. Please let us build AF easier by taking/doing damage other than just healing.

I don’t agree at the moment. I think u need to spend more time with it. imo, astral force builds up at a very nice rate by doing damage.

and yes, we cant seem to select the new pets in HOTM, works in pve. smokescale is amazeballs.

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Posted by: Levetty.1279

Levetty.1279

Its great to fianlly have a pet with 1200 range.

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Posted by: Evermore.5649

Evermore.5649

Druid is kinda worthless outside any kind of group content. Only staff 1 does (single target) damage, with staff 4 also doing some on a long-ish cooldown

Still no AoE damage spell, which has been a bane of rangers for 3 years now.

Simply put: WAAAAAAY too many healing spells, some of them are basically identical with different animations. Not needed. Druids need more damage abilities (preferably a spammable aoe PLEASE) and less heals.
Especially in Astral Form… 2 (aoe heal + cleanse) 3 (aoe heal) 4 (aoe heal)… 1 (spammable aoe heal) we really really don’t need this many. It’s pointless.

Glyphs are worthless. I wouldn’t want to use any of them EVEN IF they had zero cooldown. Seriously, they’re horrible.

To sum things up:
- too many identical healing spells
- not enough damage spells
- no aoe damage spell
- glyphs are worthless
- astral form spells need to be a bit more varied

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Posted by: kdose.5309

kdose.5309

My main is a ranger since 2012. I LOVE druid! It FEELS right. Good job!

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Posted by: aydos.8259

aydos.8259

I see people talking about the Druid’s damage output a lot, but I thought a Druid was meant to be a healer.

I literally came back to the game and bought the xpack this week just b/c the game finally had an actual healer.

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Posted by: Knighthonor.4061

Knighthonor.4061

Keep in mind, the Druid is under-tuned in BWE, like all other Elite Specs.

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Posted by: Olcon.9506

Olcon.9506

Staff #1 is in an excellent place currently damage-wise, in my opinion.

Regarding astral force generation:

Initially I thought pure staff AA damage was generating astral force a ton faster than the other weapons, but after doing more testing I’ve realized the reason staff is filling the bar so quickly isn’t because of damage, it’s because of the properties of Solar Beam and how it interacts with the pet.

The game apparently believes Solar Beam is healing your pet whenever the beam passes over it, despite no green numbers popping up and the pet being at full health. This counts as healing and generates the bar rapidly. When the pet is out of the way of the beam, the bar doesn’t gain any astral force because the damage to astral ratios are so low. I’m not sure if the “healing despite being full health” is intentional or not, or whether it’s a bug.

I feel the damage to astral force ratios could use a significant change, because it makes celestial avatar almost irrelevant if you’re not running staff on your Druid. Astral force generation on non-staff weapons needs to be boosted significantly. Like double, if not triple the current ratios. With the staff “healing” the pet, I filled the bar in under ten seconds if I did it right. In comparison, it took me over a minute to fill the bar using all the longbow weapon skills. That’s not viable for non-staff Druid builds. At all.

These are my initial thoughts. Haven’t tried the new pets out and haven’t looked at the traits. Will give more critique as I move along.

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Posted by: Knighthonor.4061

Knighthonor.4061

Cosmic Ray speed need to be greatly increased.

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Posted by: Redwood.5239

Redwood.5239

The way the staff is held (like a hammer) looks too aggressive in contrast to the more elegant characteristics of the Druid, and feels like my character is about to hit somebody over the head with it. Would greatly prefer it if the staff was held like an Elementalist.

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

I see people talking about the Druid’s damage output a lot, but I thought a Druid was meant to be a healer.

It is.

Just a lot of confused people wondering why they aren’t doing Long Bow damage on a weapon that gives out heals like candy.

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Posted by: Sandzibar.5134

Sandzibar.5134

smokescale and bristleback are kitteng amazing.

i bet roy will be nerfing the kitten out of them shortly.

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Posted by: Chokolata.1870

Chokolata.1870

Staff skills do not work with Quick Draw!!

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Posted by: Kailee.8790

Kailee.8790

Ok after testing, healing druid is completely worthless in pvp.

Secondly, even with the movespeed bonus from traited druid skill, in addition to the signet for 25% more speed…. Reapers are outrunning you easily

Aside from that,… Staff 1 damage is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than a single AA on a bow by at least 2-3x minimally

What makes healing druid completely worthless? Poor healing power scaling, or healing not required in this amount in pvp?

The healing from Staff 1, is about 100-200 per tick on a full cleric set + jewelry, the damage is about 200-300 per tick, each tick takes about 1.5 seconds

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Posted by: Zenos Osgorma.2936

Zenos Osgorma.2936

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

These glyphs are all about when to use but i perfer the pull In combo than push away , as for push away that takes away from the Team by not letting it set up a spike attack.

in a sense , i want other players to use caution when closing in on a druid because he can pull/interrupt+damage chain CC with team cleaves then swap to astral and tank any left over damage while supporting the team at close range, then when the target or targets back away or when you use Astrals glyph to push them back> Out pops the LB.

should Pull in Normal ranger form.

felixdacat.3804:
In normal Ranger form, the glyph knocks enemies back. The celestial avatar form of the glyph is what pulls enemies in. So you’re in agreement the glyph should change? Your second paragraph embodies my play style (minus the LB) and reversing the effects of the glyph as they are now will allow for that. Normal druid should be setting the table for what’s about to happen next. We shouldn’t have to wait for avatar to be ready to accomplish that. I’d also like to see the knockback get changed to a knockdown but that’s personal preference.

yes it should be Reversed .

(edited by Zenos Osgorma.2936)

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Posted by: Kailee.8790

Kailee.8790

I see people talking about the Druid’s damage output a lot, but I thought a Druid was meant to be a healer.

I literally came back to the game and bought the xpack this week just b/c the game finally had an actual healer.

Problem is I am trying to test the viability of Full Blown Healer… and the marginal returns are kitten poor…

over 1k healing attribute… healing for 100-200 on our main staff skill

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

smokescale and bristleback are kitteng amazing.

i bet roy will be nerfing the kitten out of them shortly.

They’ll be replaced with more bears.

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Posted by: mistsim.2748

mistsim.2748

I’ll post a lot more feedback later but for now:

Moon Beam fills up astral force way way too fast. just spamming it on a golem fills my bar up in under 10 seconds. whereas all other weapons fill it up dreadfully slow (by doing damage)

EDIT: this seemed to be the case only in HoTM on golems and npc’s. in an actual conquest game it appears to work as intended. wouldn’t hurt having a look though.

(edited by mistsim.2748)

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

I’ll post a lot more feedback later but for now:

Moon Beam fills up astral force way way too fast. just spamming it on a golem fills my bar up in under 10 seconds. whereas all other weapons fill it up dreadfully slow (by doing damage)

I think this was the point.

If they didn’t make it dependent on heals to fill people would just run bunker builds and use shortbow/longbow to keep the bar constantly filled and spam aoe heals.

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Posted by: ChillyChinaman.6057

ChillyChinaman.6057

Ok after testing, healing druid is completely worthless in pvp.

Secondly, even with the movespeed bonus from traited druid skill, in addition to the signet for 25% more speed…. Reapers are outrunning you easily

Aside from that,… Staff 1 damage is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than a single AA on a bow by at least 2-3x minimally

What makes healing druid completely worthless? Poor healing power scaling, or healing not required in this amount in pvp?

Just wondering, how are we getting outrun with effective permanent swiftness? I don’t recall Reaper’s having move speed buff higher than 33%

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Posted by: Mirage.6754

Mirage.6754

After equipping a smokescale and an electric wyvern in PvE, I went to PvP with some friends. Couldn’t use them there. However, when I got back to PvE, my pets were now stowed and impossible to unstow. Couldn’t change them, obviously, because when stopped that option vanishes too.

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Posted by: CandyHearts.6025

CandyHearts.6025

a little more feedback from me because I’m just so excited!

It’s a great feeling to finally have a way to take care of my pet (Staff 1). I always. ALWAYS. use my heals for my pet before myself. I’m so happy to have a way to make my pets sustain better.

The damage is a bit on the low side though. I know it places a regen but at the same time we need something on staff that can contribute to dps a bit better.

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Posted by: Kailee.8790

Kailee.8790

Ok after testing, healing druid is completely worthless in pvp.

Secondly, even with the movespeed bonus from traited druid skill, in addition to the signet for 25% more speed…. Reapers are outrunning you easily

Aside from that,… Staff 1 damage is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than a single AA on a bow by at least 2-3x minimally

What makes healing druid completely worthless? Poor healing power scaling, or healing not required in this amount in pvp?

Just wondering, how are we getting outrun with effective permanent swiftness? I don’t recall Reaper’s having move speed buff higher than 33%

Once you find out, let me know… I am still searching for that answer… Reaper is dashing happily with constant aoe spins while chasing you down…

And yes i have the 25% movespeed signet and the 33% skill and I also took the ability to roll cancel any mobi impairing conditions to test… yet still being outran

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Posted by: Yashizuko.9165

Yashizuko.9165

Irenio, Druid is amazing, it’s perfect for what it does, i just wish one thing:

To have some damage from Celestial Avatar, maybe from #1 Cosmic Ray

Not huge damage like from staff or other weapons, just a bit, to have an offensive option

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Posted by: Crapgame.6519

Crapgame.6519

I’ll be honest here, I don’t get why the Druid would take on a group heal role when we have the Guardian which seems more geared towards it by its very design. I’m talking symbols, shield, staff, mace, and heavy armor.

Enter druid, and, well I guess I can see the lore in the fantasy space although they also seem to remind me nothing more than hippies, gypsies, and, well, tree huggers (no disrespect to the environmentalist out there, power to the people!).

I didn’t play GW1 so if this is the reference than the issue is me just being ignorant but from a WvW point of view I’m comparing the Druid, group support, to that of my Guardian. And it seems we have almost merged the two together, intended? I mean both have staff, both heal, both seem to do group oriented support.

Someone throw me a piece of bark or bone so I get this. First couple minutes out in WvW with staff and it just doesn’t feel right – probably by design.

Main – Laaz Rocket – Guardian (Ehmry Bay)
Johnny Johnny – Ranger (Ehmry Bay)
Hárvey Wallbanger – Alt Warrior (Ehmry Bay)

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Posted by: OGDeadHead.8326

OGDeadHead.8326

Ok after testing, healing druid is completely worthless in pvp.

Secondly, even with the movespeed bonus from traited druid skill, in addition to the signet for 25% more speed…. Reapers are outrunning you easily

What the hell…

First comment, completly worthless feedback.

Second comment – First of all, movement speed bonus don’t stack. Secondly, if you’re at swiftness speed, how the heck can reapers outrun you??

Win10 pro | Xeon 5650 @ 4 GHz | R9 280x toxic | 24 Gig Ram | Process Lasso user

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Posted by: MrFlash.1764

MrFlash.1764

I think that when you hold your staff its more like a hammer or a other heavy weapon.. Doesn’t feel right. Also the solar beam staff holding animation looks awkward and kind of silly + the beam looks more like a tiny sunray. The other skills look very good

(edited by MrFlash.1764)

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Posted by: EthanLightheart.9168

EthanLightheart.9168

second weapon set seems futile like this…

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

The glyphs all seem awfully undertuned.

General issue: 300 range based around the ranger is pitifully small, and doesn’t really align well with staff usage, where you want people to be in between your beam for healing so you’ll try to modify the distance.

Consider making glyphs ground targeted

Glyph of Rejuvenation: The heal does less healing than we heal as one, or any other heal for that matter. For what? 1.1k base ally healing? You get far more out of healing spring by blasting the water field for your allies.

The glyph heal will become like the water spirit, completely outclassed in group healing by any water field, not just group heals. As such, it will not be used, since it has a cooldown of 24 seconds as well, close to healing spring and it doesn’t even remove conditions.

Glyph of Alignment: 3 second cripple and weakness are too short to make it a worthwhile utility, and the damage is nothing to write home about. It’s basically less than an autoattack. The breakbar also heavily diminishes the value of this glyph, basically all bosses will be immune to this glyph and 3 seconds of cripple and weakness aren’t something of note for the purpose of damaging a break bar. Might as well use hard CC.

Glyph of Equality: This should be a stunbreak baseline for the ranger when out of celestial form. No Glyphs are stunbreaks, why? Having to be in celestial form to deal with stuns on the druid toolkit is impractical.

The Celestial variant of this glyph in addition to the stunbreak should grant stability or protection. The glyphs in general feel bareboned and low impact. They won’t compete for group utility with spirits.

Glyph of Empowerment : The weakest of the glyphs. 10% for 6 seconds out of 20 sec cd translates to a 3% damage boost to people within 300 range. It’s pitiful and not even half the bonus of frost spirit, it won’t be worth a utility slot.

You either need to bump the percentage considerably, leading to worries about spikes in PvP (which I doubt you’ll split balance for PvE).

My suggestion would instead be bumping the percentage up to 15% and make it a 15 second duration, increasing the uptime of the glyph and giving it more effective boost than frost spirit given the glyph’s 300 range limitation.

Glyph of the Tides: Swap the effects between forms, why put the offensive (pull) aspect on a form with zero offensive tools? Celestial Form is a defensive tool with no offensive play whatsoever.

Moreover, add a 2 second chill to the pull, and a 4 second cripple to the knockback.

The effectiveness of the pull/knockback at 300 glyph range is still dubious, might have to increase it.


Traits

Minors: The most problematic of the tree, these minors basically mean you use the staff or you don’t benefit at all outside celestial form, heavily penalizing the use of offensive weapons that are not staff. No other weapons heal, so the traits become obsolete when using a greatsword or longbow.

Live Vicariously

The first minor should convert damage to healing and healing to damage. Each heal you give to an ally damages foes for x nearby them, and any damage you do heals allies for x. This will support a wider variety of ranger weapons and builds.

Natural Mender

Change it to also give outgoing damage whenever you use a healing skill. Better yet, instead of just based on healing, tie it to also giving allies boons. This will synergize with clarion bond, potentially shouts, warhorn, and boons your pet applies.

Adept

Druidic Clarity: Make it so when you enter celestial form, it breaks stuns off the ranger as well.

Cultivated Synergy: Apply 4 seconds of vigor as well.

Primal Echoes: The active effect is no good. You won’t be switching to staff in melee range most of the time, as the swords are far better defensively, so the daze will be wasted when you most need it.

Just give 1 second of vigor when using a staff skill to the druid and allies affected by said skill. Or something else, just not some niche 300 range daze tied to a weapon swap, it’s too weak in PvE where weapons are camped far longer than in PvP.

Master

Celestial Shadow: Increase to 4-5 seconds. Celestial Form usage and exit is too infrequent for this trait to really be worth it.

Grandmaster

Ancient Seed: Another grandmaster that will be neutered by breakbars on bosses. You need to change this into something else that is of any worth in PvE.


Staff

I can kill things with retaliation faster than I can kill with this staff. It needs flat out sizable buffs on all its skills.

You are turning this into the guardian staff, except worse, a staff with some small healing at the complete expense of any damage potential. You are pigeonholing this class into a cleric healbot set, something that will make many of us who rolled rangers unhappy.

Besides all the skills doing pretty horrid damage, Vine Surge also has an immobilize that lasts way too little. Should bump it to 3 seconds.

The only good skill on this weapon is skill 5.

Skill 2 on the staff is particularly surprising, because you would expect it’d pulse damage like the orb pulses healing when it passes around allies. Not so, just one pititful damage pulse.

  • For reference, I am in full ascended zerker stats, armor, accessories, weapons, with scholar runes. Staff 1 was doing ~1k damage, staff 2 1,2k damage. This is unacceptable, it’s a fraction of our already low sword and greatsword autoattack damage**

Closing thoughts on the class in general

Highly disappointing. The druid is a one dimensional healbot with no damage synergy and weak offensive options.

This means if you take a zerker stat or traitlines like marksmanship or skirmishing or even beastmastery, this line won’t complement them or any of your weapons for that matter.

The druid traitline and the staff don’t mix well at all with a PvE offensive ranger. Since you’ll always want a melee weapon for damage output, the staff competes with longbow. And boy, what little healing you gain from the staff is not worth the massive damage and CC loss, not to mention cleave from the longbow.

Druid feels like a forced bland clerics stats healbot meant to tickle opponents while building celestial force, mainly through heals since the percentage from damage is so low, to spam some more healing on allies at the complete cost of your DPS since celestial form doesn’t even have any damage.

What’s more, this spec may see the light of day in pvp, but in PvE it gimps your group’s damage output for healing that isn’t even necessary because in PvE all a group needs to heal up to full is to lay down a water field and with the amount of blasts ele/guardian/warrior/engineer/thief have, a group is healed back to full immediately without needing a ranger to kitten his damage completely by going druid.

Time to stow away my staff and shelf my ranger for the time being until changes are made. This specialization has pushed people who rolled rangers to play as damage dealers and offensive support away by being a bland healbot spec.

The list of druid skills and traits can be summarized by “this skill heals and removes conditions, this other skill heals and removes conditions, and this skill also heals and removes conditions”.

(edited by Zenith.7301)

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Posted by: Photinous.4628

Photinous.4628

If you take Verdant Etching, I do not see any condi removal from the glyphs. I believe this is a bug.

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Posted by: Mavander.3208

Mavander.3208

The lightning wyvern places a lightning field but it isnt stated in the tooltip

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Posted by: MrFlash.1764

MrFlash.1764

The way the staff is held (like a hammer) looks too aggressive in contrast to the more elegant characteristics of the Druid, and feels like my character is about to hit somebody over the head with it. Would greatly prefer it if the staff was held like an Elementalist.

Indeed, this weird hammer like holding I don’t like it for a druid.. And the way Solar beam looks.. Hope they change it.

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Posted by: black sun empress.7401

black sun empress.7401

The way the staff is held (like a hammer) looks too aggressive in contrast to the more elegant characteristics of the Druid, and feels like my character is about to hit somebody over the head with it. Would greatly prefer it if the staff was held like an Elementalist.

Indeed, this weird hammer like holding I don’t like it for a druid.. And the way Solar beam looks.. Hope they change it.

AGREED 100000x , its a caster wep, needs to be like ele… wanted to make bifrost for my viking ranger, but now they will look like they are holding a broom…

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Posted by: Sojurner.8234

Sojurner.8234

Constructive criticism:

- staff 3 skill is ridiculous. I’m pretty sure you’re trolling us with this one, and if not, its a good example of needing to actually play the game. At no time, in no instance, is the ranger ever a good close-in class. Even condi ranger just gets by close-in and is consistently outperformed by the real close-in classes. So why would you make a skill that’s only purpose is to close the gap? What on earth did you think the ranger would do once it got there? Use sword 3? then what – switch back to healing? it’s ridiculous. I can only assume you meant for staff 3 to be used with the glyphs, but since the glyphs are useless its not viable in any way. You dev’s should really try playing the actual game sometime.

- 60% of the staff skills need targeting…60%..really? As if the skills weren’t barely useful enough you also have to point them towards the target?

- staff 1 skill was a good idea, just give it a condi or improve the damage and its functional

- staff skill 5 would be fine if you didn’t have to target it or if the targeting was more like ground targeting instead of the line

- celestial avatar staff skill 1 is equally depressing – you have to ground target it each time with a sub second cool down and it has minimal effect? Again, you should really try actually playing the game sometime

- the glyphs..I tried using them at opportune moments in pvp, tried in pve, in wvw, in dungeons…I still have no idea what good they are. it’s kind of ironic – there’s all these staff skills that are hindered by ground targeting yet the one new addition that actually needs ground targeting and you made it aoe around the caster. There is nothing redeeming about the glyphs – total rework.

- good job on the smokescale pet