Guild Wars 2

Justine.6351:

Relshdan.6854:

Justine.6351:

I was on the fence and after 15min decided druid wasn’t worth dumping beastmastery for. 10min later I got back on druid and did some playing around with stuff and realized it is worth it.

Ancient seeds + one of the 2 aoe dazes + barrage/bonfire alone is awesome ;-)
its like another entangle.

There is something wonky about some heals charging celestial form, some not. Ancestor’s Grace doesn’t but the AA does. Trolls Unguent does per tic.

does ancient seeds give the 5 bleeds stack or only 1 bleed?

its 5, but note that its like any other vine skill, it pulses its conditions.

awesome…thanks!
can’t wait to try druid trapper now. (or just condi/lockdown if no trapper runes).

Noticed that natural strides dont work… I dont feel any faster when traiting that

I really love the druid. It’s fantastic, super fun, a great change from the normal play of the ranger but it still does adequate damage. The astral skills are great (except the 4 slot using the guardian skill icon :P) and it’s been a blast even in the short time that I’ve had to play it. I do have a few things I think could be addressed about the class, but keep in mind I’ve only been able to play limited PvE, so here goes;

Glyphs
Fantastic, especially the elite, but all of them feel like they last for too short a time to actually do anything. I don’t think it’s a problem, but compared to some of the other skills for the ranger it’s just not that appealing. I think a slightly longer duration for all of them would be better. Also for the elite it would be nice if the timer started once the first hit has been landed on you, though that’s more a QoL change than anything else.

Staff
No complains functionally. I haven’t had enough of a chance to see how it really balances, especially in harder content, but it’s clear from what I’ve seen that cosmetics is the main issue most people are having. I personally don’t have any problem with it, but I think it would be simple enough to address, such as having the Druid carry the staff out of combat like a mage would, then holding it with both hands once in combat. As for the animations, I really don’t mind, except the 1 slot does look silly when you’re moving at the same time. Changes here would be nice, but nothing urgent from what I can see.

Astral Form
I haven’t had enough of a chance to play in harder content, so I can’t really see the true effectiveness of the Astral form, but it’s been fun in my experience. The traits for it are good, the animations are really cool, the way the glyphs change is nice, but it would also be nice to see other skills change in astral form in some way, because as I said, the glyphs aren’t necessarily the most appealing option.
Also the recharge for astral form seems slow. It’s not a big deal since most of your skills do healing damage anyway, but it would be nice to be able to use it more.
I’d also like to see it always charged out of combat, so that you can just put it on for fun. I don’t think it would change much functionally since entering combat only being able to heal is a bit of a waste, but it would be nice just for fun to be able to run around in Astral form in cities and the like, although then again, this is another minor thing.

Pets
Great. No complaints, super cool. They still have a lot of the issues normal ranger pets had, but it’s a step in the right direction and hopefully some retrofitting of the new AI systems will improve it further.

If nothing changes between now and release, I won’t be disappointed, to be honest, but this is just my take on what could make it better, although I haven’t had much of a chance to play it, and I won’t be able to any more until release.

idevourwater.3149:

Noticed that natural strides dont work… I dont feel any faster when traiting that

i tried it out and then ported to the asura town…started running, then hit a switfness skill…and it didn’t seem like a went any faster….once swiftness was over, its didn’t seem like i slowed down.

so it must work sometimes…..maybe its buggy you equip and unequip the trait in the same zone.

Cele form really needs a way to generate stability. Right now it is very limited due to the fact that in wvw raids there are lots of CC spam that prevents you from being able to do anything within the form.

I am currently running this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmOD7keVogVsiVwmVgoVskIYwX1t6X1p0t6adPBgY3MbEnB-TRRGABA8EAYR9ndU+1pSwO0NAA-e

My initial impression is that:

-DPS seems acceptable albeit very single-target orientated with staff. I do not like the fact that Vine Surge is ground targeting; it is very fiddly to use.

-I do not like the Staff be held as though it is a Hammer. I also do not like the animation of skill 1: must the Staff be held that high?

-My prefer strategy is to use my pets as a main source of DPS (Smoke Scale and whatever else). That is why I pick Bountiful Hunter, Fortifying Bond, Warhorn and Axe in order to give my pets as much DPS as possible.

-My ranger can still do decent damage even with Cleric. Given the fact that I am rather comfortable soloing so far, I may switch my accessories and weapon to Zealot aiming to push my crit-chance to +30% in order to take advantage of Sigil of Strength and Fortifying Bond.

-Glyph of Alignment and Glyph of Equality are rather good and I used them very often. But I do not seem to be able to get the most from Glyph of Unity.

-Overall, I do not feel that Druid is a hardcore full time healer. Celestial Avatar is not an always on ability and that gives the Druid the choice to flip between being a healer (with Daze on short cooldown) and being a DPS-dealing as usual. I think it is more akin to Lich Form and Plague but with 10 abilities to choose from within a short time theme. It is all a strategic decision as to when to be a healer.

-I would say that: it is a very solid hybrid healer and if it is spec probably it can be a hybrid heal/DPS quite easily.

Celestial Form > #3 Lunar Impact not a blast finisher.

My first impression was → this is fantastic. So, well done on that.

Further thoughts I’ve had…

-Most of the issues stem from Astral Force…acquisition and expendeture.

-Because of the nature of Astral Force building, it makes our 2nd weapon seem pointless. Perhaps make it so our other weapons can still build AF, but at a slower rate? That way we aren’t completely punished for using a 2nd weapon set. Otherwise, it just feels off.

-Staff holding animation could be better

-Losing all AF when we choose to leave form early is very frustrating imho. I would much prefer it to be like Death Shroud where you have more control of your resource pool.

drgast.1469:

My first impression was -> this is fantastic. So, well done on that.

Further thoughts I’ve had…

-Most of the issues stem from Astral Force…acquisition and expendeture.

-Because of the nature of Astral Force building, it makes our 2nd weapon seem pointless. Perhaps make it so our other weapons can still build AF, but at a slower rate? That way we aren’t completely punished for using a 2nd weapon set. Otherwise, it just feels off.

-Staff holding animation could be better

-Losing all AF when we choose to leave form early is very frustrating imho. I would much prefer it to be like Death Shroud where you have more control of your resource pool.

Agree with point 2 to 4.

As to 1, I think Celestial Avatar can last just a little longer and/or may be have a few second of stability of something build into it either by default or as trait.

I enjoy Druid. I ran a male sylvari Druid around the Brink for a Faren event chain, then did a couple of HOTW paths with guildies and got a feel for the heal synergies and timings. I felt robust in fights (especially with Gatling the bristleback at my side) and not easily downed or killed, though that could be thanks to the difficulty nerf + staying at range with the staff most of the time.

Speaking of range, though, glyphs and staff don’t work so well together since the glyphs fire off at my location. I mean I can use staff close up, no biggie, but when I’m at range my utilities don’t get much use. Since only Druids can use the staff, and only Druids can use the utilities, it seems odd to have such a range dichotomy between them. It makes the package feel less effective, like one really has to choose either the new weapon or the new utilities for one’s build but not keep both.

I felt this even more strongly as I chose a longbow for my alternate weapon. I almost never felt the need to swap to it, the staff was doing pretty well. Perhaps if I had melee weapons as alternates using the glyphs would flow better. Yet there it is again, the glyphs working best with something other than staff.

What to do about it? I hesitate to ask for ground targeting the glyphs because that tends to overall slow down their use. Maybe there could be a trait to make them ground targeted so players could individually choose as they prefer?

Relshdan.6854:

idevourwater.3149:

Noticed that natural strides dont work… I dont feel any faster when traiting that

i tried it out and then ported to the asura town…started running, then hit a switfness skill…and it didn’t seem like a went any faster….once swiftness was over, its didn’t seem like i slowed down.

so it must work sometimes…..maybe its buggy you equip and unequip the trait in the same zone.

Oh yea, kinda buggy… but it works now…
had to port out and back in .. wierd..

Can glyphs have instant cast time? I dont think thats too much to ask for considering it is kinda under powered at the moment…

The way my Druid holds the staff look/feels awkward for a caster that’s range. I would much prefer the Guardian/Necro way of holding a staff.

Instant cast glyphs would be nice.

Have not had too much time in beta yet, so these are my only concerns so far.

Thanks~

The thing I noticed the most is that the glyphs aren’t all that great. I suppose they have their uses (the alignment one’s ability to cause conditions on enemies it pretty neat), but their uses are kinda nullified by the fact that you need to be in poking range of the enemy to use them at all which doesn’t make a lot of sense if druid is a long range support with a staff.

While I understand that druid is a healing elite spec, I feel that it still needs to be able to dish out damage as it can heal. Maybe have the auto attack cause burning or perhaps a cone attack..I think druid definatley does suffer that it doesnt’ have really any AoE’s. Also I feel that the staff solar beam skill isn’t that great in the way it deals damage. It seems to be one of those skills that adds up dmg over time much like the flame thrower. The problem is that it doens’t do all that much damage at all and isn’t as good as the flame thrower since engineers can augment them with their templates and they have fire condition damage which the druid auto attack is just the pulse attack.

I wasn’t really in a position to really test astral form, so unfortunately I can’t as of right now give any feed back on it.

The pets – I do like, the tiger’s F2 skill probably should have a greater range though if the ranger is a long range support/combatant. The bristleback and the smokescale handled very nicely and I loved how giant the bristleback becomes. I still say it should be a bigger pet – about the size of a moa and the same for the wyverns :P. I did notice that the Fire wyvern’s F2 was more of a pain to use because it wouldn’t run up to the enemy and then use its skill like the drakes and other pets would. Also the wyvern animations do seem very clunky and the wyverns especially seem very slow to attack and move.

The staff’s 3 ability (that transforms you into a whisp) probably should also make you invulnerable while in the whisp form in transit, or be a instant transportation. I feel the escape skill as it is doesn’t really do much to protect you and save others as much as it makes you a moving target without the ability to dodge roll away from attacks.

The vine surge ability did seem to disappear too quickly though, but that could also be just me shrugs.

As a healing specialization – I found the druid very lack luster since it’s healing didn’t seem all that great in any circumstance and the healing power stat didn’t do much to augment it either.

Also I must ask are we getting these 5 new pets, or was the Druid reveal article stating a fact that we’ll be getting more pets the further we go into the Maguuma?

Oh yes, why “Solar” Beam does not cause burn damage?

IF staff is going to be a single-target weapon, can we at least have a little bit of extra damage?

Vine Surge should have a more obvious rectangle to remind your teammate that it can remove conditions.

Im also not a fan of the staff holding animation really, it just doesn’t feel right shakes head. And please don’t shrink the overgrown bristleback effect of the signet of the wild. Seriously if anything make our pets bigger as their default, but if not all then at least the bristleback. Ideally I’d like the bristleback to be the size of our moas and same goes for the wyvern :P.

Why those Wyerns do not fly around normally?

Don’t know if I’ll be restating things but:
Note: Anything I don’t mention is stuff I didn’t find particularly problematic.
Traits:

• Ancient Seeds doesn’t always kick in at the time, resulting in a missed root or different location of a rooted opponent that what seems logical/intended
• Lingering Light doesn’t do enough, by extension that Staff 2 needs to be reexamined (details later)

Staff

• 2 skills needs more damage scaling, period. Staff doesn’t need to be a DPS weapon but the wisp itself is flaky as is and the lack of damage and functionality makes the skill and therefore the GM weak. Could accomplish this and retain support role by adding a poison to the hit as well as or in addition to adding an adverse effect for foes hit by the wisp.
• 4 needs more damage and/or a longer root. It doesn’t do enough as a skillshot.
• 5 needs SOME additional effect, because it’s super situational as is. If it isn’t a field (tooltip didn’t say it was so I didn’t use it like one), it needs to be one, preferably a water field, and it could also cripple people passing through it or something, but definitely something in the same family of thought.

Glyphs

• One note, the cripple/weakness glyph either needs longer durations on those conditions and/or damaging conditions too of some sort (again, if it has it, didn’t check, functionality wasn’t listed and the skill isn’t taking a valuable slot as is).

Celestial Form

• Same notes you (devs) have to add functionality to things. Celestial Form is strong, but only really at two things, Dazing and Healing, and in competitive play, it is just as much of a potential game changer for the rest of your team as it is a chance for the enemy team to reset when you throw away all your pressure to just heal. Damage, Cripples, something, please. It doesn’t even have to be good damage on skills like the 1 skill, but something more than just 4 different AoE heals with the exact same base purpose; AoE healing.

That’s all for now.

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but the regular staff 5 wall turns projectiles into arced projectiles, most of them were just going right over my head.

This might be a technical problem not easily fixed, so a modification may be in order. What if it absorbed all the projectiles then exploded in heals (and damage for enemies) when it was over based on how much it absorbed?

Also, I think all of the staff skills should do at least a little damage. Even just 100 damage, for tagging purposes.

Ok, I didn’t want to make a pure healer, but I thought there was potential for it, so I made a DPS Greatsword Druid, and I really kind of like him. I would typically travel with the staff out, use the various abilities, #3, swap to GS and engage. I used the Glyph heal, condi, daze, and power-buffs, but kept Rampage as One for Elite. I only used Celestial form in combat once, when I’d used my heals and was in a real pickle, but really in most of the content I was barely even at risk, it’s a quite tanky option.

Even the staff wasn’t terrible for damage, so long as my pet or other players/NPCs were tanking. I think I’m switching to this build on live, at least for a bit.

As for pets, I like the new ones, didn’t get a chance to try them a lot because I didn’t even realize they were already unlocked until towards the end of my time tonight. I love the Bristleback model/animation, it’s so adorable.

i just wanted to add one more thing:

Verdant Etching

this trait is actually kinda useless in pvp, as is the Seed #2 in avatar. look at competitive pvp. if you stand still while waiting for the seed to pop, youre dead. the radius is way too small and it takes too long to go off. so this requires major iteration.

After more testing, I’d give some feedbacks as to how to improve some of the weapon’s skills.

Staff:

Staff 1: This one is actually ok. The healing radius may need some improvement though.

Staff 2: The projectile speed need to be at least 2~3 times fast. So far this skill is very clunky and hard to hit anyone at 600+ range
Also, I “strongly” suggest the wisp surrounding foes should not only heal allies, but do small aoe damage to the target and the target nears it. The damage doesn’t need to be high (in fact, it shouldn’t be high), but it should help druid tag on foes better, which compensate some of the druid’s reward credit issue.

Staff 3:
This skill works abit clunky currently. I suggest making this skill directional, like Warrior’s GS3, with fixed distance (1200), and heal anyone you pass through, and at the end heal yourself and anyone around you. The self healing part should be abit higher because the staff actually lack survival means.

Staff 4:
Very clunky skills. The cast time need a huge reduction because it tends to not hit anything that moves. Also the immobilize should be at least 2 secs, or it hardly does anything to stop enemy’s movement. Adding a moderate duration cripple helps too. (like 5 secs). Currently it doesn’t help Druid stop enemies at all.

Staff 5:
This functions fine I gues.

Glyphs:

All of their Radius are way too small.
Should be at least 480, or maybe 600 or it doesn’t hit anything, or help Druid in any aspect.

Glyph of Rejuvenation:
Outclassed by every other heals. This glyph should remove 2 conditions from you and your allies. The range should be 480 or 600.

Glyph of Empowerment:
Radius need to be 480 or 600. Duration is still way too low. Should either increase the duration to 10 or makes the bonus 20%, so it gives the team potential to do a coordinate burst.

Glyph of Alignment:

This radius need to be 480 or 600. This radius should add additional effect of transferring 2 conditions from you to foes you hit or it really does too little as a small condition PBAOE.

Glyph of Eqaulity:
Range should be 480. This one does too little too. Add a stunbreak and grant short duration stability to this skill to make it more desirable over other skills. (since it has no cast-time). Daze duration should increased to 3 second.

Glyph of the Tides:
Range should be 480 too. This one should have been launch foes away instead of just push-back. Also add additional effect of removing 2 conditions so it’s more usable.

Glyph of Unity:
Range should have been 600. Break chain range should have been 1200. Otherwise this skill is utterly use-less.

I’d talk about the problems in Celestial Form later.

For now, I think Cosmic Ray should be an AOE attack instead of healing.
Increases healing on 2 3 4 instead.

Makes the transform into 2 metre bars instead of one full bar.
You can activate it when your metre reaches 1.
Once you leave it, your cosmic energy remains, but add a 10 second CD on it.
This should make Celestial Transform much more usable, instead of being a restrain type of play-style.

^perfect feedback. basically matches everything i wrote.

One thing that bugged me, druid really feels like it doesn’t gain any benefits from weapons other than staff because of celetrial avatar’s refilling efficincy.

When I’m holding staff, enery builds up at a reasonable pace. However when not using staff, the rate feels slow. Very very slow.

Few other ideas include:
Healing glyph didn’t heal pet for me.
Unlike other people’s worry, celestial avatar’s daze was not OP. It could lock down enemies sure. However the rate of which the energy filled up and the 1 second cast time made it easy for enemies to evade (PvP) and deducting defiance bar wasn’t large enough to warrant OP QQ.
All of glyph is point-blank AOE around the druid but weapon skills of staffs are ranged making it some-what clunky. Druid keeps reasonable distance but to use glyph effectively, druid must get close. This is where other weapons like GS need to shine, but celestial avatar energy does not fill up fast enough. Considering how necromance/reaper can build lifeforce quickly with weapons like dagger, it does feel more difficult to utilize properly. I hope these points can be adjusted.
Overall druid is very support-heavy and the old selfish ranger actually works nice. Kind of going against what I said before, Troll Urgent fills up the energy bar really quickly.

Tested in wvw large scale fights. Overall impression, lacking too much damage.

Staff – Seems quite fine but I hope staff2 can at least do some small/moderate aoe damage.

Astral Form – Takes too long to charge up unless you are using staff. Needs some AoE damage to be useful.

Cosmic Ray, Seed of Life and Lunar Impact all needs some form of damage.
Cosmic Ray – small damage
Seed of Life – small to moderate damage
Lunar Impact – big damage
Maybe adjust the cooldown a little according to their damage. Their respective AoE is great.

Tidal surge – Well implemented
Natural Convergence – Wish this can be a little faster..

Oh My God.8423:

As to 1, I think Celestial Avatar can last just a little longer and/or may be have a few second of stability of something build into it either by default or as trait.

Great idea to give stab as trait.

After experimenting with the Druid specialization, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmingly disappointed in the specialization. The following is an attempt at constructive criticism and suggested means to improve the class under realistic means:

-Pet Neglect: My largest concern regarding the druid is it’s pet neglect. The pet is the ranger’s core profession mechanic, and a main staple of ranger game-play. Unfortunately, from what I see the Druid’s traits largely ignore the pet as if it simply weren’t there (A first for the Ranger as all other trees offer at least a few traits that have an impact on the pet). I cannot help but be very concerned by this move and would suggest that current traits be adjusted to better incorporate the pet.

Unfortunately, pet neglect does not stop at the traits. The Druid staff is the first weapon to entirely neglect the pet. All former main-hand/two handed weapons have at least one weapon skill that produces an effect on the pet (Ex: Winter’s bite [Axe #3]). The absence of this on the staff is troubling, this is more or less equivalent to a Necromancer having a weapon that doesn’t generate Death Shroud.

-Astral Form: Perfect. I like it as it is, though I do feel it tends to drain slightly too fast. Though I am concerned at the rate the bar builds for Druids who elect to not use the staff. Not impossible to build up, but perhaps harder than necessary.

-Staff: Aside from prior noted “Pet Neglect” I would say the staff offers too little damage. With only two skills inflicting any damage, the staff feels incredibly weak. If I were to offer a suggestion to bring it in line, I would apply burning on the final pulse of the auto attack as well as conditions on the #4 skill, perhaps bleeding or poison. Or, adding impacts to the pet (Buffs or extra attacks/conditions) would also bring this weapon up to par. Another suggestion for the Staff is purely QoL, but for the #4 skill, if you could add a rectangular directional rather than an arrow, it would help the Druid encompass players better. Perhaps a similar box to the one offered by Inspiring Reinforcement for the Revenant.

I share another concern regarding the staff, kit limitation. The staff offers a large amount of healing, which is normally fantastic. However, when given the option of Astral Form’s intense healing, the staff is overshadowed. What I am trying to say is that offering heals on heals, narrows the kit for the player and makes them a “one trick pony” so to speak. Players generally need a diverse kit for content, limiting yourself to small heals coupled with big heals isn’t helpful to the player. In short: Too much healing.

-Glyphs: Currently, no glyphs offer any stun break except in Astral Form. This is very damaging to the player. I would suggest Glyph of Alignment or Glyph of Tides be given a stun break feature in regular form.

Glyph of Rejuvenation does not impact the pet, unless standing in close proxemity, in which they receive the minimal 1.3k heal for “Allies”. This is another Ranger first and example of “Pet Neglect”. Simply sharing the Druid’s base heal (5k) to the pet as well (similar to We Heal as One) would be an easy way to fix that.

On the whole, I found glyphs underwhelming and very situational.

-New Pets: Fantastic! Zero complaints or suggestions, you guys really hit the nail on the head with this one. They not only look great, but perform even better. Well done.

I hope at least a few of these points are useful in bringing the Druid up to par with the other classes. If I had to point out my biggest concern though, it would definitely be the pet neglect. I would think that area would be the most helpful in balancing the Druid with the rest of the game.

mistsim.2748:

i just wanted to add one more thing:

Verdant Etching

this trait is actually kinda useless in pvp, as is the Seed #2 in avatar. look at competitive pvp. if you stand still while waiting for the seed to pop, youre dead. the radius is way too small and it takes too long to go off. so this requires major iteration.

They could move the condition cleanse on the use of the skill and heal on burst. Thematically the seed would be taking away the impurities from you to grow and then bursts into life giving energy.

My feedback; Let me use weapon swap to leave Celestial form, please. I think Necros should also be given the same functionality but it’s even more crucial on Druids because ‘F5’ is much more difficult to press than ‘F1’.

Overall: My biggest concern is that Druid doesn’t have much synergy with the core ranger. In my opinion, it seem like Druid only have 1 play-style which is healing support. I would like to see more than 1 play-style in the Druid trait line. It seem like if you pick Druid trait line, It’s for group only, It’s not a good trait line if you want to go solo.

Likes:
Support spec
Dazes

Dislikes:
Staff#1- It’s useless without an enemy target .
Staff#2- It needs something more ( apply protection when passes through allies, and vul for foes).
Staff#3- Good skill. I would like to see it break immobilize, or evade during the travel time.
Staff#4- Good skill, 2s of immobilize instead of 1s. Work on the indicator, it doesn’t tell you how wide the skill is.
Staff#5- Decent skill, add the water field.
Celestial Avatar Form#1- The radius is extremely tiny, it should be between 240-300 radius
CAF#2- Same radius problem like CAF#1, speed up the heal explosion.
CAF#3- Good radius, good heal, reduce the daze duration because with Moment of Clarity the daze goes up to 6s with kitten CD. Reduce it down to 2s daze base line.
CAF#4- Very good heal! reduce the cast time, and increase the water field duration.
CAF#5-I think it’s a decent skill, but haven’t found any usage yet.
Glyph of Rejuvenation- Good support heal.
Glyph of Aligment- Increase the radius to 360 in non-CAF form and 600 in CAF.
Glyph of Equality- Increase the radius to 360, and adds stun break in non-CAF.
Glyph of Empowerment- In CAF, I would like to see it 10% or 20% damage reduction, because 10% healing to nearby allies is very insignificant.
Glyph of Tides- Increase the radius to 360, awesome skill.
Glyph of Unity- Increase the radius to 600.
Druidic Clarity(1st adapt)- Extremely good if you’re allow to regenerate CAF bar but extremely bad if you can’t regenerate CAF bar.
Cultivated Synergy(2nd adapt)- Good support trait, increase radius to 360.
Primal Echoes(3rd adapt)- Awesome trait !! Daze on weapon swap, not just when swap to staff.
Celestial Shadow(1st master)- It seem to be out of place. I would like to see a different trait here. Like when enter CAF, you and your allies gain 3 stacks of stability for 5s in 360 radius.
Verdent Etching(2nd master)- increase the radius, and the explosion speed.
Natural Stride(3rd master)- The 33% movement speed also apply for pet.
Natural Mender(grand master minor)- Increase the duration from 6s to 10s
Grace of the Land(1st grand master)- Pretty decent trait, but its needs a secondary effect. 33% incoming condition damage reduction, and 33% increase incoming boons duration. Increase radius to 360.
Lingering Light(2nd grand master)- Same problem with Staff#2
Ancient Seeds(3rd grand master)- Good trait!!

jcbroe.4329:

• 5 needs SOME additional effect, because it’s super situational as is. If it isn’t a field (tooltip didn’t say it was so I didn’t use it like one), it needs to be one, preferably a water field, and it could also cripple people passing through it or something, but definitely something in the same family of thought.

It is a water field. It’s unlisted but you can blast it with staff 3 for an easy test.

A few bugs to point out for druid with the quick draw grandmaster:
It’s working well with old weapons now, and stacking with cd reduction traits, but does not reduce cooldown for staff skills with or without primal echoes, on any skill. Quick draw also does not affect celestial skills, but that’s likely intentional.

However, quick draw will proc and work on a non-staff weapon when exiting from celestial form, as though it were a weapon swap. It does not trigger when entering celestial form.

I am loving it. some issues and bugs. but man this been fun.

cant wait to try this in WvW.

After experimenting some more:

Druid seems to be carried mostly by Celestial Avatar form #3/4, as well as Staff 1/2/3, and is pretty much required to use a staff or Troll Unguent, or both, to build up the form fast enough. Staff 4 is incredibly unrewarding and hard to actually land. Staff 5 will be good, as long as the water field remains on the skill.

The glyphs need a very large buff, the developers have always overestimated the usefulness of damaging utilities like Traps (on thief/ranger/guard). Utilities actually taken for PvP and WvW usually always provide excellent survivability in the form of mobility, healing, boons, or invulnerable states. If Arenanet wants to make utilities like Glyphs and things like Dragonhunter traps work, they need to be fast to use, with short cooldowns and good effects.

Glyph of Rejuvenation should have a base cooldown of 18 seconds, and apply an effect to affected allies which increases outgoing heals to them by 10%. This would make it actually worth to take over other heals.

Glyph of Alignment base CD should be brought down to 12 seconds. It really just isn’t that great. Weakness and cripple for short duration? 2 conditions removed from allies and small healing? 20 seconds is way too long.

Glyph of Equality should have a 15 or 20 second cooldown. Again, it’s really not very good. In fact, good luck seeing anyone take it in its current form.

Glyph of the Tides: Again needs a huge cooldown reduction to 20 or 15 seconds.

Glyph of Empowerment: More of a PvE skill and I’m a PvPer. For this to be good, it would need a 10 second CD. Heck, it could even be shorter and I still probably wouldn’t take it.

I’m not sure whether Staff being required to charge Celestial Avatar is a design choice at this point, but it really would be nice to see the Damage charge numbers brought up significantly. Otherwise, we will see condition builds shut out of becoming Druids, and also any type of melee power build.

Staff 4 I would suggest a 2 second immob, double the cone size and reduce the cast time by 1/4 second.

Celestial Avatar:

The auto attack is fine, but I think the #2 seed attack is be far the weakest. Since it’s not immediate condi clear, it’s very hard to use effectively.

Traits:

Druidic Clarity: I’d add 3 stacks of stability for 5 seconds when entering Celestial Avatar. The full condi clear seems on the face like its very good, but entering celestial avatar doesnt happen that much

Celestial Shadow: Underwhelming.

Lingering Light: Underwhelming compared to the other two GMs

Overall, parts of Druid seem very good. The mobility that the spec brings is great and sorely needed. Celestial Avatar adds much needed complexity. I feel like the art team did a great job and Irenio designed the spec with thought and passion put into it. I also think that its actually quite balanced compared to some other specs out there currently.

TL;DR

Glyphs need BIG BUFFS, Staff 4 BUFF, Celestial Avatar #2 BUFF, everything else is pretty good.

Ehecatl.9172:

mistsim.2748:

i just wanted to add one more thing:

Verdant Etching

this trait is actually kinda useless in pvp, as is the Seed #2 in avatar. look at competitive pvp. if you stand still while waiting for the seed to pop, youre dead. the radius is way too small and it takes too long to go off. so this requires major iteration.

They could move the condition cleanse on the use of the skill and heal on burst. Thematically the seed would be taking away the impurities from you to grow and then bursts into life giving energy.

That would be a good fix for sure, you don’t really want to wait for your condi removal when you need it.

After further testing, staff 2 and staff 4’s cast time feels so long! Please shorten it.

Suggestion for Glyph of Rejuvenation (which is worse than Water Spirit right now):

• Grant stability for x seconds for you and your pet
• Increase radius!
• The more people healed, decrease recharge by x seconds OR the more people healed, selfheal is increased by x amount
• Instant cast time

Druid as a whole should be remade and not made as a healer.

plz make wyvren fly like the birds

The gap in pets in terms of damage, health and skills feels to huge between the new ones and the old ones.

Hey ANet! I just wanted to come here and voice one concern I have about the Druid. People have already mentioned this issue but the time it takes to achieve Celestial form with damage is absurd. I used a longbow on pack of enemies and it took approximately 70 seconds to build Celestial Form. Furthermore, healing is too potent in creating astral force. I used staff number 1 on a group of mobs and it only took 14 seconds to complete Celestial Form. It is so potent that I can see people using healing skills on cooldown just because of how powerful it is. I believe the coefficients should be changed to this:

For damage, I would increase its transfer to Astral Force from .25 to .5 or all damage.

For healing, I would reduce its transfer to Astral Force from 2.5 to 1.5 for all healing.

Lastly, I believe that Celestial form needs to have damage components to it. Either add damage to each of the abilities or make some abilities do only damage. I know the Druid elite specialization is about healing but I’d be wary of making it too one dimensional. Right now, a staff is an absolute must have because the tree is so one dimensional that attempting to do any damage is pointless. Its either heal or bust. Even healing oriented tree like Water have some form of damage in them. The Druid tree has almost nothing. I honestly feel it needs to be given more variety.

Please change how the druid holds the staff . It is not a melee character and the animations do not look appropriate for a caster with glowy-dainty-flower spells.

We get that you all are all pleased about Rev and Thief melee staves but don’t group druid in with their idle animations.

niconori.7235:

After further testing, staff 2 and staff 4’s cast time feels so long! Please shorten it.

I think it have to be same as Revenan 2-nd skill on hammer.

Hey Irenio, I’ve got to get to bed, but I’ve just logged a few hours trying out Druid (have been a main Ranger since pre-original-launch), and I wanted to say a couple things:

THANK YOU!!! I cannot tell you just how awesome, stylish, and fun this is to play!! And the synergy — I could run an incredible build with almost any other combination of trait lines/weapons, and they’d all be different, but still potentially awesome.

Now, on to the constructive criticism/feedback. I’ll save my longer thoughts for later, but here are a couple things:

• I love the piercing/healing effect on staff 1; it fits the Ranger style (along with the piercing arrows) really well and make healing and damaging with it active and fun. The entire weapon, in fact, just feels awesome: Decent damage, packed with utility, and it fits the theme and still feels Rangery. Possible bug: Spamming staff 1 out of combat was filling Astral Force really fast, even though nothing was being hit or healed; my wife tried the same thing, and said it wasn’t doing it for her character. So… probably not intended, but I’m not sure how it glitched.

• Contrary to a couple other posts, I feel like an AoE king right now (although self-targeted); Running Staff/GS, Marksmanship longer daze duration trait, Ancient Seeds, and I just leap/Astral Grace into the middle of things and hit the daze glyph, aoe damage/weakness glyph, maul, f5, astral 3 —> astral 5 (maybe some more astral skills until I can hit 3 again), exit, and then spam whatever; I’m still in celestial gear (except weapons), but I basically can’t die and everything around me just get trashed, at least in Verdant Brink. The glyphs are fantastic, at least with the glyph trait and ancient seeds.

• Probably the daze on Lunar Impact is too long. If I run Marksmanship, I can more than maintain it while in Avatar Mode, and it’s basically spammable — the havoc this could cause in team fights in PvP is just…

• Ancient Seeds is an incredible trait (and possibly should have closer to a 15 sec. ICD, although I would love to leave it as-is). Most of the traits, really, are fantastic. The other two grandmasters feel pretty weak, though, and I agree with some others that some aoe on the staff would be nice. Also, Lingering Light feels a little silly, if the wisp doesn’t also heal you — What if Lingering Light also caused Wisps to damage/siphon health from enemies they pass through (or are attached to)?

• Some of the healing may need to be toned down, or at least have its base lowered and its scaling buffed, so that it is not quite so powerful on a full zerk (or otherwise non-healing-invested) build. In return, though, it really would be nice (for the sake of tagging/etc.) if there were some damage (or a way to trait for it) on some of the celestial skills — at least on the Auto-attack. Or burning, or something otherwise offensive.

• Bug: Right now, the reduced pet skill recharge bonuses from Beastmastery don’t seem to affect the Wyverns’ skills (I haven’t checked the others yet). The tooltip, at least, stays the same.

• Glyph of Tides would make a lot more sense, I think, if the functions were reversed: Pull on normal use, Push away in Celestial form. I am much more likely to want to extra room while I’m trying to heal, and much more likely to want the pull when I’m fighting. Also, the KB puts enemies out of range of the other glyphs, traps, melee attacks, and etc, which somewhat hurts its synergy with Ancient Seeds and general beatdown.

• Bug: Lunar Impact states it’s a blast finisher, but does not proc one when cast on a field (or at least does not give the visual indication of proccing one).

• It would be nice if there were a way to somewhat improve the amount of Astral Force generated through most heal skills and somewhat weaken the amount gained by Troll Unguent (which right now nearly fills the entire bar on one cast, once it’s pulses have finished). I would also approve of a trait that allowed regeneration and life-steal (from us or our pets) to fill the bar, particularly if something were changed to allow some amount of life-siphoning, like, say, pet attacks on enemies struck by staff 2 (while the wisp is orbiting them). Or maybe regen could fill it somewhat as baseline functionality, which would offer more diversity in our potential heal options (since HS already causes regen and traited WHaO does, too) and would even make other shouts potentially useful as bar-fillers.

• There were a few other things, but I’m too tired to remember them right now. Thanks again though, and please, while I know some things are definitely too strong right now, don’t let us lose this amazing feel and synergy. It rocks.

In general, this is the most fun I have had on any class in a long time, it looks and feels incredible, and in general, while I realize I’m probably vulnerable to heavy control builds, I feel ridiculously powerful, stylish, and generally awesome. And I love the effects (although I agree with a slightly larger, more sun-colored, including-on-hit-lens-flare-or-something-effect staff 1 upgrade)! My Ranger has now truly ascended and is indeed closer to the stars.

There are three main concerns I have with the Druid.

1) Avatar form related stuff

- The Avatar form is very restricting in how you use it. You have to fill the bar up fully to enter it and you lose all energy on exit. While this might seem a hard restriction to reign in some of the more insane healing the Druid can pump out, I feel it is very limiting to high level play and possible combinations with other traits, skills, pets or allies.
Furthermore, I feel it is very limiting to on enter/exit trait procs like the condition cleanse traits Druidic clarity or the stealth Celestial shadow.
I feel as if this kind of restriction is not necessary and we would be better off with having a shroud like resource management where you can enter or exit irrelevant on how full your bar is as long as you have a minimal required amount which can be anywhere between 10-20%.
Of course in this case, the Avatar form CD and ICDs for the Clarity and Shadow traits needs to be looked at.

- Second part of my concern for the Avatar form is how you fill the bar. Weapon skill generation is heavily skewed towards the staff. While this makes sense, taking any other weapon combo other then Staff/XXXX is heavily punishing if you are a druid.
Also, regeneration does not fill the bar, and some of the traits do not either. The glyph traited blossoms do not heal you.

I feel as if a pass needs to be made on every skill, heal and tooltip facts need to be added.
Healing skills need to be standardized in how much they fill up the bar, otherwise you end up with things like Healing spring which loads 10% of your bar and Troll unguent which fills it by more then 50%. And the standard could be 25%!!

2) No condition builds synergy

- While the druid can cover some weaknesses of builds that are not used because of them, seeing how the sub-class is reliant on staff to fill up the Avatar energy bar and the staff has no conditions on it, and that the traits do not proc anything other then the GM entangle trait, this is a major cause for concern for me.

There have been some pretty solid suggestions out there of giving the Staff auto attack some burning. Perhaps 1 second of 2 burning stacks would work?? Another good candidate for more condition based damage would be the skill 4. Perhaps add 4-5 bleeds as well??

3) Glyphs

- The glyphs are very interesting for me, and while some people will claim that the Druid is a long range support spec, I do not see it as such. It is versatile and position based. Having said that, I feel as if there are some key parts that need to be addressed.

We need a reliable non Avatar stun breaker on the glyphs!! And we need some damaging conditions on some of them, to push synergy with condition builds.

So my list would be:
- allowing more play with the Avatar state through more freedom in entering and exiting it
- standardizing the energy bar fill rate and giving skill facts that describe the percentages
- Promoting synergy with alternative builds styles be it condition or power based
- Pushing glyph utility otherwise we will be back to using the wilderness line.

First things first: Bristleback for life! I love this pet in so many ways. He just looks so cute and cuddly, til he starts flinging those shards around.

Have only played Druid in Verdant Brink and Silverwastes so far:

-Like the synergy with the three new pets that lay down fields. Direct the smokescale to do his F2 then Staff3 right into the field, and voila, area stealth, or might with fire wyv/swiftness with lightning wyv. I’ve generally found the lightning reflexes utility super useful both for traited condi-clear, but also immediately evading back out melee after dropping Staff 3.

Found the best use for Staff 1 to be standing back with bristlepet at range, and letting it roll while strafing or circling the target, depending on where the melee folk are positioned. Often just strafing back and forth brings out the green numbers like no one’s business, because you’re constantly crossing paths with the melee players. Staff 2 works nicely for this as well.

I have not tried any of the glyphs, none of them appeal to me, and frankly I like my survival skills.

Lunar Impact is amazing, for me, that’s the go-to heal when I see party members start to get low on HP. I am in agreement that Cosmic Ray has some issues. One small move by the target, and the heal is completely missed. The tiny target circle is far too fiddly for my tastes.

The manueverability and speed from Natural Stride, I feel really augments the playstyle of needing to strafe with Staff 1.

As someone who has always mained a healer in other games, I’ve got to say, Druid is the most fun I’ve had in a long time! The next three weeks are going to crawl on by, while I go back to condi… Really can’t wait for HoT now!

ETA (because it’s late and I forgot): +1 with everyone who says that Druids need SOME form of Stability. That’s one of the biggest problems with the spec at the moment for me.

Peakitten.6412:

First things first: Bristleback for life! I love this pet in so many ways. He just looks so cute and cuddly, til he starts flinging those shards around.

Have only played Druid in Verdant Brink and Silverwastes so far:

-Like the synergy with the three new pets that lay down fields. Direct the smokescale to do his F2 then Staff3 right into the field, and voila, area stealth, or might with fire wyv/swiftness with lightning wyv. I’ve generally found the lightning reflexes utility super useful both for traited condi-clear, but also immediately evading back out melee after dropping Staff 3.

Found the best use for Staff 1 to be standing back with bristlepet at range, and letting it roll while strafing or circling the target, depending on where the melee folk are positioned. Often just strafing back and forth brings out the green numbers like no one’s business, because you’re constantly crossing paths with the melee players. Staff 2 works nicely for this as well.

I have not tried any of the glyphs, none of them appeal to me, and frankly I like my survival skills.

Lunar Impact is amazing, for me, that’s the go-to heal when I see party members start to get low on HP. I am in agreement that Cosmic Ray has some issues. One small move by the target, and the heal is completely missed. The tiny target circle is far too fiddly for my tastes.

The manueverability and speed from Natural Stride, I feel really augments the playstyle of needing to strafe with Staff 1.

As someone who has always mained a healer in other games, I’ve got to say, Druid is the most fun I’ve had in a long time! The next three weeks are going to crawl on by, while I go back to condi… Really can’t wait for HoT now!

ETA (because it’s late and I forgot): +1 with everyone who says that Druids need SOME form of Stability. That’s one of the biggest problems with the spec at the moment for me.

Being an old MMO player, having always played a ‘healerbot’ style class—I welcome the change—while this might not be the change for all—I have enjoyed it.

Cant kill stuff—don’t mind that at all. But with proper positioning and awareness of your party—the druid has been a refreshing and similar style of play that I glad to go back to

Mouse.7382:

Peakitten.6412:

First things first: Bristleback for life! I love this pet in so many ways. He just looks so cute and cuddly, til he starts flinging those shards around.

Have only played Druid in Verdant Brink and Silverwastes so far:

-Like the synergy with the three new pets that lay down fields. Direct the smokescale to do his F2 then Staff3 right into the field, and voila, area stealth, or might with fire wyv/swiftness with lightning wyv. I’ve generally found the lightning reflexes utility super useful both for traited condi-clear, but also immediately evading back out melee after dropping Staff 3.

Found the best use for Staff 1 to be standing back with bristlepet at range, and letting it roll while strafing or circling the target, depending on where the melee folk are positioned. Often just strafing back and forth brings out the green numbers like no one’s business, because you’re constantly crossing paths with the melee players. Staff 2 works nicely for this as well.

I have not tried any of the glyphs, none of them appeal to me, and frankly I like my survival skills.

Lunar Impact is amazing, for me, that’s the go-to heal when I see party members start to get low on HP. I am in agreement that Cosmic Ray has some issues. One small move by the target, and the heal is completely missed. The tiny target circle is far too fiddly for my tastes.

The manueverability and speed from Natural Stride, I feel really augments the playstyle of needing to strafe with Staff 1.

As someone who has always mained a healer in other games, I’ve got to say, Druid is the most fun I’ve had in a long time! The next three weeks are going to crawl on by, while I go back to condi… Really can’t wait for HoT now!

ETA (because it’s late and I forgot): +1 with everyone who says that Druids need SOME form of Stability. That’s one of the biggest problems with the spec at the moment for me.

Being an old MMO player, having always played a ‘healerbot’ style class—I welcome the change—while this might not be the change for all—I have enjoyed it.

Cant kill stuff—don’t mind that at all. But with proper positioning and awareness of your party—the druid has been a refreshing and similar style of play that I glad to go back to

Sorry to break your dream.

Druid is only needed in WvW and potentially raid, and nowhere else, since it has minimal to no offensive and defensive supports.
No one except bad team really need a dedicated healbot.

For a party of 5, it’s too great of a sacrifice to carry a healbot who can only heal and does nothing else.

Staff 2: The projectile speed need to be at least 2~3 times fast. So far this skill is very clunky and hard to hit anyone at 600+ range
Also, I “strongly” suggest the wisp surrounding foes should not only heal allies, but do small aoe damage to the target and the target nears it. The damage doesn’t need to be high (in fact, it shouldn’t be high), but it should help druid tag on foes better, which compensate some of the druid’s reward credit issue.

People say it shouldn’t be high damage, and I sort of agree, but sort of don’t. What I would like to see is this ability to have low base damage and low base healing, but also have a high Power/Healing coefficient, so that your stats would make a huge difference. In that way, if you went Healing build, it would be very high heal, very low damage, but if you went DPS build then it would actually do solid damage, just negligible healing. I’d like to see the control.

I agree with Ohoni, its the problem im seeing atm

I tried a full cleric set w/staff, healing was moot. The healing coefficient (ratio) on most of the heals is so insignificant it makes Healing power worthless.

If they wanted druids to be healers, it wouldnt be as such… and if they wanted us to do damage… WE WOULD NEED MORE DAMAGING ABILITIES