Guild Wars 2

Substance E.4852:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Substance E.4852:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I really think that with Druid coming, that this trait should definitely be swapped. So 10% of Power becomes Healing Power. Then you could go more damage gear wise and still get a decent amount of Healing Power.

It is more helpful for all builds rather than healing power becoming power.

Won’t be nearly enough from the sounds of it.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Celestial Avatar healing is the best available by a decent margin right now. One issue that came up is that the healing coefficients are so insignificant that running with healing stats yields very little reward.

The best healing in the game being available without using any healing power; this is not good for the game.

We are on the road to having zerker druid be less useful than it already is. Not more unfortunately…

Yeah, if they add more damage maybe not. But either way, if the heals get dropped base and increase the healing power scaling then this change to IR would really help out. You would be able to run only zealots armor (15% crit damage drop) with zerk trinkets and still have 700 healing power. Which should be enough to heal reasonably well, plus you have the other support. Not only with Druid, but it helps roaming builds and all builds that use Nature Magic, in fact. All these traits should scale off a Primary stat.

My point is that they want the Druid to spec for healing. They clearly do not want a druid build to have the same offensive capability a vanilla ranger will while still maintaining a solid level of ally healing.

Expecting them to give it to you is a pipe dream at best.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

If you want to focus on being the top offense then you probably shouldn’t be selecting the Druid specialization.

Ofc it will not have the same offensive capability, you have to give up a ranger trait line to take it, but it could at least offer some options to add in to a DPS build for greater CC potential that does not waste minor traits that only apply to healing. That is pretty much all I want. I’d like to use something like this, but I really do not want to have my GM Minor trait nearly useless.

I hope its not too late to give more feedback! I assume it isn’t?

Anyway, some extra notes that are more specialized compared to my initial thoughts. I will try to leave out stuff related to generation:

Final Impressions as a Zerk/Cav/cele druid

Overall, I feel the spec feels pretty nice in terms of being able to be a good part of a team outside just being DPS. In all honesty, while I still hope that healing power is upped for druid, I feel this is the one time in a long time where I felt like i could work with other players as a team and not as just some backdancer with a longbow. I am willing to slot more cele and possibly some cleric over cav in my zerk cav build if it means I can maintain some of this feeling.

Glyph/ utility Suggestions

So, I feel a good thing going forward is the consideration of stone signet as a stun break. While I understand it is still a good signet with good invuln, glyphs are difficult to take because of the required nature of signet of stone. This is fine if its left untouched, however.

Its slightly unhealthy to offer glyph of equality as a stun break inside but not outside of druid. This also limits builds moreso than signet of stone as it is a valuable glyph but can’t be sloted in some cases. Glyph of alignment can easily also provide slow/poison to add more to viability. Glyph of Tides is really good, but needs its cast time removed or reduced. Glyph of Empowerment is not good at all; It seriously needs more worthwhile duration and percent. Empowerment on Celestial avatar also would benefit by offering out damage reduction on all sources for 6-7 seconds instead of outgoing healing, similar to protection but not as high in percent value. Glyph of Unity would benefit from this making it usable outside signet of stone.

Trait suggestions

Natural Mender
Increase outgoing healing, power and condition damage whenever you heal an ally (2%, 5, 15 respectively. 10 stack limit)
This offers a compromise to players who spec into druid seeking a hybrid of sorts, but still gives a reason to do the main portion of druid; healing.

Cultivated Synergy
using a Healing Skill heals allies around you and your pet along with cleansing one condition
good trait, needs extra reason to take over Druidic Clarity

Primal Echoes
Reduce Recharge on staff skills. Daze and poison nearby foes when you swap weapons
Offensive option while giving some negative effects to compete with druidic clarity and cultivated synergy.

Ancient Seeds
Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe summons roots to entangle them.
Make the seeds apply poison instead of bleeding.

Lingering Light
Healing an ally creates a wisp that orbits you, heals allies it touches and also applies fury (2s).

While this is still very selfless, this offers the druid non healbar related support.

While this may not be much, it could push druid into a place where many will consider it for different reasons.

Traits!

Druidic Clarity

• Resistance (5s) – When exiting CAF. So the trait would grant an effect upon entering and exiting.

Cultivated Synergy

• Keep the current heal effect, but also add the effect that if your pet has lower health than you, whenever you use a healing skill, the pet is healed for 25% more, but if you have lower health than the pet, you are healed for 10% more. I always had trouble with high vit pets as the heal would be minimal. This could fix it!

Primal Echoes

• Stun if behind the target. Daze front, stun behind. They mentionned they wanted the Druid to focus on positioning. Still applies when exiting CAF with staff equipped.

Celestial Shadow

• Blind (3s) – Either upon entering CAF or Exiting it Very thief-ish… Don’t tell anyone.

Verdant Etching

• 5% Astral Force on Glyph Use – Adds more synergy to the specialisation’s mechanics and its unique skills.

Natural Mender

• Change it to Powerful Mender – Keep the outgoing healing increase, but also add a damage increase of 1% whenever you heal another ally. Keep the max stacks of 10 and the duration to 6s – This would add some punch to the staff auto attack as its almost a permanent healing, and the staff AA is a bit underpowered. The only downside to this effect would be that its pretty much limited to the use of the staff.

Grace of the Land

• Stability 3s – Oh yeah. Whenever you heal, you gain stability. – Much like the engineer’s ‘Juggernaut’, this skill would grant you a pulsing stability (2 stacks) of 3s every 3s when you heal.Cannot apply more than once every 3s.
  The staff would be optimized for this one, but If you REZZ PLAYERS. It would proc. So basically, you would be non-CC-able while rezzing. Would proc on Healing Skills too for some nice stability on demand.
• To balance this potentially AWESOME effect, lower the incoming condition damage reduction to like… 25%?

There is a lot of negativity on the forums so I just wanted to say thank you for creating what I think is a very fun to play specialization in the Druid. As a ranger main, I am very pleased by what I saw in the beta weekend.

In fact, I liked Druid so much I spammed it all weekend, playing nearly 40 PvP matches and several hours of WvW and PvE.

While there are obviously some bugs and issues that could/should be addressed for launch, I think the overall design of the Druid, focusing around CC and burst healing in Celestial Avatar, is a lot of fun to play and brings cool new dynamic to the game.

Thanks again for all your hard work!

Irenio is my spirit animal.

I mean sure there’s a lot of balance and tweaks but I’m overall pretty happy with what we got.

And just like most ranger skill effects/animations, I freakin’ love the Druid’s Skill Animations and Effects! And sound effects too ahaha (Minus the AUTO ATTACK ahaha)

But the CAF and its skills are super nice and the plant-based attacks are sexy as heck

I agree, very well done to Irenio on both elite specs.

Druid is exactly what Ranger needed, and while there is still some tweaks needed, I am very happy with what we got, and optimistic for the future of the profession.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Druid-Feedback

Sorry I felt it was a bit too long to take up space here. Thank you for listening to our feedback.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’d like to use something like this, but I really do not want to have my GM Minor trait nearly useless.

Adding in a 10-15% damage bonus against immobilized targets on Ancient Seeds would provide a lot of synergy.

We have plenty of immob application options and it would stack with Predator’s Onslaught for solid burst capability at the expense of damage from either Skirmishing or Beastmastery being absent.

While I don’t think the Druid needs more damage per se, I do agree wholeheartedly that it does need more synergy with the class as a whole.

Hi there!

Firstly, I have been looking forward to the release of this beta class so much. I’ve got to say, thank you for your ideas in this mastery. Thank you for putting some thought and time into the Ranger and attempting to give it more versatility. There’s still work to be done, but it is a fantastic take on an aspect of nature, not yet touched on in Guild Wars 2. I spent all the time I had this weekend on the Druid and tested it in several areas, but mostly in WvW, so I’ll address my findings in segments.

STYLE:
The all-around look of the Druid was a pleasant surprise stylistically. The sounds are beautiful and its skills are just gorgeous! But the look of the character while in celestial avatar form could use a bit of a makeover. It ended up looking a little blah, which was disappointing because of my excitement. This is the best place for honesty though, because I plan to play this as my main once HoT is live. And if it’s something that bothers me, I really think I may not be the only one who has this in mind. So… I hope that you look into a makeover for the Druid’s celestial look. Even the Necromancer while in death or reaper shroud looks more amazing, and they’re calling on the powers of death. Shouldn’t the powers of the celestial avatar look less like the Silver Surfer? If the focus of the form itself is going to be healing and support, then maybe it could look a little more daytime celestial like the Celestial Dye. It doesn’t necessarily have to look like the black screen of a planetarium, as you already have a dark theme going with the Necromancer. This seems like it should play on the opposite theme, even closer to the way a star looks from here on Earth. Maybe more sparkly? Shiny? Something? Also, holding the staff like a hammer is a little strange. I don’t know if the Revenant staff stance was copied to save time, but it did seem a bit off to carry it around like it was so heavy.

MOBILITY – SUPPORT IN WVW:
As I played, it became more obvious to me that the Druid was meant to be up close and personal when doing most of its healing. If that is not the case, then it needs some serious re-working on the ranged heals. The melee-ranged heals are the only ones that are worth the limited time on your celestial. Which brings up another point… the form needs to last much longer. Although I know that this isn’t supposed to be an exact opposite of the Necromancer…. I feel like it should be. So, the Necromancer can spend much of its time in its shroud, which is its most damaging state, if traited that way. I believe what the Druid needs is just as much ability of healing and support as shrouds are for damage and CC. In general, the ranged healing is not strong enough to be useful, even when you are full cleric’s heal spec. Either that, or they are meant to make you get so annoyed with how little they heal that they make you want to be up close to your allies.

Examples: Ancestral Grace: re-positions you to your allies, again in melee-range (a nice skill by the way). Astral Beam: the healing on this is so weak even at max range, it makes you feel the need to get closer to your allies. This means that in order to be effective with its healing, the Druid must become a completely different class and give up any other niceties that a ranger has possessed previously, such as high power or high precision. Instead it must become a wet-noodle, solely focused on support and defense. The problem with this? The Druid lacks innate stability in its own mastery.

BIGGEST PROBLEM NOTED BY DRUID PLAYERS (LACK OF STABILITY):
In order to acquire enough stun breakers to get yourself out of trouble just to be able to do your job as a melee healer, you must also give up better skills to keep yourself alive in the melee range. I found that the only stabilities I could get were the elite shout “Rampage as One!”, or the Signet of the Wild. Neither of those are suited for a supportive healer. Those are damage-based skills, and when you’re not set up for influential damage, they are selfish ways to keeping up with your allies, causing at least two skill slots to be wasted on personal gain, neither of which will break you out of stuns. “Rampage as One!” is still was better than no stability, which means a Druid would rather run a selfish stability that doesn’t belong in their support bar instead of that neat “Glyph of Unity” as an elite. The glyphs provided to a Druid are far better in theory as a support, but if nothing changes in the way of stability, what’s the point in choosing support skills when you keep getting knocked around and cannot use them anyway? Other stability-lacking challenges include having to run “Lightning Reflexes” to supplement as a stun breaker, but this moves you away from your allies which is counter productive. “Signet of Stone” is not a stun breaker, but because of the lack of other protective skills against stuns, you feel that in the mid- to front-line, you still need it just to stay where you need to be. This leaves you with only one of the new glyph skills feeling useful, and that is the “Glyph of Equality”, one where you must make it into celestial avatar form to use as a stun breaker.

A FAIR SOLUTION TO THE LACK OF STABILITY:
Please give the Druid stability while in celestial avatar form or a way to obtain it. Necromancers have a skill that pumps stability while in their new reaper shroud. This makes them able to stay upright during their most devastating times. As a celestial avatar, (basically the opposite of death and darkness), the Druid should be able to keep upright during their most supportive times. Providing a stun breaker trait option when entering that form would also be fair. Please give them a way to support in this close range. Stability is a must.

GENERAL FUNCTIONALITY
This is in close relation to the lack stability, but even when your healing power is above 1200, something about the healing on this class is not in good synergy with its positioning. The Druid seems to be having an identity crisis. Based on the numbers, it seems to favor melee-ranged heals over ranged, but many of its own skills fight and don’t play nice with each other. And the auto-attack heal is very small.

STAFF SKILLS
Astral Beam
This heal is not much. It scales the farther you are away, which is an okay idea, but only if the Druid was meant to heal at range. Again, here is that synergy problem. Is the staff for healing or CC? It certainly doesn’t have condition damage as its base. If the staff is meant for both healing and CC, there is nothing on this auto-attack skill that does anything well. It doesn’t damage for much, it doesn’t heal for much, and it doesn’t CC. If Astral Beam is supposed to heal for more than it damages, then there should be more ranged healing skills to work well as a partnership, and there aren’t. If Astral Beam is supposed to damage more based on its longer range, then there is nothing else on the staff that is worth using as a dps spec on it, because it doesn’t do nearly as much damage as the longbow or even the axe.

~Possible Solution: This would blend better with the rest of its melee support skills: making it an aoe small heal with a similar animation effect as a guardian staff would also solidify its place as a supportive melee weapon instead of trying to pretend that it’s a good replacement for the longbow in damage.

Astral Wisp
This skill was something I liked. Again, the healing and damage could improve, but since it was able to be used at long range or up close, it was still more helpful than Astral Beam, and it provided a good source for building up astral force.

Ancestral Grace
This skill was beautifully designed. It healed for little if you weren’t spec’d as full healing, but the main strength that it had was the ability to re-position yourself at a far range. As the Druid lacks in way of stability, I would like to see this skill remove immobilize because even the greatsword Swoop doesn’t remove it, but I will understand if you don’t do this if you provide the Druid with another route of stability and/or stun breaking.

Vine Surge
This skill is great. You still have to think and position it correctly, so its effects are quite fair and useful.

Sublime Conversion
This skill is also quite neat. The idea that it would heal instead of reflecting or just blocking is very cool. The healing, as said before, needs a boost though, and the position of the healing water is not aimed well. It hardly ever is useful as anything but a block, but even as such, it looks great and can function adequately.

CELESTIAL AVATAR SKILLS
This form in general needs to last longer, not just provide stability somewhere. The player’s healing should be passively boosted while in celestial avatar form or increase the amount of healing done by each skill.

Cosmic Ray
I found myself wasting a lot of my celestial avatar time just attempting to position these skills correctly, as the radius was far too small, and the healing was not significant enough. It would be good to see the healing of this get boosted, even if the damage doesn’t, since celestial avatar seems to be more about the support and CC than it is about damage. The radius should be closer to that of Lunar Impact. This was basically the Astral Beam of the celestial avatar form, needing just as much change to it as the staff skill I talked about.

Seed of Life
This was decent. I found it very useful, and giving us a trait to plant one of these upon using each glyph was also helpful. Functionality-wise, it’s wonderful! However, please… PLEASE change the way it looks. Some of us agree that it looks like the earth turned over and decided to start pushing out a real number 2 (and no that’s not a skill name this time.) Please use whatever coding you had for Sylvari turrets/blossoms as a base. It really looks gross and far from anything to do with celestial goodness.

Lunar Impact
The radius on this was good. The daze was good. The healing, well… I think you get the idea after I’ve stressed it so much.

Rejuvenating Tides
Ah, the Druid’s one “burst” heal is in average standing, considering that it has to be blasted by others. If the passive healing was boosted while in celestial avatar form, this would make for its most impressive skill and it would really help a lot.

Natural Convergence
This is one of those skills that you are massively lucky if you even get to pull it off. Without stability, it is easily interrupted. Attempting this skill was just not smart, given that it did little to no slowing on its enemies and by the time you were able to cast it without moving, most enemies had moved out of the way. It became a skill that was wasteful of your limited time in celestial avatar form.

Possible Solution: Make it a mobile skill? Or perhaps reversing its effects would help make this more worth the time and the long cool down? You could make it immobilize any non-stable enemies within range and upon the end of the cast, create the slowing effect, because slowing your enemy while you, yourself cannot move at all or use any other skill is pointless if not suicide. It’s like creating a further reason for enemies to focus you while you can’t do anything but stand still and they can at least use skills. (Again, a just synergy problem.)

GLYPHS
Glyph of Rejuvenation
This skill seemed to be worth it when using the trait that allowed for condition removal. The healing on it when out of celestial avatar form was adequate. Being able to heal allies for much more than yourself is okay, as you can use Rejuvenating Tides to keep yourself healed.

Glyph of Alignment
Applying conditions such as cripple to your foes is not a bad thing, especially if you can trait for more damage to foes with speed impediments, however again, it needs stability to make the celestial avatar form of this glyph worth keeping on your bar.

Glyph of Equality
This glyph was the only glyph besides the Glyph of Rejuvenation that was worth keeping on the bar, as it stands right now. It was useful both in PvP, PvE, and WvW, but again, you needed other stun breakers while out of celestial avatar form to supplement your own survival in order to make it into that form to use this skill as a support.

Glyph of the Tides
This one had a synergy issue. It seemed like its effects should have been the opposite of what they were (pushing away while in celestial avatar form and protecting your allies, not pulling the enemies in.) This isn’t a big deal though. It was still fun to use.

Glyph of Empowerment
This was not as useful as it sounds. The boost isn’t as useful if you can’t be stable enough to be close to your allies, but like most of the other healing issues this mastery has, it could be an easy fix. It wasn’t as significant of a change to make me want to use this over a stun breaker or signet.

Glyph of Unity
This would have been so much more useful if it was boosted both in damage and in healing. Its effects were so little, that even though it had a small cool down, I found I kept forget to even use it, as it wasn’t as useful as say, Entangle.

TRAITS

Celestial Being (passive)
This one goes without saying anything. It’s obviously a necessity as a Druid.

Cultivated Synergy
This was alright. Again, boost the healing, and it would be more functional.

Druidic Clarity
This skill was nice. I believe though that this is where the window of change could be for stability. Removing all conditions is sure helpful, but using Seeds of Life are good supplements for that. What if you removed less conditions (say, 1-2 instead of 13) and/or broke out of a stun when entering celestial avatar form and had stability somewhere in all of that? As a trait, this would make it necessary to give up Primal Echoes in order to stay stable in celestial avatar form. A fair trade.

Primal Echoes
This was a great way to use the staff offensively. I saw no problems with this, and reducing the staff skills was also a good reason to choose this trait over removing conditions if your focus was more offensive than supportive.

Live Vicariously (passive)
This was a good idea. Again, needs a heal boost, although it could be a minor one for a passive like this.

Celestial Shadow
This one was fun to use, but the stealth was really not that long. Also, because it was based on when your own celestial avatar time was up, others would often reveal themselves, not knowing when the stealth was going to activate, so it became difficult to time for allies.
Possible Solution: Give some sort of indicator that you’re going to be stealthed, like you would hear with a mass invisibility or see with a shadow refuge.

Natural Stride
This was great for roaming and keeping up with other people. If that’s what a player would rather have, it was a strong skill.

Verdant Etching
This was probably the most useful trait of the three in its section, if you were planning to support at the front of a fight or even for yourself. I saw no changes needed. (Except for the look of those “blossoms”!)

Natural Mender
This whole skill needs reworking. There was hardly ever much of a change in these stacks. THIS is where you could put a passive heal boost inside of celestial form. Get rid of the stacks and boost it immediately upon entering the form, so that the heals actually matter as support class and the boost is active in the form.

Ancient Seeds
This was great for offensive play. Even if the Druid decided not to go with staff for dps, this made for a great alternative to the support side and had good synergy with Primal Echoes.

Grace of the Land
This skill was a good protection against conditions. I saw no problems with it, although most of the time, with the ability to remove conditions so often, it had less of an impact on allies than Lingering Light.

Lingering Light
These were useful to build astral force, but as far as supporting as the heal they are advertised as, they really weren’t much. Just a small boost in these, like most of the other heals would be helpful.

PETS
Although for some reason, I had to keep remaking my Druids because my ability to use pets would disappear, and I couldn’t ever use the new pets in PvP, I do like the new pets. I was able to test them in Verdant Brink and WvW. The one thing I do have to say is that the knockback on Electric Wyvern is really difficult to position and make other skills work well with it. It seemed like a knock down would have been more useful, but it’s still a really strong pet either way. Also, the bug on the Bristle Back… (while using Signet of the Wild) it’s adorable, but quite distracting. xD

CONCLUSION:
I feel like I’ve said it too much, but I really haven’t. We get one beta weekend on this Druid, so now is the time for me to give as much feedback as possible. Stability and healing boosts on the Druid are definitely the two main issues we’re all feeling. I’m grateful if you’ve read this far, because the reason I had so many suggestions for change is not because I hate this class. It’s because I LOVE it, and I want to see it be loved just as much by others who have it in their party. I want to see it be used in a more effective way for what it seems like your aim was, which looks like a melee-ranged healer and a CC support. I salute you guys! Lots of us had so much fun testing things and I know I’m looking forward to Heart of Thorns even more because of this mastery.

Adrienne (Nim!)

Thanks for starting this thread, Legally!

My intention this weekend was to test every spec as much as I could. I got about 10 minutes per other spec but Druid hooked me. Everywhere I went. . . I felt like I was having too much fun! I have dreamed of a class like this for such a long time. So thank you Irenio for all your hard work!

I can’t wait to read the write up and see what direction Druid takes next!

Sincerely fangirl for life,
-Me

xD

Irenio, my main wish is for direct or condition damage to regenerate astral force faster so I could feel easy about running the Druid trait line with non-staff weapon sets.

Not sure if Healing Spring/Water Spirit/Spirit of Nature or fern hound regen count as “healing allies” for the sake of generating astral force, as I didn’t think to check with what little time I had to play this weekend. If it’s not already there, it’d be nice to get a pop of astral force when using one of these skills. (Accumulating astral force through Signet of the Wild passive pet regen would be too easy, wouldn’kitten

I have to say I was originally upset by the healing concept, but it’s turning out more fun than I thought it would be. Keep it up.

Solar Beam Graphical Effect

Make it look just like the ‘Spirit of Light’ effect in EotM, but as a straight continuous BEAM. A Pulsing beam that becomes larger with every pulse, and orbiting particles around the beam (see attachment, but picture it as a straight, continuous beam!)

So I normally play a healer main in most other MMOs I play, since I really do like watching and helping other people stay alive (one of the earliest ranger builds i tried was a Cleric support build that turned out to be very weak), and so Druid has me cautiously optimistic.

I ended up playing a lot of my Druid in WvW and Fractals of the Mists, and it could still use some ability to provide boon support to the team, since the spec itself is very limited in Fractals, and generally relegated to only healing and dazing enemies in WvW. Healing by itself, while good, is only half the support a good healer could be throwing out, since preventative measure are just as important as reactionary ones.

I did get in a little bit of time with the Vale Guardian, and I have to say that healing it has been some of the most fun I’ve ever had in Guild Wars 2. I just wish I had a bit more to bring to my group than just that single faucet.

Staff Skills
Staff was fun to use. The width of Solar Beam is actually quite wide, making it pretty useful for AoE damage as long as you could click the right target. However Skill 2 felt particularly weak.

Solar Beam

• Add 1 second of burning to each pulse to facilitate condition builds. Otherwise it feels okay.

Astral Wisp

• Add a boon to the wisp when it passes through allies.
• For example, 3 stacks of might for 3 seconds when the wisp passes through an ally. ICD of 1 second (or other more defensive boons such as Protect and Resistance).

Ancestral Grace

• Fix movement issues.
• Give pets 2 seconds of super speed (and possibly another interaction/buff from the skill).
• Evade frames would be nice on the movement, because you are often caught be damage while traveling.

Vine Surge

• Increase Immobilize duration to 2 seconds, since 1 second feels unrewarding for how difficult it is to hit a moving target.
• Slight increase to damage done.

Sublime Conversion

• Increase duration to 8 seconds.

Celestial Avatar
Overall, I think Celestial Avatar is good as it is, with a few minor gripes that have been stated already in the forum. It could definitely use better scaling with healing power, and better buildup with weapons other than staff.

Cosmic Ray

• Increase radius to 150.
• Reduce projectile fall time to help with healing moving targets.

Seed of Life

• Increase radius to 200.

Lunar Impact

• I think the skill is in a good place, though if you really must reduce the daze, make it 2 seconds instead of 3.

Rejuvenating Tides

• Remove the channel from the skill while keeping the pulsing water field. This would allow it to combo with Lunar Impact for a blast finisher, or use other avatar skills.

Natural Convergence

• Apply 1 second of poison each pulse to hinder enemy healing.
• Slight increase in damage.

Glyphs
I think glyphs were the least impactful of the new skills you get with Druid. Most of them felt underpowered, or unrewarding to use. Since Druid still has very little access to boon support, I feel like Glyphs should provide a bit more to balance out the types of support that it can give, since Druid is suppose to be a support heavy specialization.

• Increase radius on all glyphs to 360 to match Glyph of the Tides (300 feels slightly too short).
• Glyphs become instant cast in Celestial Avatar form (as to not take away from actual avatar skills).

Glyph of Rejuvenation
The heal skill feels like it is in a decent spot, but it still has to compete with WHaO and TU for the same spot. In that case it comes up a bit short in many situations when healing yourself. Its mechanics in avatar feel satisfying though, since it can deliver a nice burst to allies, so perhaps that is it’s real purpose. The pet also needs to heal for the self-heal amount.

• Apply Self-Heal amount to pet on using skill.

Glyph of Alignment
This skill feels extremely weak. The conditions applied to enemies are very short and don’t feel particularly powerful. In avatar, the condition cleanse can also be accomplished by other means (such as seed), the healing can be supplemented (with cosmic or lunar), and so this glyph ultimately feels like a wasted utility slot.

• I have no clue how to improve this glyph.
• Perhaps some boon sharing with allies while in avatar? Stunbreak? I don’t know I’m at a loss here.
• Acts as personal Stunbreak in both forms.
• Increase condition duration to 4 seconds.
• Use in avatar form no longer removes conditions.
• Apply 4 seconds of Resistance and Retaliation in avatar form.

Glyph of Equality
This glyph is probably the most sound of all the glyphs, proving very useful for self defense in both forms. Dazing nearby enemies, while it doesn’t stop them from chasing, helps buy you a bit of breathing room. Paired with a Daze heavy build, it allows the class to output lots of interrupts and short lockdowns on many people. Paired in a healing build, it can save a group from an unfortunate misstep.

• Good as is.

Glyph of Empowerment
While useful, the strength of the skill as it stands right now feels underwhelming, and unnoticeable. Its application in avatar form is also somewhat limiting, since reactionary is a bit less interesting than preventative.

• Increase bonus to 20%. OR Increase duration to 10 seconds. OR Increase bonus to 15% for 8 seconds. or I mean something similar.
• Avatar form causes this skill to decrease damage taken by the bonus amount (which can be used defensively if the players know an attack is coming, which is more fun than just healing more).

Glyph of Tides
It doesn’t seem bad, but it also has limited uses, likely much more useful in PvP. It just feels somewhat barebones for a utility skill.

• Inflict Slow for 1 second to affected enemies.

Glyph of Unity
This glyph feels underpowered, and does not stack up at all against the other elite skill slots. Since rangers lack stability and boon sharing, I feel like this glyph could fulfill those two roles.

• Increase cooldown to 30 or 40 seconds.

Since it feels very limited to the 5 enemies you are tethered to, it feels weaker than retaliation and provides little benefit.

• While tethered to an enemy, the Druid gains 2 seconds of Stability and Retaliation every second.
• While tethered to an enemy, the enemy receives 2 second of Vulnerability and Weakness every second.

This way, it provides a bit more utility when tethered and the stability helps it stand beside Entangle and Rampage as a useful elite.

It could also be more impactful in avatar as well, since basic healing doesn’t exactly feel too great.

• While tethered to an ally, the Druid gains 2 seconds of Stability and Protection every second.
• While tethered to an ally, the ally receives 2 seconds of Protection every second.

This gives some nice defensive ability to allies in situations where lots of damage might be thrown at the group the Druid is supporting, and allowing the Druid to support a bit more through boons (which is still sorely lacks the ability to in the current state).

• If not too powerful, this could also be a prime location to give access to Resistance, which is a very rare boon we seldom see.

Traits
I feel like the traits are in a good place.

Overall I think druid might turn out great. If it were to get a little bit more of non-healing party support, I think druids would fare well in pre-HoT content as well, since Empowerment and the occasional spot heal would do great things to supporting groups alongside Frost Spirit and Spotter.

Spent the majority of the weekend trying to find something to like about the druid. I haven’t, and don’t expect I will.

It addressed absolutely none of the long term concerns the ranger community had, doesn’t fit thematically with the class, and frankly, the game doesn’t need a dedicated healer.

Zoidberg meme goes here: Druid is bad, and you should feel bad.

stale.9785:

Spent the majority of the weekend trying to find something to like about the druid. I haven’t, and don’t expect I will.

It addressed absolutely none of the long term concerns the ranger community had, doesn’t fit thematically with the class, and frankly, the game doesn’t need a dedicated healer.

Zoidberg meme goes here: Druid is bad, and you should feel bad.

I’m guessing without the deadline being end of this month, we’d get something else. I’m so curious as to what held up the Ranger and what was scrapped. This rushed mess just puts us ever further away from being decent.

Thanks OP. I hope Irenio realizes there are many others who enjoy being a healer finally in GW2. I literally played druid all weekend, and felt like gw2 was a new amazing game again, after 3 years of stale BEZERKER META. It truly revitalizes so much. Irenio you are my hero, please read this post because we support your every move.

Jus know that there should be some improvements on the druid, and it’s Celestial avatar state. Like spell 1 cosmic ray, and the second spell.

I am also very happy with ANet and Irenio’s work-I even made a second Ranger just because of the Druid/Ranger combo. I don’t mind that people use Berserker’s (I always made my own groups, and never “invaded” speedruns I wasn’t ready for), and have Berserker’s armor of many of my characters, but am glad ANet made it official that it wasn’t the direction they wanted for their game. Gear diversity will make it fun for many kind of players, opening up team comps (though I assume making your own groups with people you know will always be your best bet). Easily my favorite Specialization addition, along with the Reaper, which I like second best now.

I hope they add new nice Medium Armor skins with this kind of theme moving forwards, though a few of the current sets also fit.

Hi,

General:
Druids Gameplay feels good, much better than I thougth it would after watching the livestream but in my Opinion it has some problems.
Druids are forced to use the staff to generate astral energy, because of the too low generation by attacking with other weapons and no synergy with other healing options base rangers offer like regeneration, pet healing skills/traits (Invigorating Bond) and signet of the wild. Same problem with sigils and runes that provides heal if hit/weapon swap. The fact that you lose all energy if you leave avatar form doesn’t make it better.

Also Rangers have some nice core traits that affect regeneration/ protection or simply buff sharing with your pet. It seems it is not intended to grant boons while playing druid, so these Traits feel no that rewarding if combined.

Playing staff/astral avatar and using glyphs at the same time feels like counterparts. Staff and Avatar Form both offer high range attacks but glyphs have a very short range. Some Traits suffer from the same close range problematic. A solution would be to either increase the range of these skills or make them ground target with 900-1200 range to set the effect more freely.

Glyphs effects are either too similar to each other, to some basic boons, to other ranger skills or simply too weak.Add something to spice them up and differentiate them like regain endurance or 1sec AoE iInvulnerability.

I hope the new pets will be available in sPvP because I couldn’t make them work there.

If you leave Astral form let us keep the remaining energy but let us only activate it at 100%, this would support non staff druids that take longer to build up energy and it would minimal the issue with no damage while in astral form if you can simply leave astral form and use your normal weapons.

Healing Power feels a bit useless. Sure it increases the outgoing healing, but the base healing already is pretty strong. For balancing with faster astral energy generation with attacks base healing should be reduced but scaling with healing power increased.

No avatar skills overview in the heropanel, same problem like necromancer with death shroud. Couldn’t you add these skills in the left panel like you did with the downed skills?

Bug: Sometimes directly after entering avatar I leave it and I don’t know why. I tested this in heart of the mists with the bonfire. I stood in the fire and used avatar to heal myself. Sometimes everything was normal, sometimes I immediately leaved avatar for no reason.

Staff:
Solar Beam:
Should create the beam also without a selected target. It would help to do some cleave damage and heal allies directly. Also more useful against stealthed targets.
The attack range of the beam ends at something like 1300 but the heal range is much longer than that. I can heal allies that are at the other end of the map, if I have a target selected.

The beam travels sometime through objects so I can heal allies that are behind the wall if I have selected their target.

Can be casted near your pet/ally to fill the astral force even if there is no healing done.

Astral Wisp:
I would prefer if it would be ground targeted, so I can choose to support allies at melee or range.

Ancestral Grace:
Evade while in wisp form would greatly support this skill.

The wisp could travel like a arrow (like arrow of infiltration), so you can reach allies on some higher spots that need the healing of the skill.

It roots you at the target location if you travel less than the max range. So you cant move/evade/attack but you still can take damage.

Vine Surge:
Same casttime like muddy terrain but the animation is far more obvious so it can be easily interrupted.

It is pretty hard to hit distant targets. The vines travel pretty slowly so enemies can easily walk away. Increase the travel speed of the vines or make it V-shaped to the end.

The 1 sec immobilize fells pretty short it should be increased to 2 seconds like muddy terrain if hit.

Sublime Conversion:
Works well for missile protection and even if its missing in the skills description it’s a waterfield.
Synergizes well with ancestral grace.

Celestial Avatar:
Cosmic Ray:
A basic small aoe heal. I barely use it, because it is hard to hit moving targets. I would wish for it to also heal downed allies like battle standard so I can revive someone with cosmic rays from a distance. It would also help to make the auto-attack more unique maybe lower the healing in return.

Seed of Life:
Nice heal, but I love it for the AoE condition remove. The ability to cast this spell if I use a glyph in combination with the low cooldown of the glyphs helps to reduce the condition pressure of your team
I personally don’t like the look of the seed, in my opinion it looks more like something that would cause conditions and poison someone.

Lunar Impact:
I totally love this skill, even if the blast finisher in the description seems not to be working.

Combined with moment of clarity it is a 6 second daze enough to revive your downed ally or the enemy has to use a stunbreak.

As much as I love the long aoe daze combined with the strong heal I think the daze is too long and should be lowered to 2.5secons daze or even 2 seconds or lower the healing of this skill and add more healing to skill 1,2 or 4 in comparsion.

Rejuvenating Tides:
A strong close range aoe heal with a mobile waterfield. The cherry on top would be if the waterfield lasts a bit longer than the cast so you have the chance to blast it by yourself with ancestral grace or lunar impact.

Natural Convergence:
A Skill I also like, its good to reduce the damage of enemies around you and to reduce their mobility.
The range is also ok, but I suggest to make it ground target while channeling with a 1200 range so I can support frontliners by slowing enemies from a distance.

Traits:
Celestial Being:
Adds the Celestial mechanic, staff and glyphs. But currently only a staff can fill this bar and the staff fills this bar in seconds if not less. All other weapons fill this bar in minutes. I can understand that the avatar should be accessed with staff more easily but that huge gap between staff and other weapons discourages to use the elite line with anything else than a staff. Other classes can use their new class mechanic without the new weapon too. Why are druids forced that strong to use staff if they wanna use the avatar?

Druidic Clarity:
Nice but I would suggest to add a stunbreak if you enter avatar form, cause druids are currently lacking access to stunbreak while not in avatar.

Cultivated Synergy:
Nice Idea the range seems a bit small, should be increased to match with Invigorating Bond. But what a druid currently isn’t lacking are heals. It could be nice for a druid who plays something else than staff and has no access to the staffs healing.

Primal Echoes:
An other stun to buy time, good for stunlock druids. Nice that you set the cooldown to 8seconds so we can use them with warrior runes. Currently dazes if you swap to stuff but also if you enter avatar form while wielding a staff.

Live Vicariously:
Should work with regeneration, too.

Celestial Shadow:
Should trigger if you enter avatar form so you can cast a strong heal without you or the wounded ally being focused, thanks to no damage on avatar skills that could reveal you. Also enables to get faster in healing range because of super speed or gives wounded allies the possibility to retreat. If you leave avatar form you was either able to heal your allies or you failed and they died, so not really use for stealth/speed after avatar.

Verdant Etching:
Nice AoE Condi Remove, even stronger if combined with the short glyph cooldowns. Leave this as it is now.

Natural Stride:
Good as it is now.

Natural Mender:
Good Skill, but currently you can stack this before battle with staff autoattack by either attacking something far out of range, even if the attack doesn’t hit anything or by atoattacking in a fully healed ally like your pet. It should only grant a stack if you really heal something like your pet, ally or yourself.

Grace of the Land:
Nice Skill, but like other skills of the druid too less range. Other skills like this like spotter or vampiric aura have 600 range. It is strong sure but because of that it is a grandmaster.

Lingering Light:
The Wisp should heal you for some amount too. Feels a little bit boring cause it is just the staff 2 skill.

Ancient Seeds:
A nice single target immobilize similar to entangle without direct damage. Thanks Arenanet that this works while downed too.

Glyphs:
Missing Skilldescription if not equipped, if equipped a description what the glyph does in normal/avatar form at the same time would be nice, similar to elementalist glyphs. Eles can see what the glyph does in an other element without swapping to that element. If it is too much text at once maybe change the description if you rightclick the glyph similar to traits like evasive arcana.

All Glyphs suffer because of their very small range, staff and celestial avatar both have 1200 range so glyphs that effect the area very close to you feel somehow useless. Increase the range of the glyphs to maybe 600 or let the effect area be the same but make them ground target with 900-1200 range.

Glyph of Rejuvenation:
Add a pet base heal so it can be healed even if 5 players are around
I think the celestial variant has some nice burst heal possibilitys even if I barely used it yet cause the normal celestial avatar heals are most time enough. So I prefer troll urgent or heal as one, they offer a better pet heal. For Group heal I prefer the healing spring with the long lasting water field that can be blasted perfectly if the blast finisher of lunar impact would work. I would suggest a cooldown reduction to be in a better spot compared to these skills or increase the healing to allies.

Glyph of Alignment:
The normal version currently feels pretty useless. Some cripple and weakness is nice to prevent damage but that’s not enough compared to other skills I could choose. I would suggest to add a blind to this skill.
Celestial form is nice but feels like it is half Glyph of Alignment and half Glyph of equality
More difference would be nice. Maybe removes all condition that deal damage even if I think that could be too strong. So it could randomly remove 2 damage dealing conditions?

Glyph of Equality:
Nice glyph in normal form and nice glyph in celestial form. I like the condition remove in celestial form in addition to the aoe stunbreak but I think that makes this glyph to equal to glyph of alignment. I would let remove this glyph all movement impairing conditions, blinds and slow.
Please let it be a personal stunbreak in normal mode, you can already use it while stunned but it doesn’t stunbreak and if playing with pure glyphs you are currently lacking a stunbreak.

Glyph of Empowerment:
I think a percentage increase would cause ridiclious spike possibilitys and be too similar to frost spirit. I personally would prefer to let attacks be unblockable for the skills duration since mesmers well of precognition no longer offers this bonus.
In Celestial form I think the healing bonus is nice it allows you to reach even higher healing numbers and allows other healers the same but I doubt there will ever be an other healer in a group except raids maybe. An alternative would be to get a damage mitigation that stacks with frost aura and protection to let your group survive burst damage. But healing increase is also fine.

Glyph of the Tides:
Push and Pull, Good as it is now, even if it feels similar to Glyph of Equality in normal form. Maybe chill enemies in addition to the knockback/pull?

Glyph of Unity:
I liked that it could hit stealthed foes, but that’s all.
Its normal mode feels pretty weak and much too similar to retaliation and retaliation will in most cases deal more damage. Foes should really consider if they would like to focus you while this effect is active. It should be something like 30% of incoming damage and condition damage is shared with foes tethered to you.
So a burst in the wrong moment can easily kill your own group if you attack a druid in the wrong moment. I think an elite skill should be somehow powerfull, currently it feels so weak its way behind other elite skills.
Same Feeling with the celestial version. It’s a nice passive additional heal but that’s all. Maybe change it to 30% of healing you or a tethered ally receive is shared with the others.

Or add a unique mechanic that if you cast a glyph while tethered to a foe/ally glyphs grant bonus effects to you and the tethered foe/ally, so it would synergize with other glyphs and define your playstyle more.

Glyph of Rejuvenation:
If cast while tethered to an foe/ally apply 4sec of weakness/vigor to you and the tethered foe/ally

Glyph of Alignment:
If cast while tethered to an foe/ally apply 2sec of imobilize/resistance to you and the tethered foe/ally.

Glyph of Equality:
If cast while tethered to an foe/ally apply 5sec of slow/3sec quickness to you and the tethered foe/ally.

Glyph of Empowerment:
If cast while tethered to an foe/ally apply 3stacks of vulnerability for 6sec/3sec protection to you and the tethered foe/ally.

Glyph of the Tides:
If cast while tethered to an foe/ally apply 3sec of chill/regeneration to you and the tethered foe/ally.

I could live with a much higher cooldown of glyph of unity if these changes would be made. Currently its best purpose is to use it as aoe condi remove if combined with verdant etching because of its short cooldown.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Thanks for the tremendous amount of feedback regarding the Druid. I’ll be modifying swaths of the druid (and scrapper) to fix bugs and account for your feedback this week and reviewing things like glyphs effectiveness, celestial avatar skill differentiation, astral force charging rates and some of the staff skills.

In general the Celestial Avatar form’s base heals feel a bit too high and heal coefficients didn’t feel rewarding enough to go with healpower stats. The heals themselves seemed to be working at decent values, so I’ll be tweaking the base heals down and coefficients up some in order to better reward selecting healing power stat combos as a druid.

Hello Irenio. Thanks for the feedback. It is nice to see most of our points were heard. Looking forward to reading your updates concerning Druid changes. I am sure that with the proper tweaks it can make for an interesting dual gameplay (although I will always remain a ranger at heart and as main for RP reasons).

Also, please consider healing x UI questions too, that have the potential of making strong healer builds great or broken. And submit them to the appropriate designer/developer amongst your colleagues

Hi there,

As already mentioned in this thread there is a lack of synergy between the Druid traits and the rangers pet. Furthermore pets have problems surviving in WvW,Fractals ect

A solution could be to add a trait to druid that also has a effect on the pet something like:

When your pet takes a fatal blow the damage is ignored and your pet uses Ancestral Grace (staff 3 skill) to come back to you. (25 sec cd)
Your pet active skill f2 creates a wisp (like astral wisp) that souround it healing allies and itself(25 sec cd)

(or add the effect to an existing trait )
Just a suggestion tho

Thanks OP for starting this. I have mained ranger since launch, and this is a very nice, fun, and welcome option. I loved the Druid this weekend and cannot wait to play it in HoT. Great job Irenio!

Mained a ranger since just after launch and still enjoying it, I played through each elite spec except ele and always came back to Druid. While i would love to see more synergy with the current traitlines I think this is a well built elite spec and i’ve enjoyed playing it.

Yep, Druid is very enjoyable and I missed it when the beta was over. Didn’t even have to use it as a healer.

The negativity and salt are probably because this is the first time in 3 years that a dev has been sent to communicate with Rangers on their forum and ask for feedback. There is also the rush of having to get everything right in only 1 BWE instead of 3 like some other classes have had.

I want +30% Pet damage buff(physic and condi) +20% base pets run speed +30% attack speed when you are in celestial Avatar + all pets attacks Cleave 5 targets.

That will be fare and well rewarding for being in “healermode”.

ATM in pvp, even with healing stats like now, when i fight against druid: he has LB/GS/whatever… he can be dangerous, so i have co keep concentrated to not lose!
When he switch to Avatar: Ha!!! now i got you, damage-less trashCan! 1cc Chain and druid dead, because Staff and Avatar have no saves at all! Even revenant have CC and Block on Staff as healer.
Ranger made that way, that EVERY weapon set have Defense or CC(Sword,axe,dagger,) abilities or both(Lb,GS,SB). That’s what allow ranger to survive in fights. It’s core mechanic of ranger..

Druid went above and beyond my expectations for it pre-reveal. I never thought I’d be playing a full on healer again since leaving my Cleric in Aion, but Druid is such a blast to play. I feel once it’s gotten the right tweaks and fixes it will be even more fun. While the focus of the traitline lies with its support-type nature, I can also see some dps builds picking this up for PvE/PvP/WvW, because of useful traits that offer a full condi clear, pretty much perma boonless swiftness, and a smaller scale version of Entangle with only a 10s CD.

I think we’re happy with all the stuff Irenio has done for us so far.

But teasing us with dev contact after so many years of neglect and silence has made us impatient and anxious.

And hungry for more.

FEED US.

F5 F5 F5 F5 …

i heave to say thanks to irenio aswell, that’s the best ever could happen to ranger players, well done

now just please don’t touch the druid trait line negative

most of the traits work well on different builds.
especially all the middle ones are verry useful.

Thank you for this specialization Irenio!

Your class design surpassed everything I have been hoping for. It’s innovative and truly refreshing. I hope it won’t change too much between this beta weekend and release.

I had a blast in WvW, playing a true healer changes everything (video in signature).

Now I want to play this class so bad that waiting for the 23rd is a torture

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

Thank you!

Zalani.9827:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

Thank you!

I like the auto-attack animation where the laser shoots from the top of the staff. I don’t want the laser to shoot from the hand. I don’t like how they bend their knees while attacking though.

I just don’t like the idle animation holding it like a hammer:
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cfaa8Glamour-2.jpg
But I guess I could live with it.

Thank you irenio!

I was smiling the whole time while playing my druid in beta this weekend

Holland.9351:

Zalani.9827:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

Thank you!

I like the auto-attack animation where the laser shoots from the top of the staff. I don’t want the laser to shoot from the hand. I don’t like how they bend their knees while attacking though.

I just don’t like the idle animation holding it like a hammer:
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cfaa8Glamour-2.jpg
But I guess I could live with it.

You do know that you can click on his name and quote him directly right.
Staff 1 is about the only animation I liked for staff.

Dealing with the Ranger community is not easy to start with, to say the least. On top of that, Druid is supposed to introduce a new way to break the “zerker meta” mold. Thank you for being so patient and attentive throughout this BW3 to our concerns and suggestions.

There are indeed some rather good and constructive suggestions given from those very dedicated Ranger players who want nothing more than seeing their favorite class reaching its full potential. We therefore look forward to seeing the final version of Druid at launch.

Meanwhile, if there are plans for a BW4 (or other similar activities) for testing the Druid class, please let us know. We would be most delighted to continue to contribute more.

Zalani.9827:

Holland.9351:

Zalani.9827:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

Thank you!

I like the auto-attack animation where the laser shoots from the top of the staff. I don’t want the laser to shoot from the hand. I don’t like how they bend their knees while attacking though.

I just don’t like the idle animation holding it like a hammer:
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cfaa8Glamour-2.jpg
But I guess I could live with it.

You do know that you can click on his name and quote him directly right.
Staff 1 is about the only animation I liked for staff.

I, on the other hand, think animation of Staff 1 looks like someone trying to scrub the bird-poo off the roof of his/her car.

I only recently notice the animation of Greatsword 1 on a Charr Mesmer. I suppose Druid Staff 1 can look something similar to that.

interesting realization

if healing changes go through, Healbot Druid will likely be expected by many guilds/groups to have full healing ascended armor, trinkets, and weapons, and be flamed if they don’t, just to participate in raids. The only other mode where you can use gear like that will be zerg frontline WvW.

That kind of gear investment just for those two things seems like a huge waste of time, money and resources.

Oh My God.8423:

Oh Oh OH! I just have an idea regarding adding condition damage to Staff 1:

Instead of, for example, burn a target regularly on each pulse, it burns a target IF Cosmic Ray actually heal an ally on that pulse?

It adds a layer of positioning to the gameplay.

So if Cosmic Ray ONLY hits a foe, it applies a flat damage per pulse, perhaps similar to what it is now. BUT IF it hits a foe AND an ally, Cosmic Ray applies burning per pulse. It can even be per number of stacks of burning per ally hit.

This could add some strategic positioning to using Staff and make the (rather small) healing portion of Cosmic Ray means something more. It incentivise a Staff Druid to make the most of its (constant but little) “maintenance” healing outside Celestial Avatar.

I think at the moment, we want the druid to be LESS reliant on needing allies around to be effective. Your idea is creative, but a step in the wrong direction

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

In general the Celestial Avatar form’s base heals feel a bit too high and heal coefficients didn’t feel rewarding enough to go with healpower stats. The heals themselves seemed to be working at decent values, so I’ll be tweaking the base heals down and coefficients up some in order to better reward selecting healing power stat combos as a druid.

Thx, Irenio, I really appreciate this. This should be an Overall makeover of skills and traits that give some healing.

Regeneration is fine, no changes needed there.
As well for Healing-Skills. They should be decent for each profession without Healing Power but should scale with it. Most Healing skills scale with a coefficient of 1, and I think, ist ok for whis (there are exceptions like Troll Unguent or such skills, but it’s finde overall IMO)

But for all other traits and skills that provide some healing, I think it should scale much better, so that you feel rewarded if you take some HP increase in your stats.

I know ist possible, ist already done for Necro in traits like “Life dfrom Death” or “Transfusion” which scale very well with HP. Same should be done for Druid skills.

For example Lunar Impact. Actual it has a base heal of something like 2950 IIRC.
This should be tuned down to 1500 healing and increase the scaling with healing power to 2-2,5. In that case, you feel rewarding, when you go for HP with 1000 and you see “wow, I can heal for 3500 now instead of 1500, cause i have invested 1000 attribute points into HP”
In that case, the 1500 is not bad as a base heal, it’s a nice boost for ppl are not playing with HP and such who do, can heal for more.

Pls discuss this intern with all devs, to bring the healing power attribute in line with other ones (like condition dmg) and make it a reason to skill =)

The Druid will probably find a niche in PvE raid healing, maybe in some WvW larger scale fights where it doesnt matter what you bring to the blobfest. Not sure about GvG, what would you drop?

But for small man it is never going to displace or even compete with the support a Guardian brings to the table. It really isnt even in the same league, support is about providing boons for your group, group condi control, and healing. These 3 make up the core of what a support Guard brings to the table. The Druid brings healing, and not much else, his boon provision for the group is sub par and his condi removal for the group is woeful.

Not to mention riding a support guardian down is tough work. Whereas a glyph Druid, training him down not so tough, poor condi cleanse, no stability. I ran signets on my Druid build to somewhat try and alleviate these problems but even then the long cool downs meant i still had serious issues.

Hard pressed to even think when you would want a Druid, I think at any point you are better off picking up a secondary support Guard. More group protection uptime, more group stability uptime, the single most important boon ever and even more condi control. Which given how the current WvW meta is, you can never have too much of.

Zatoichi.1049:

Oh My God.8423:

Oh Oh OH! I just have an idea regarding adding condition damage to Staff 1:

Instead of, for example, burn a target regularly on each pulse, it burns a target IF Cosmic Ray actually heal an ally on that pulse?

It adds a layer of positioning to the gameplay.

So if Cosmic Ray ONLY hits a foe, it applies a flat damage per pulse, perhaps similar to what it is now. BUT IF it hits a foe AND an ally, Cosmic Ray applies burning per pulse. It can even be per number of stacks of burning per ally hit.

This could add some strategic positioning to using Staff and make the (rather small) healing portion of Cosmic Ray means something more. It incentivise a Staff Druid to make the most of its (constant but little) “maintenance” healing outside Celestial Avatar.

I think at the moment, we want the druid to be LESS reliant on needing allies around to be effective. Your idea is creative, but a step in the wrong direction

But Druid, or Staff Druid, itself is designed to have allies around to realise its full potential. Is it not?

One can of course solo with a Staff Druid and be DPS effective. But does that contravene the philosophy behind Druid?

Please do not get me wrong: I would LOVE to see Staff 1 doing burn damage. After all I like condition damage build way more than power based build. I am in fact currently running an A/T burning sinister Ranger and I love it every moment. But choosing between having burn damage because of doing auto-attacks or having burn damage because of taking advantage of the supportive nature of Staff, I would choose the latter because it makes using Staff supportively more rewarding for both the Druid and its allies.

Hey everyone! I thought I would post some ideas for some changes for the druid specialization. I enjoyed playing the class but it defiantly could use some major tweeking and uniqueness to it. It defiantly should be considered as more as a hybrid class than mostly a healing class as there are a majority of players that would like a balance between both offensive and supportive. Below are some ideas to make the druid a bit better in some little way possible. Hopefully this gets looked at and I defiantly appreciate the feedback, as I too will change some of the stuff here I’ve posted if anything seems out of place or too strong. Thanks in advance! ?

*

Staff

Solar Beam: Increase damage by 10%. 66% chance to inflict 2s of burning during the day.

Astral Wisp: The wisp also grants 5s of swiftness on the way back. Increase damage by 10%. Increase cooldown from 8s > 12s.

Ancestral Grace: Now deals damage on impact.

Vine Surge: Increase damage by 50%. Immobilize lasts longer, from 1s > 3s.The vines path now stays in the world for 3s, immobilizing foes that walk through it for 1s.

Sublime Conversion: Increased duration from 25 >30. You now shroud yourself with nature armor that causes enemy projectiles to heal upon impact. 3s duration. You may shatter this armor to extend around you into a barrier that heals you and allies from enemy projectiles upon impact. Radius 240. The barrier lasts 3s.

*
GLYPHS

Glyph of Rejuvenation (non-celestial): No change
Glyph of Rejuvenation (Celestial Avatar): No change

Glyph of Alignment (non-celestial): Increase damage by 10%. Unblockable. Changed animation to look as vines erupting from the ground; inspired by the nightmare tree from twilight arbor.
Glyph of Alignment (Celestial Avatar): No change

Glyph of Equality (non-celestial): Increase damage by 10%
Glyph of Equality (Celestial Avatar): No change

Glyph of the Tides (non-celestial): Increase damage by 10%
Glyph of the Tides (Celestial Avatar): Increase damage by 10%

Glyph of Empowerment (non-celestial): Increase outgoing damage of nearby allies. Grants allies Fury, Retaliation and x3 stacks of Might for 6s.
Glyph of Empowerment (Celestial Avatar): Increase outgoing healing of nearby allies. Grants allies Regeneration, Vigor and Resistance for 6s.

Glyph of Unity (non-celestial): Increase damage by 10%
Glyph of Unity (Celestial Avatar): No change

*
Celestial Avatar Form

Cosmic Ray: Now deals damage.

Seed of life: Summon a seed that heals and cleanses nearby allies of conditions when it blossoms. Starsurge: Deals damage to a foe. You gain stacks astral communion whenever you use starsurge up to a maximum of 5. When you reach 5 stacks, your next starsurge deals more damage, heals you for more. Has a 3s cooldown.

Lunar Impact: Now deals damage on impact.

Rejuvenating Tides: No change

Natural Convergence: Increase damage by 10%

*

Traits

Minor Adept – Celestial Being

MAJOR ADEPT – Cultivated Synergy: No change
MAJOR ADEPT – Druidic Clarity: Combined with the Grace of the Land Grandmaster trait. (NEW) Druidic Clairty: Entering Celestial form grants quickness for 3s and immunity to blindness for 3s.
MAJOR ADEPT – Primal Echoes: Reduces recharge of staff skills. Daze nearby foes when you swap to staff. Changed to whenever you swap your weapon.

Minor Master – Live Vicariously: moved into Natural Mender. NEW TRAIT occupying slot is Natural Mender: When you heal an ally, you are also healed. Also, Increase outgoing healing whenever you heal another ally.

MAJOR MASTER – Celestial Shadow: No change
MAJOR MASTER – Verdant Etching: Increased seed skill form 180 > 300.
MAJOR MASTER – Natural Stride:moved to Minor Grandmaster trait. NEW TRAIT Balance of Power: Gain power based on your healing power. (Healing converted into Power: 4%) Gain healing power based on your power (Power converted into Healing: 4%).

Minor Grandmaster – Natural Stride: Reduces the duration of movement-impairing conditions. Your movement speed is increased as long as you have none of these conditions: Immobilize, Crippled and Chilled.

MAJOR GRANDMASTER – Grace of the Land: While you are a celestial avatar, your allies gain reduced incoming condition damage. (Added) Becoming celestial avatar removes conditions from you.
MAJOR GRANDMASTER – Ancient Seeds: This trait now deals damage.
MAJOR GRANDMASTER – (NEW) Celestial Alignment: Glyphs have increased radius from 300 > 600 and grants benefits when in a specific form. Non – Celestial Form; Increase outgoing damage of nearby allies by 10% for 6s. Celestial Form; Grants Increase outgoing healing of nearby allies by 25% for 6s.

Oh My God.8423:

Zalani.9827:

Holland.9351:

Zalani.9827:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The animations for staff are getting looked at.

Thank you!

I like the auto-attack animation where the laser shoots from the top of the staff. I don’t want the laser to shoot from the hand. I don’t like how they bend their knees while attacking though.

I just don’t like the idle animation holding it like a hammer:
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cfaa8Glamour-2.jpg
But I guess I could live with it.

You do know that you can click on his name and quote him directly right.
Staff 1 is about the only animation I liked for staff.

I, on the other hand, think animation of Staff 1 looks like someone trying to scrub the bird-poo off the roof of his/her car.

I only recently notice the animation of Greatsword 1 on a Charr Mesmer. I suppose Druid Staff 1 can look something similar to that.

Different opinion of it then, I like how it is personally. But I can see where someone could think that.
I was testing it on a Charr before, and they hold it differently. More lower.

Honestly, the whole druid healbotting just invoked a mild bleh from me. Other games has done healbotting better and more interestingly, also this game does not need no stupid healbotting, it will just ruin it and turn it even more into just some other wowclone . Same can be said with our new weapon, the staff; #5 is absolutely idiotic, does really kittenty damage even when on full berserk. only like #3 for fast travelling, but that has been ruined also: if you dont travel to max distance, you end up rooting yourself for the time it would have taken you to travel to max distance.

As a person not interested in stupid healbotting, i feel like i just wasted 100€ for one mildly interesting new pet (smokescale).

Also, our new awesome celestial form feels boring and generic. only 1 usefull skill out of the 5 we get (aoe daze), Glyphs suck balls are too weak, both in celestial form and out.

overall 1/10, try better anet.

I think it’s pretty clear the spec can’t stay as is.

I do however like the idea of burst healing. Some ways to work around this is added damage on staff (which is a given) and a rework to a few CAF abilities.

CAF 1 and 2 should be dps oriented, with 3 and 4 remaining the same and 5 being a big burst heal of sorts with a reasonable cooldown. If 5 remains a channeled ability, it needs to become mobile.

Going into CAF should be rewarding regardless of the battle’s current situation. If you need healing, you got it, if you don’t need it, you have good spamming damage.

Not to mention it’d be a whole lot more fun to play that way.

This concept of a dedicated healer is too flawed. It will require a lot of tweaks to even make this idea remotely come close to working.

If dedicated healer is mandatory in raids, then having 1/9 classes have the ability to heal means 9 guys sitting in lfg twiddling their thumbs waiting for 30-60 minutes for that one druid player to join the party while opening their google chrome in the background and come on the forums to complain about no one wanting to play heals. (WoW a game with 5/11 classes have a dedicated healing spec and they are still short on healers in terms of queue times in pugs)

So eventually the game devs will cave in and make it so raids does not require such a powerful healer. Then what place is there left with rangers? A class that is already lacking in pve dps got absolutely nothing out of their bottlenecked specialization.

If such heals are not mandatory in the new raid content, then once again honestly ask yourself this question where does rangers fit in? because druid sure didn’t provide them with much damage buff. What reason do you have to bring to one to raids?

Thank you to the community who posted here positively. It’s great to see the Ranger community has some people in it who are pleasant. I love you all for being that way!

And I also want to say another thank you because Irenio was so prompt in letting us know the plans he has. The attention on Druid is another reason why I feel happy and can’t wait until HoT!

Played primarily druid during the BWE and had a lot of fun with it, although I can see where others are coming from in regards to certain aspects, such as the lack of any reliable damage.

One thought I just had that I haven’t seen thrown around before is… what if they added damage to the staff and/or avatar skills, but the strength scaled off of your healing power rather than the standard power statistic? This would make Cleric’s armor and the like more valuable for the Druid, and is a nice mix-up when it comes to gearing, I think.

I apologize if this has been suggested before. I don’t post here often and don’t really know how to do any searching.

Why you all think, that there are no spot for ranger in raids instead of DruidHealer?
Do you even know what DPS can output sinister ranger???
After pet Buff these will be much more than 20k dps in raid.
Do you know why Sinister ranger was not the part of Meta?
Because all encounters last for 12-30sec, and sinister Ranger start shine only after 10-14sec of battle. And last part, why sinister Ranger not the art of meta, because Sinister gear scale really bad with IcoBow and after iceBow was nerfed, SInisterRanger can become part of New Meta in HoT.

Druids have almost double the feedback than the second highest (Scrapper). I wonder how much of this they can get through. :/

Hammerguard.9834:

Druids have almost double the feedback than the second highest (Scrapper). I wonder how much of this they can get through. :/

Irenio is op. He gots this. xD

Rizo.9534:

Why you all think, that there are no spot for ranger in raids instead of DruidHealer?
Do you even know what DPS can output sinister ranger???
After pet Buff these will be much more than 20k dps in raid.
Do you know why Sinister ranger was not the part of Meta?
Because all encounters last for 12-30sec, and sinister Ranger start shine only after 10-14sec of battle. And last part, why sinister Ranger not the art of meta, because Sinister gear scale really bad with IcoBow and after iceBow was nerfed, SinisterRanger can become part of New Meta in HoT.

Sinister ranger is good if your target doesn’t move (Bonfire + Fire Trap). But you can now use shortbow efficiently and put down spirits (frost and sun) for more damages. And your pet won’t die as well.
Also Druid traitline could replace the BM one, Ancient Seed is a nice addition to condi. We’ll have to wait for what we’ll get at release and do some maths (since pet doesn’t take damages in raid, BM might might still be the best option).

I hope they’ll introduce more stat combos. I’d really like some Prec/Condi/H.Power.