Guild Wars 2

Druid:

Astral Force Gain:

Need a way to balance Astral Force generation among all the heals and all playstyles. Currently Troll Unguent is the most efficient and is the only true way to gain Astral Force consistently. Without Troll Unguent it is way too hard to gain Astral Force without Staff/Healing skills and makes druid not worthwhile. Even with Troll Unguent Celestial Form should feel a more fluid transition. Because of the difficulty of Astral Force generation Troll Unguent is being used not really as a heal but more for the purpose of Astral Force generation. By that I mean even if I am at full health I will use Troll Unguent just for the purpose of Astral Force generation.

- Suggestion 1: 2.5% off of critical hits.
- Suggestion 2: Increase the damage scaling based off of how much damage is being done? Right now it is very low.

- Concern: Cannot balance based purely off heals because if each heal gives X amount of Celestial Force as Troll Unguent is essentially doing then the best heal becomes the one with the lowest Cool Down. Need to try to avoid pidgeon-holing builds in this way.

- Concern: Troll Unguent will be changed so that it doesn’t generate as much Astral Force. This would be a mistake as nerfing Astral Force generation any further will force druid into using healing traits, weapons, etcetera in order to be able to even use Celestial Form. The rate at which traited Troll Unguent (20s) cool down generates Astral Force feels a tad under perfect for non-healing druid builds. This gives you Celestial form roughly once every 30s. This is because you can use Troll Unguent to generate about 70% Astral Force and then wait 10s and use it again to generate that last little bit. It would be awesome if Astral Force generation balanced around these numbers in order to get appropriate uptime for celestial form on non-healing focused Druids. Slightly more generation might be fitting but much less and non-healing focused Druids will not be viable at top tier PvP game play.

Astral Force Usage/Duration:

Currently if you pop into Celestial Form and pop out, you lose all Astral Force. This is not a nice setting for those who might want to run more DPS oriented builds because they might be using druid for the utility of the daze, or a quick stealth, or condi clear from traits. Those who are tanks/healers don’t really care because they can recharge Celestial Force so fast.

- Suggestion: If Astral Force generation cannot be increased as the above suggestions would like then put a cool down on Celestial Force (10s?) and don’t lose all Astral Force when leaving Celestial Form. This would help those who can’t generate Astral Force as easy. This would allow for an alternative for the non-healing focused Druid.

- Issues: Casting Signet of the Wild during Celestial Form cancels Celestial Form. From both the active signet and the trait.

Celestial Form Skills:

1. Really difficult to land the skill. Increase radius by 60? (Note: in team play I can land like 90% of these in solo queue I can land like 20%) This might just be a learn to play issue though.

2. Radius is pretty small. Increase radius by 60.

3. Good. The daze is strong, its very strong with Moment of Clarity as it scales to 6s. Daze is not very strong since you can still move and line of sight, so this might be ok. It is also difficult to run Marksmanship with Druid as there is not a lot of defense for the ranger to take. The defensive trait lines are currently easier to use and safer to use with the Druid, this might make the long daze from Moment of Clarity justifiable.

4. Good.

5. A little clunky. It would be great if one could move while casting this skill.

Staff:

1. Good. Heals/Does damage. I think this is alright.

2. Not super exciting for PvP. I understand it would be good for PvE for your front guys. Maybe the damage should be slightly higher?

3. Good skill, love that it does no damage as there is a lot of potential synergy that way with smokefields. Since it doesn’t do damage maybe an evade would be worth while? This however, would make it too good of an escape in my opinion. Suggestion: If cast within 450 distance = evade. If cast greater than 450 distance = no evade. This way the current functionality of staying in wisp without moving can stay, it becomes defensive and the skill has counterplay for an escape (just like Ride the Lightning).

4. Ok. The immobilize should be at least 2 seconds, it is a little short currently. Maybe this skill should do more damage?

5. Don’t know enough. I have very limited experience with walls.
Issues: Staff does not currenlty work with Quick Draw.

Glyphs:

These aren’t very competitive skills compared to the others available.

-Suggestion: Allow the normal Glyph and the Celestial Form Glyph to have separate cooldowns. Increase the cooldown of each Glyph by a 5? seconds in response.

Pets:

Can’t use new pets in sPvP at the moment. Testing the Smokescale in World vs. World the damage on the “skill 4” (4th skill listed on its UI) is a little bit too high.

- Smokescale Suggestion: Maybe remove the might stacking? Lower the damage or the power scaling slightly? 10% maximum!

- Concern: Too much of a damage nerf would make this pet undesirable compared to the competition.

Things to consider for future balance:

Ranger has limited access to stability and players will soon learn the ranger cannot dish out damage while in Celestial Form. That means once the ranger turns blue, it is time to throw all your damage at him. This means it is pretty likely the ranger will get stunlocked in higher end sPvP play. Compensating for this in other areas such as smokescale damage, or a lot of healing, or high daze uptime, might be appropriate in response to help balance out the Druid. My 2 cents!

Celestial Form has a problem:

• It’s currently impossible to hit moving targets with Cosmic Ray and Lunar Impact.

The skills should hit where the mouse is located at the end of the cast, not where the mouse was at the beginning of the cast.

Zatoichi.1049:

some posts in this thread are waaaay too long. Put yourself in Irenios shoes before you write an entire essay.

In deference to Irenio’s shoes, a TL;DR for many of my earlier post’s suggestions, minus the reasoning behind them:

• Normalize CAF regeneration (making it function similar to endurance/energy/initiative, rather than linking it to damage/healing) to improve synergy with base Ranger weapons and prevent camping CAF (especially in WvW). Do not have CAF bar drain fully upon exit.

• Diversify CAF skills. Significantly increase radius on Seed of Life and reduce activation time. Consider making condition cleanse and/or healing instant. Remove channeling effect from Rejuvenating Tides to allow the Druid to blast his/her own field. Remove root from Natural Convergence. Add damage, boons, and conditions to CAF skills.

• Change Natural Stride to a minor trait. Add a stacking damage buff to Natural Mender. Consider changing Lingering Light to use Astral Wisp instead of Cosmic Wisp.

• Change Staff autoattack to AoE. Add condition damage. Make Sublime Conversion a bubble if possible. Add condition damage and boons to Staff skills.

• Increase radius of glyphs from 450-600 depending on glyph function. Keep the low CDs and consider making more glyphs instant-cast. Increase base heal significantly on Glyph of Rejuvenation. Increase condition durations on Glyph of Alignment. Add blast finishers to one or more glyphs (ideally Glyphs of Alignment and Tides), stunbreak on Glyph of Equality, and stability on Glyph of Unity. Increase damage buff and/or duration on Glyph of Empowerment and make CAF reduce damage by 10% instead of increasing healing. Reverse normal and CAF versions of Glyph of the Tides. Consider adding boons/conditions for build versatility.

Sorry for the wordspam, Irenio—Ranger has been my main for years and I want to see Druid live up to the potential that I see in it

I have been playing ranger as main for 3 years (pve and www) and I love the way to play with the ranger (not just meaningless 11111, you have to manage the pet and use different weapons to be accepted/good), but compared to other classes I find it lacking in giving support to team and DPS, much like everybody else.
I was quite exited about the druid since it seemed to promise a bit more support to complement the way I play, but after a few hours with the druid in Verdent brink I’m quite dissapointed.

• I find the way to play druid with staff very boring (in open PvE world). It is mostly 11111 and maybe the other 4 weaponskills now and then. Talk about pew pew ranger… I don’t have any need in PvE to go into astral form since the events are just too easy.
  Increase the use of the other staff weaponskills in ordinary PvE by adding more damage or more boon generation to them.

• The glyphs doesn’t add much to the gameplay. They seem to be over before I have time to notice they where there. My signets feels stronger/more useful.

• The DPS is just very low and makes PvE boring since ‘nothing’ happens. I see no need to take the druid to open world PvE since healing is not needed there and since the difficulty of the mobs seems to be much lower in this beta I don’t see any need for it in open world HoT either.

Maybe it will have a place in harder content, but I wonder if raids is going to be so hard as we wish? Give it a couple of weeks and players would have learned how to play the content and it is not hard anymore. Just see vinewrath or fractals or ordinary dungeons. Everything is easy now and so will raids and other hard content be after a while as well.
Where I see the druid doing most success is www, but the question is if you will get any loot.

All in all I want to say that the druid is boring to play! There needs to happen more, it needs to be more mangement with the staff, not just pew pew.
In comparison I tried the reaper (I have only leveled a necro before but not played it after 80) and the reaper is fun, does damage and at least needs a little more ‘micro mangement’ among the skills not just 11111.

Just spent a few hours testing the druid this morning and I found it rather promising. My biggest fear was build diversity outside of pure healing. I have to say soloing PvE content on a Druid is a real thing.

I made an Apothecary trapper build with Runes of the Krait. Took 333 in the spec and two canine pets for 2 sec KD’s for procing the Ancient Seeds GM. Staff and A/T with Quick Draw.

After running around in VB against the unintended nerfed mobs I went into a SW map to watch things melt. Needing a better PvE test I went and soloed two lvl 1 Fractal paths. That in itself is not saying much but the speed and ease at which I cleared the Uncategorized Fractal impressed me.

I rolled the Ascalon path next and a condi build vs the structures in there made it a real pain. It took way to long to clear but I did manage to clear it and slay the Captian in what became an epic battle. I ran out of time after that victory but with no deaths I am happy to see a condi Druid be a real thing!

Tonight I’ll try some PvP with it and try a couple more build ideas.

One last thing, Ancestral Wisp is pretty awesome and is quite the life saver!

New Druid spell effects time on screen
The effects are nice, but I feel they need to ‘stay around’ a little longer – they seem to have gone before I notice they’ve been useful at whatever they’re supposed to have done

Bandit.8279:

One last thing, Ancestral Wisp is pretty awesome and is quite the life saver!

Ancestral Grace > swap do greatsword > Swoop > swap to Ancestral Grace and repeat = AMAZING! Taking supply was so fast.

Reduced cooldown on Ancestral Grace to 10 sec would be even better.

The pets play great! But the staff feels really under powered, It doesn’t even feel like a druid in another fantasy game . It just feels really under powered even when compared to just a plain ranger.

Add more damage on all parts of the druid especially the astral form

krzysiek.9061:

Bandit.8279:

One last thing, Ancestral Wisp is pretty awesome and is quite the life saver!

Ancestral Grace > swap do greatsword > Swoop > swap to Ancestral Grace and repeat = AMAZING! Taking supply was so fast.

Reduced cooldown on Ancestral Grace to 10 sec would be even better.

If it will be affected by QuickDraw, these will be pretty enough i guess.

I really enjoyed playing a Druid.

What I ended up using:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqAlsgFsCWsCctgl/ADet+WvrLvuMQA4JN8DOaA-TxxGABA8EAUR9ncU+tpSwJ0Fk2+DEcJAAA-e

Lack of damage on Druids

I get why people complain about it. But really… that’s not what the Druid was made for. It is not supposed to bring too much damage. It is great at healing and has great soft CC. Not just great. Awesome. Don’t pick Druid if you want damage (some exceptions with Ancient Seed aside… but then don’t complain about the lack of conditions on Staff).

One thing which does concern me, though: When running Staff it is extremly hard to tag anything. Maybe a small damage increase on the AA would help. Or some splash damage around your target.

Partly related to this: Celestial Form AA feels out of place quite often because I got so many other heals I can cast. I would really appretiate if it could get some form of short soft CC (Cripple or Chill) so we can also use it offensively. Should be fine with the concept of the celestial form.

Recharging Celestial Form

I think it is fine as it is. Two traited Glyphs are enough to recharge it in medium scale fights. You don’t need Staff if you make at least some minor investments into healing. However, it would be nice if Regeneration also charged the bar. It would also be great if we had anything to charge it on one of our MH or OH weapons. Nothing major. But something.

Traits

I actually like all of them. I just wished we had an icon when Ancient Seed was ready so I could pull off an AoE daze + AoE damage more reliably.

Glyphs

I feel that Glyphs are slightly untertuned especially when not running Verdant Etching. Tuning numbers would probably be enough to change it. The Glyph of Tides should probably get the effects switched with the celestial version.

Aethetics

I liked the overall aesthetics. But there are two skills which really bothered me.

Sublime Conversion is the first one. Why those flowers? It looks odd and poorly done. There are so many prettier flowers in the game. If the wall needed something to make it more visible I would also prefer something ‘whispy’ instead of those in-your-face-flowers.

Second… Seed of Life…. what the… It reads something about a seed which blossoms and supports your allies. What do we get? Some glowy pulsating pimple from outer space which explodes into your face. Please, please, please… change it.

Played the druid all yesterday and about to get back on again. I know some people have said the healing seems too low even in full clerics, but some guildies and I ran around in a group of five druids, full clerics, and using monk runes really made a difference (played PVE and WvW, didn’t try PvP). Even solo I found myself to be pretty survivable. Battles would take longer, but my health bar was almost always full.

There were only a few things that I think need some tweaking:
1) The way the staff is held. I’m holding it like I’m going to smack someone with it but it is used to cast. I think it would feel more right to hold it in a one handed fashion similar to the ele.
2) My guildies and I had to camp staff. None of the other weapons seemed to really fit with the play style. I wonder if there is something that can be put in the traits that would make it beneficial to occasionally swap to another weapon (maybe a percentage of LB/ax, ect. damage being converted to healing, or something like that).
3)As far as pets go, I love the new pets, but the fire wyvern loses aggro as soon as it goes in the air, so the enemy often is no longer in the area it makes the circle of fire. Maybe if the enemy was dazed or immobilized for a short time when the wyvern takes off?

Overall, love it, definitely gives me a reason to play my ranger again.

The velocity on staff 4 should be faster, especially with a 3/4 cast time. Very difficult to hit atm.

I would like to see chill or weakness incorporated, maybe on staff 2? This would benefit condi, dps, or bunker. Maybe poison… rangers are all about poison

And not sure what the point of avatar 5 is? Seems very out of place with the rest of the abilities. This has been suggested but swapping staff 5 and avatar 5 would make more sense. Although staff 5 is great for stomping.

Overall; while very useful, seems very watered down. Staff should be more offensive while celest should be all about support healing imo (yin and yang stuff ya’know).

General
More healing scale. Less basic healing numbers.
More ‘astral force’ from damage. Maybe add ‘astral force’ gain on condition apply.
Bug – Celestial Avatar proc weapon switch traits\sigils.

Staff
1 – I’d rather have more damage or some bonus damage\condition on last tick, instead of healing.
2 – Ground targeting + damage/healing in area. AoE damage will have synergy with staff 4 immobilize. AoE heal can be used for non-combat source of ‘astral force’.
3 – Choice direction instead of position, activate again to stop + do blast finisher.
4 – ?ondition cleanse has very small use, spell has cast time + travel time. Maybe make it more offensive, replace cleanse with poison\cripple\bleed.
5 – Water field is good, but druid already has it. Maybe make it like Mesmer ‘Veil’, walk through it to gain regeneration\remove condition.

Celestial Avatar
1 – Add some damage. Maybe add circle on ground with special animation before ray come down (help allies to see it).
2 – Longer cd + poison on bloom/blast finisher.
3 – Too long daze (with ‘Moment of Clarity’ trait – 6 sec daze on 5 sec cd). Too effective vs stunnable targets, useless vs cc immune targets. Maybe 1 sec daze + blind + some damage.
4 – Condition cleanse instead of base healing.
5 – Maybe add torment.

Traits

Tier 1
Druidic Clarity – maybe add stability

Tier 2
Celestial Shadow – with weapon switch bug Sigil of Hydromancy\Sigil of Geomancy can break stealth
Natural Stride – make it 25% speed. 33% ofc is better, but others have 25, why druid should have more

Tier 3
Ancient Seeds – sometimes too strong, maybe less vine duration. Like other vine ability, its too strong vs some classes\spec and weak vs others.
1) Make vine vulnerable to conditions.
2) Make vine destruction remove immobilize.
3) Offtopic – I think warriors deal with immobilize too easily. Condition immune stance, 33% movement-impeding conditions reduction trait and ‘Movement skills break immobilization when used’ trait.
At least add small CD to ’Warrior’s Sprint’ and buff icon so enemies can see when it’s ready.

Minor
Natural Mender – maybe change to simple ‘Increase outgoing healing by xx’

Xaylin.1860:

I really enjoyed playing a Druid.

What I ended up using:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqAlsgFsCWsCctgl/ADet+WvrLvuMQA4JN8DOaA-TxxGABA8EAUR9ncU+tpSwJ0Fk2+DEcJAAA-e

I’ve ended with the pretty same build but I’m worried that ANet will nerf it. That dazing is huuuge. But it was fun to try. If this build will survive, I’m gonna stick to cc and healing.

This is my review of the druid so far after 15 hours of play. Play was mostly limited to WvW Zerg, WvW Roaming and SPvP though some play was done in PvE since raids were disabled was not able to try it out in that regards. My initial thoughts of the ranger thought it was going to be its own thing and not able to meld well with my current builds I use in PvP, with a little tinkering I found that the druid is a great addition to power ranger builds. Ranger doesn’t fix them, and in fact one of the core issues this beta has and should highlight for everyone is just how poor our dps is with how much sustain is in play for all classes. Some classes we cannot beat even if they are dps because we cannot dps through other classes sustain.

Staff

Most staff skills feel fine, I did not run into any real issues, it is great for recharging cele and in zergs I was almost always able to get back into cele form rather quickly.
Solar Beam – This skill while many might think is weak, compared to other staff skills it is almost on par, I believe dropping it from 1 ¼ CD to something like ¾ CD will bring this skill into line with other staff auto attacks especially when you look at water staff for elementalist.
Astral Wisp – The radius for this is less than the attack distance for melee which is 130. This skill feels under whelming because of the low radius this should at least be minimum of 300.
Ancestral Grace – I really enjoy this skill though getting stuck in the animation after I have arrived at the location is kind of a bummer, wish it didn’t do that.
Vine Surge – This skill is very clunky to use with little to no practical use. 1 second of immobilize isn’t going to do much with how much and the damage isn’t fitting with it be a 20 CD decrease the CD to 15 seconds and increase the immobilize from 1 second to 3.
Sublime Conversion – On paper this might seem really great, but it does not heal enough, it heals about 100 base, this should be a 100% direct conversion to healing.

Celestial Form

This form critically needs stability without stability this form will have a very hard time in zergs with how much bouncing there is. The skills we have that grant stability are all on a 60 sec CD not short enough for good use in zergs, and with guardians already needing to be heavily loaded, there just isn’t enough stab to go around. I suggest that stability should be pulse 2 stacks every 3 seconds while in celestial form. Furthermore, celestial form should be able to enter at will and drop out will without needing a full bar/removing all cele energy. This should work like it does for necromancers. Finally going into Celestial Form should act as a stun break.
Cosmic Ray – This skill feels very nice. No complaints about it feel where it should be.
Seed of Life – This skill just feels wrong, it is probably because of the small radius of 180, in raids I never see this hit anyone because it takes so long for the plant to grow and burst. Decrease this time.
Lunar Impact – Really nice skill with 3 base daze and a trait can bring it up to 6 second. At first I thought this was really over powered, but with all the sustain and dps that is currently in play this doesn’t seem so much the case anymore, it allows power rangers to have a bit more sustain in order to not get rolled over so easily. IF pet dps is fixed, this skill might need to be nerfed down to 2 second base instead of 3.
Rejuvenating Tides – This skill is amazing, this is the big heal for druids. This skill should have the same radius as natural convergence of 360.
Natural Convergence – This skill needs a bit of heal, it is a root with limited damage, you put yourself at great risk using this for very little reward, remove the root aspect.

Glyphs

The biggest issue is the radius for these skills, these skills often times feel VERY useless because of how small the radius is, and end up missing more often than not. They should have a minimum radius of 360.
Glyph of Alignment – Feels fine, nice healing and the conditions it can apply are pretty good.
Glyph of Empowerment – This can be a great skill for the healing aspect I think the increase is damage is a bit low buffing that from 10% to 20%.
Glyph of Equality – This should break stun in both forms. Also I think this skill should stun for 1 second so that two stacks of stability are required. With the amount of stab in play right now, this is often easily negated and ranger in itself doesn’t have enough CC to spend to strip stab due to critically needing it for kiting.
Glyph of Tides – Feels good, would be nice if this had an immobilization attached to it at the end.
Glyph of Rejuvenation – This feels very weak. I don’t think there is ever a reason to take this skill over other skills due to the fact of its low healing. Drastically improve the healing for this, also this share too much similarity to Healing Spring. We don’t need two skills that do the same thing, both being very ineffective.
Glyph of Unity – this skill is nearly worthless to use as an elite. The damage it provides is minimal and almost unnoticeable, this is also easily to remove if you go stealth or they go stealth it removes, or if you leave range it removes. This should deal a lot more damage and not get removed so easily.

Traits

I really have no complaints about any of the traits outside of some of the radius should be moved up to 360 for Grace of the Land, Celestial Shadow, Cultivated Synergy and Primal Echoes. The traits have the potential to have a lot of synergy with power builds, though it offers little to nothing for condi builds.

Ancestral Grace should end if the target is reached. Currently it will wait until the 1 1/4s are over which doesn’t play smooth on close distances. Also makes hitting moving targets hard.

ideas for more synergy in druid line:
Druids Clarity: i think here is an option for pets possible, like converting conditions to boons, so we have a bit synergy for bountiful hunter or WHaO

Celestial Shadow, it just screams for me like “…and your pet…”
What could it be: something with recharge, a short invul or evade on next attack

Natural Stride: out pet could use the condi reduction too

Seed of Life: short poison uptime, for traits and additional dmg

I played only PVP and this is my feedback, therefore, for PVP

Avatar:
It is highly dependent on the staff which make the weapon’s possible combinations limited.
Why can we end the Avatar mode? It does not make sense because when you end it, you lose the whole progress…… this should change

The 3rd ability is a blast, but…. it does not work and you cannot combine it with the 4th ability when in avatar mode, then, why making it a blast? (stated in the Spanish version of the description)

Damage:
As the staff is the only weapon that makes the Avatar 100% useful (or use Troll unguent) , the damage is very limited which makes the Druid completely support and, therefore, only 1 good possibility to play (Tank). The rest of possibilities are possible but it is better not to be a druid then (Which maybe makes sense)

All other specialization can use Condition damage builds, direct damage and use blessings etc (in a better or worse way) Druid is only healing and nothing else, from my point of view something is missing

Proposals:
I understand that healing so much and making lots of damage at the same time might be too OP but…. a bit more would be ok for the staff skills and the avatar skill 5 (the black hole)

Add something like remove blessings from foes and turn them into conditions and/or move blessing from foes to allies. Also turn your condition into blessings could be a good idea so he does not heal and apply blessings all together

Right now everybody heal themselves quite a lot in pvp and they do not really need a Druid to survive. Specially, it is not easy that somebody stays in an area in pvp so he gets healing.

If you end the Avatar mode, the progress should stay where it was

Other weapons that are not the staff, should also move the progress of the Avatar’s bar to make it more balanced

We need stability or some daze, stunned protection. Currently it is very easy to counter the healing of the Druid.

The druid path has no synergies with other paths (as other professions do)

The is an interesting utility skill which is: When changing weapon to staff, daze foes…. This should be to any weapon to avoid having 1 sec (max 2 with 1 synergy) of daze every 18 seconds is not that good, especially when people can block it or evade it and considering that the avatar ability 3 does not work properly now (see below)

Staff ability 3: Could it evade? I think it makes sense.

Staff ability 4….. when reading it looks great but, it is very hard to impact foes and the damage is ridiculous and the condition effects too. The only good thing is that it eliminates conditions which makes it another healing ability.

ability 3 of the avatar is bugged, it only heals to nearby friends and daze only to near by foes and not the selected area. I did it many times and I could see that people could still do their abilities (maybe everybody has a lot of protection against daze which makes this ability not very useful. Also bosses are normally immune to daze)

Ability 5 of the avatar. It needs a damage increase. It is very easy to evade as you cannot move. It could maybe slow down a lot foes in the area while casting it nor immobilize them in the 1st blast and not the last one. How is it so simple to get away of a black hole?

Elite Glyph is only 6 seconds… it is great for healing if you stack but not to do damage. Specially if it has a range of 300, ( Maybe it could do damage = to a 50% of the healing to the people within a range 300)

Alright. Took a bit for me to get some thoughts on druid down. Spent bit of time on druid for this weekend. Now, I will give a disclaimer; most of my play on druid was not complete healing; I stacked smaller amounts of healing power than most problably did, using various builds such as settler in PvP, Cele zerk with cleric in WvW, and also Zerk Knight Cav in WvW. So, I will say that right off the back, I am considering Druid in the stance most have told us to not, and I know Im going to get someone telling me thats not how its played. Sorry, but this is where most success came from, so please still listen and hear me out.

Druid Traitline

Overall, I can’t say that the trait line is too good, but not lackluster. I was expecting to be pidgeon-holed into Druidic clarity, but Cultivated Synergy isnt too bad for what its worth. Only thing I wish is for Cultivated Synergy to clear atleast one condi also in the area. I will discuss the other adapt later in staff section. All masters felt very strong for their usage as a healer, although Its hard to consider Celestial Shadow as its very powerful but I couldnt find much usage unless there was a rev or ele in the party already pumping swiftness. Heal as one before nerf could have done that job, but another story. Grandmasters are all good mostly, although ancient seed is a little iffy in damage. Would have been nice if the roots spawned by it poisoned instead of bleeding.

Staff

Staff has issues . First of all, I have to say that overall, Staff feels like a required take for druid simply because of how Astral force is generated. This isn’t good; If anything, I believe staff should be more utility than straight healing. It doesnt have to do insane damage or even really good damage, but have more meaningful options for usage outside just making someone’s HP go higher.

1 is by far the oddest skill ever to use, as you have to position yourself between the enemy and the ally you want to heal. This is difficult after a while and becomes “astral force generation skill” more than “heal”. It does need slight damage increase, but functionality change to do a small heal in area (like maybe 100-120 range) is needed more.

2 is strong, but the velocity needs to be increased slightly, or provide an additional effect such as fury for 1-3s for those who get healed by the wisp.

3 Just needs bugfixing; if you move too close, you stop a bit before the heal goes off making it best to use from far range. Damage would be nice, but a condition would be better such as burning the area for 1-2s.

4 feels very lackluster; the immob is short and is hard to wind up for the damage and conditions. This needs to be upped by 2-3s AT MOST.

5 Is good, but very difficult to consider over reflects if they are available. One shot being able to hit you for 1-3k and then only healing for 160~ isn’t great. Either heal for same amount as shot being fired, or up this amount to 350-500~ per hit.

Astral Form

Generating astral form in itself is both very difficult, and very easy. right now, the damage contribution to it is so low that its hard to not consider staff or troll unguent as a heal. In itself, the no CD but complete depletion of celestial avatar’s pool is rough in very little cases, and should atleast put you to 25-33% astral force or not deplete if you are bellow this threshold if you leave quickly for any reason, because otherwise you end up just camping it.

The healing output and damage output of Celestial Avatar is very good and nonexistent respectively. It should have some damage on the 1 in a form of a condition or small physical value along with making it so its worth casting it over the last 4 skills. 2 takes too long to burst and condi cleanse right now. Also requires an additional effect such as poison on burst. while 3 needs bug fixing to account for the daze increase from Moment of clarity (doesn’t matter if it feels great, 120% uptime on daze is cancerous). 4 needs its base values reduced slightly and regen added to it per pulse instead so it is not an insane frontloaded heal. 5 is difficult to use since you can’t move during it and overall feels odd compared to the rest of the kit because of it.

Glyphs

Overall, glyphs have the issue that base ranger pretty much always needs one stun break and signet of stone right now to survive anything considering it can be blinded, interrupted and harrassed pretty well. Because of this, many of the ones that are not instant cast feel lackluster, with Alignment, empowerment, and unity being the worst offenders. the fact that one of them is only a stunbreak while in Celestial avatar is also an issue. These can probably become better by making many of them instant cast, adding additional CC related conditions such as chill on tides for 1-2s and damaging conditions on alignment, or even a larger radi for most of them.

Overall

Druid fills a niche for making the ranger feel more valuable to the group, but not in the best way. in current content including WvW and PvP, Druid feels more like a “hand holder” for players who are less skilled at the game due to how defensive its support style is compared to offense. Things such as boon application, better CC and more additional damaging conditions would make it more of an overall better support/CC specialization, along with making the heal scaling better than it is currently. as is, the way that feels best to play is a pseudo healer damage dealer, with only staff being used to assist allies and camping your other weapon due to its lack of presence in offensive and CC nature. The idea of being a support was not done wrong, but leave you in a situation where you never want to leave astral form and go back to staff. As someone who loves ranger, Its hard to really be excited about druid as damage and sustain was both needed along with AOE, but as it is the specialization hold its on just because of the strength of the healing in celestial avatar is really great. But outside that, it needs work to feel less isolated from the rest of the class. With the way it is, you either feel like you have bad weapons setup for healing outside celestial, or you feel like you have a hard time utilizing celestial and the other traits due to how support related it is. Also, swap Natural Stride into a minor.

As well as I love the Druid, there could be improvements.

Celestial avatar shouldn’t be able to cancelled immidiately. I had a problem I casted it and after it I accidently left the form, losing my all avatar points. Have like 0,5-1sec cooldown when entering the form to prevent this.

It misses actual supporty feel. Like as guardian you have multible boons give out to allies, you can remove conditions, you can reflect projectiles, teleport to ally, you can prevent enemies coming closer to your allies or trap them so they can’t more, cc/impaire a lot, heal small amounts.. Same goes for ele. Of course Druid has the element of bursty heals and regeneration (which I like a lot), but it has only good condi cleanse in Celestial form and with traits. Druid hasn’t many boons to give out to allies and can’t accsess any other combo fields than water (without any pets) and has long-cd blast finisher. As roaming in small group WvW, I felt I really didn’t do anything else than heal. Some cc/ more realiable movement impairing would be nice and combo finishers.

Weapon swap feels useless, because there is no sync with other weapons. GS is always (unfortunately sometimes) good option, but it is selfish weapon. As healer you shouldn’t be selfish. I really wish there was some other weapon set to use alongside with staff that it would feel like a complete set. Only weapon I really felt good about was actually shortbow, because I traited myself (Skirmishing and Apothecary stats) semi-bleed machine. If I wasn’t healing, I was bleeding, poisoning other druids and dazing (and that way entangling them), but it doesn’t still feel like a complete set. Warhorn could be an option, but sword or axe isn’t. This also makes feel like you miss some support to your allies.

I don’t agree with that Druid needs any damage. I think it needs more control, like cc, movement impairing conditions (chill, slow, cripple, immobolize..) and “annoying” conditions like blind, weakness and poison to prevent enemy from healing, recovering, running away etc. and adding up more supporty properties like boon sharing and “guarding”.

I understand Druid is planned just to use up for heal and part of a raid. I understand it wasn’t meant to be a dps charatcher (ranger already has enough dps variations) and it doesn’t stand alone very well. I love the part Druid isn’t a charatcher that you use it solo. But still it misses the part where it gives the group some utility and supports it. Like it would be useful in some other group.

General

• Healing Power scales very poorly. Didn’t notice much different in numbers when using non-healing gear.
• Staff wielding animation is a huge turn off compared to how gorgeous the rest of the druid is. Would recommend using caster wield animation
• As a Ranger I felt very segregated from the Druid spec. It was difficult to find a trait line to compliment the Druid, and none of my other weapon options complimented the build. I think adding a damaging component to AF generation could help bring the Ranger closer to the Druid. The glyphs however are useful with other Ranger builds.

Staff

• Solar Beam is strange. You can spam it out of combat to generate Astral Force as long as your pet is around, but does not have the same effect with players while out of combat. Doesn’t seem to be working as intended.
• Skills 1 and 2 on staff feel somewhat incomplete. Solar beam applying slow vuln would be a nice addition. Astral Wisp applying a burn on application or a burn when the wisp is finished would be interesting as well.
• The rest of the staff is a lot of fun and very beautiful. The animators did an amazing job.

Celestial Avatar

• The first skill, Cosmic Ray, is very awkward to use given its small radius and the chaos that is usually happening in combat. I found it very difficult to actually heal my team with this skill. I think removing the cast time and adding aftercast would make it a lot more 3effective
• As stated in the stream, Seed of Life is definitely missing something. Would be interesting to see it produce either a blast or a water field. Both would be really interesting but maybe a little OP.
• Building Astral Force feels very inconsistent. By making healing the only viable way of generating AF, the Ranger is very segregated from its elite spec. There were times as a DPS Ranger that I wish I could have went Celestial for clutch moments where my team needed extra support.
  Glyphs
• I like the glyphs, most are a solid option across all build types.

Traits

• Some of these are oddly placed. Most notably, Natural Stride should have been made a GM minor. It’s very situational and by the time I’m in combat, I don’t need it anymore, and have now wasted a trait. Natural Mender would be a great choice to swap it with. It’s weird having such a passive trait not be a minor.

Pets

• Not much to say here, I enjoyed all of the new pets.

Overall, I think the Druid is headed in the right direction but needs some serious grooming of its numbers in regards to heal power scaling. All of the other professions have very good play between their core and elite specs, however Druid feels like a complete package and a step away from the Ranger. I think adding a meaningful way to generate AF outside of healing would do the spec and Ranger profession great justice. I like a lot of the traits in the Druid line even for my core Ranger, and I would hate to take the Spec for the traits knowing that its core mechanic is not useful to me.

So overall I did not enjoy playing the Druid, although most of the reasons are subjective. I will still try to look for the postive sides of the druid.

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea. Unfortunatly I expect lower lvl players to be abused. “We need X player to play a heal bot and make us stay alive. If we die, it’s the druids fault for not healing us..” Same goes for raids an inexperienced players.

I think adding a stronger healing aspect to the game is nice, and it makes for better class diversity. The Druid is a bit of an overkill imo. As it got so many different heals you don’t even know what to use, everything you do is basically a heal.

The astral force build up is too slow, it takes too lang time for you to get into astral avatar. In dugeons you will be able to heal your allies when the boss is at 25% at this point it’s not even needed anymore.

Personally I didn’t use astral form too much, as it is ONLY a healing oriented form. Why not give us a damage aspect too, so we are powerfull and scary when we enter the form, and people in pvp will have to play around “windows of opportunity” and try to play around the cd of it.

Glyphs feel to tied with the astral form. If the fights are not long enough for you to get into astral form, you aren’t utilizing them to their full potential, and you could might as well take some other utilities.

Staff was pretty much fine, need some more ways to build up astral force.

My main concern though is that Druid doesn’t really solve the rangers core issues, it just hides them behind a new flashy star form so people will forget about them. All our weapons are an awkward combination of aoe and sigle target damage, and most of them fail to be specificly good at either. The pet AI is still awful and REALLY needs an overhaul. Played with the Juvenile Fire Wyvern, and I was using Sic Em, had the Signet of the Hunt on passive and had applied swiftness. Yet it was unable to catch up to, and a attack a moving target.

If get the pet AI fixed, the life of the ranger would get so much better. We would finally come to love our pets, see them as allies, instead of asking Anet for perma stow…

My final words will be; You don’t build a house on broken foundation, fix rangers/pets first, then we will be able to truly appreciate the Druid.

The Druid is far too isolated from the rest of the ranger. There’s just not any synergy there with existing traits or weapons.
I did enjoy healing in PvP tho.

Petrol.9086:

The Druid is far too isolated from the rest of the ranger. There’s just not any synergy there with existing traits or weapons.
I did enjoy healing in PvP tho.

There is just a lot of synergy between druid and power ranger. Though when you look at all the sustain that most classes are getting with their DPS builds you will notice just how lacking Rangers dps is. This is mostly to very broken pet mechanics.

First off, I absolutely love the Druid as a whole, the traits are amazing, the elite mechanic makes me feel very powerful everytime I enter, and the staff has an overall good feeling to it.

However, it feels as if you went out of your way to avoid adding condi damage to the ranger in any way. The staff 2 feels like it should apply some poison, the staff 4 feels as if it should apply some bleeds, Glyph of Alignment (AoE cripple and weakness) feels like it should bleed, and then the 5 skill in astral form feels like it should apply some form of harmful condition on the pulse and on the deonation (maybe torment?).

As for the astral form, it feels amazing and if you have to nerf it i would like to advocate that you nerf the frequency of the form, NOT the power of it. I’m able to get to full celestial be like 2s after leaving it, which seemed a tad excessive. Granted this was always in group scenarios, but even solo it wasn’t that big of an issue. Additionally I feel like the 1 skill should have some minor damage to it. I get the form is focused on healing, and that’s great, but losing ALL damage capability can be slightly annoying. Astral form should NOT be a DPS increase, but it shouldn’t be a total dps loss either.

As for the glyphs, I felt like they were all very strong minus empowerment, the 10% damage boost is ok, but it’s not too noticeable and it just feels overall weak. And then the astral version of it feels even weaker, both s need to be buffed up significantly for it to feel impactful or worth using, or maybe have it give boons or condis too? I’d personally recommend making Glyph of Empowerment give your allies about like 15 or 20 more damage for 3s than make it deal 10% for 6s, and for the astral form I’d argue that it should make them take LESS damage rather than healing for more. That or make them RECEIVE more healing so that when they get ANY healing it’s more. But as is, 10% is completely negligible for the healing boost.

All around Druid felt and behaved great, in super excited for it to go live.

Ackzar.9156:

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea.

Interesting, but fighting them and seeing what they can do, that’s apparently not what they do best… At least not in WvW. The Druid as is can insta-kill any class. No healing will ever be needed lol.

Dawdler.8521:

Ackzar.9156:

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea.

Interesting, but fighting them and seeing what they can do, that’s apparently not what it does best… At least not in WvW. The Druid as is can insta-kill any class. No healing will ever be needed lol.

A druid can’t insta-kill any class…

• Electric Wyvern: Let it FLY! And Change knockback to knockdown. Increase attack speed on AA and tailswipe. Wonderful animations!

• Fire Wyvern: Increase AA speed and tailswipe. Let it fly up to a target before attacking with F2 (as long as there is a target).

• Tiger: make it work under water as well

• Staff; Let the character hold it like a carster when not using it activley. The casting animation is good!

Staff:

• skill #3: If you target an area next to you, you will be too long in the wisp-form. If you target an area in max range (especially on a higher landscape) you will never reach this position. You leave your form when you enter the aoe-target not in the center of it. so you cant place fast or precisely any explosion-combo-finisher

Avatar form:

• skill #1: This skill is too slow. you never hit a target while you or your ally is running. It should be faster or bigger aoe.
• skill #3: It is too slow for interrupting. Not helpful against break-bar enemies (The break bars are too strong in this demo, too)
• skill #5: This skill is very useless, because it roots you, it takes too long to finish and you must stay next the enemies. In 90% this skill abort, because you were interrupt, your avatar time runs out or the enemy just rushed away. In this form, i will never use it.

Druid:

• Too much heal, too low damage. If you were fighting alone against an veteran-npc it can takes you 10 minutes till finishing (pet damage included)
• Avatar form reload is too fast with healing (staff) and too slow with other weapons.
• Most traits are only useful in a heal build with staff and healing-attributes.
• Druid is not an addition form it is a complete other class, which you cant combine with ranger core-class. (Except 33% faster running and rooting on knockback-traits)
• Minor traits are only for heal-builds, too.

Kitty.1502:

Dawdler.8521:

Ackzar.9156:

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea.

Interesting, but fighting them and seeing what they can do, that’s apparently not what it does best… At least not in WvW. The Druid as is can insta-kill any class. No healing will ever be needed lol.

A druid can’t insta-kill any class…

Yes they can lol. I have no idea how they do it – I havent played them. But I have seen druid insta-kill people from full HP. Its some type of pulse attack that does 4K damage each. But hey at least its balanced by 30K killshots, hah!

The beta weekend gave me a real feel of p2w… You’re going to need HoT to compete, no question about it.

Dawdler, after I played the beta plenty as druid… I can clearly say… there is NO WAY possible with the ratios on dmg and healing skills on the druid that they can even remotely hit that high

Dawdler.8521:

Kitty.1502:

Dawdler.8521:

Ackzar.9156:

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea.

Interesting, but fighting them and seeing what they can do, that’s apparently not what it does best… At least not in WvW. The Druid as is can insta-kill any class. No healing will ever be needed lol.

A druid can’t insta-kill any class…

Yes they can lol. I have no idea how they do it – I havent played them. But I have seen druid insta-kill people from full HP. Its some type of pulse attack that does 4K damage each. But hey at least its balanced by 30K killshots, hah!

The beta weekend gave me a real feel of p2w… You’re going to need HoT to compete, no question about it.

If you’r talking about WvW, then it’s not a druid, it’s new PET.

Dawdler.8521:

Kitty.1502:

Dawdler.8521:

Ackzar.9156:

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea.

Interesting, but fighting them and seeing what they can do, that’s apparently not what it does best… At least not in WvW. The Druid as is can insta-kill any class. No healing will ever be needed lol.

A druid can’t insta-kill any class…

Yes they can lol. I have no idea how they do it – I havent played them. But I have seen druid insta-kill people from full HP. Its some type of pulse attack that does 4K damage each. But hey at least its balanced by 30K killshots, hah!

The beta weekend gave me a real feel of p2w… You’re going to need HoT to compete, no question about it.

On my full zerker power ranger glyphs can do 4k damage, only two glyphs are able to do that, so its 2 skills that do 4k each. Still not one shooting someone. Mind you also you have to lose a bit of defense utilities to pick up these glyphs so the ranger will be at a disadvantage. Furthermore, at only a range of 300 these glyphs will miss relatively easily.

My issues with Verdant Etching (a skill I want to be good)

Aside from the somewhat weak, no range, one-trick-pony Glyphs, most of my issues are with Seed of life:

• The activation or “bloom” time takes so long, it greatly discourages kiting builds, and overly promotes bunkering in an area. So many “other” ranger builds revolve around kiting, so I think this functionality is a mistake if it is to see play outside of healing druid.
• Related to the “bloom” time, it takes a sold 2+ seconds after glyph activation, to receive the condi-clear and heal from it. That’s a lot of damage when getting hit with say, 5 stacks of burning, or whatever. The bloom should be .5 second at the most, if not instant.
• I would love to see the Seed apply something that has the flavor of making the player stronger overtime, by receiving their blossom. I thought Stability would be good before, and I do think druid needs Stability, but I think 2 stacks of Might would be even better.

My other issue, as I have mentioned before, is it competes with Natural Stride, which is probably the best trait in the Druid line-up in general. Natural stride should be Minor

Kitty.1502:

Dawdler.8521:

Kitty.1502:

Dawdler.8521:

Ackzar.9156:

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea.

Interesting, but fighting them and seeing what they can do, that’s apparently not what it does best… At least not in WvW. The Druid as is can insta-kill any class. No healing will ever be needed lol.

A druid can’t insta-kill any class…

Yes they can lol. I have no idea how they do it – I havent played them. But I have seen druid insta-kill people from full HP. Its some type of pulse attack that does 4K damage each. But hey at least its balanced by 30K killshots, hah!

The beta weekend gave me a real feel of p2w… You’re going to need HoT to compete, no question about it.

On my full zerker power ranger glyphs can do 4k damage, only two glyphs are able to do that, so its 2 skills that do 4k each. Still not one shooting someone. Mind you also you have to lose a bit of defense utilities to pick up these glyphs so the ranger will be at a disadvantage. Furthermore, at only a range of 300 these glyphs will miss relatively easily.

Kitty don’t forget, he is talking about druid…. Druid who has overall less dmg output than a ranger and less dmg skills overall

Kailee.8790:

Kitty.1502:

Dawdler.8521:

Kitty.1502:

Dawdler.8521:

Ackzar.9156:

The idea to make the Druid a part of the meta by making it a heavy healer is an interesting idea.

Interesting, but fighting them and seeing what they can do, that’s apparently not what it does best… At least not in WvW. The Druid as is can insta-kill any class. No healing will ever be needed lol.

A druid can’t insta-kill any class…

Yes they can lol. I have no idea how they do it – I havent played them. But I have seen druid insta-kill people from full HP. Its some type of pulse attack that does 4K damage each. But hey at least its balanced by 30K killshots, hah!

The beta weekend gave me a real feel of p2w… You’re going to need HoT to compete, no question about it.

On my full zerker power ranger glyphs can do 4k damage, only two glyphs are able to do that, so its 2 skills that do 4k each. Still not one shooting someone. Mind you also you have to lose a bit of defense utilities to pick up these glyphs so the ranger will be at a disadvantage. Furthermore, at only a range of 300 these glyphs will miss relatively easily.

Kitty don’t forget, he is talking about druid…. Druid who has overall less dmg output than a ranger and less dmg skills overall

Have to go druid spec to get the glyphs unless he is talking about a druid in clerics or zealots then it isn’t possible to hit that high.

Druid is fine. Other healing classes need a buff to be relevant as Druid in raid. 80% of the people of this thread are thinking about druid in fractal 50 or in CoF. Lol.
Druid is for Raids. Raids will be the pve and the most important part of the game, forget pvp and wvw.

Don’t you guys have the impression that the reaction around here is very much like the kneejerk people were ranting about for WHaO? The spec has barely been tried out for a couple of days, yet it’s already being branded broken, useless or OP, in its entirety or in details. It’ll take weeks at least for people to get the bigger picture after the meta adapts around the new specs.

cafard.8953:

Don’t you guys have the impression that the reaction around here is very much like the kneejerk people were ranting about for WHaO? The spec has barely been tried out for a couple of days, yet it’s already being branded broken, useless or OP, in its entirety or in details. It’ll take weeks at least for people to get the bigger picture after the meta adapts around the new specs.

I don’t think the build is useless, it seems pretty good in a lot of ways for WvW raids and is a good addition to Core Ranger builds like the Power Ranger. With that said, this beta event should highlight for people who are really paying attention the issues with the ranger with every class getting lots of sustain for their dps specs, the ranger dps just can’t break the sustain of classes such as rev/engineer/necro/ele now and our dps is just to low to match mesmer/thief/guardian so we really don’t fit any where for our core ranger. Druid yes it is fantastic in WvW raids, and potentially PvE raids.

I like the druid.

There are two spells who need a big increase in healing/dmg tbh.
As one can read in here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Glyph-of-Unity-and-Sublime-conversion/first#post5571035

Please make that happen.
Those spells could be very cool and only need a change in numbers.

I do agree here and there from reading several posts about Druid. If DMG or other stat base increments can be made on the staff skills then a lot more players would consider adding the weapon to their inventory. It’s great that these skills heal when used w/ or on fellow players nearby but makes the Long bow, in my opinion, more appealing to do burst damage and move on to better things.

The new pets reaction time is slow and unfavorable; a few times the wyverns F2 ability took longer to cast and misses the whole group of Mobs that are charging straight toward friendly npcs.

cafard.8953:

Don’t you guys have the impression that the reaction around here is very much like the kneejerk people were ranting about for WHaO? The spec has barely been tried out for a couple of days, yet it’s already being branded broken, useless or OP, in its entirety or in details. It’ll take weeks at least for people to get the bigger picture after the meta adapts around the new specs.

I’m not massively worried about how effective the druid is right now. That can come after it feels like the spec is fun to play and can execute its role in a way that gives people a clear reason to desire that role.

Kitty.1502:

cafard.8953:

Don’t you guys have the impression that the reaction around here is very much like the kneejerk people were ranting about for WHaO? The spec has barely been tried out for a couple of days, yet it’s already being branded broken, useless or OP, in its entirety or in details. It’ll take weeks at least for people to get the bigger picture after the meta adapts around the new specs.

I don’t think the build is useless, it seems pretty good in a lot of ways for WvW raids and is a good addition to Core Ranger builds like the Power Ranger. With that said, this beta event should highlight for people who are really paying attention the issues with the ranger with every class getting lots of sustain for their dps specs, the ranger dps just can’t break the sustain of classes such as rev/engineer/necro/ele now and our dps is just to low to match mesmer/thief/guardian so we really don’t fit any where for our core ranger. Druid yes it is fantastic in WvW raids, and potentially PvE raids.

If this class as constituted is good enough to main heal raids then raids will fail. Many seem to want Druid to be a hybrid damage / healer but if you’re able to main heal a raid hybrid then raids were a waste of Anet’s resources.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Kitty.1502:

cafard.8953:

Don’t you guys have the impression that the reaction around here is very much like the kneejerk people were ranting about for WHaO? The spec has barely been tried out for a couple of days, yet it’s already being branded broken, useless or OP, in its entirety or in details. It’ll take weeks at least for people to get the bigger picture after the meta adapts around the new specs.

I don’t think the build is useless, it seems pretty good in a lot of ways for WvW raids and is a good addition to Core Ranger builds like the Power Ranger. With that said, this beta event should highlight for people who are really paying attention the issues with the ranger with every class getting lots of sustain for their dps specs, the ranger dps just can’t break the sustain of classes such as rev/engineer/necro/ele now and our dps is just to low to match mesmer/thief/guardian so we really don’t fit any where for our core ranger. Druid yes it is fantastic in WvW raids, and potentially PvE raids.

If this class as constituted is good enough to main heal raids then raids will fail. Many seem to want Druid to be a hybrid damage / healer but if you’re able to main heal a raid hybrid then raids were a waste of Anet’s resources.

I can’t speak to PvE raids as they were turned off. For WvW raids they give groups a lot more sustain, meaning that groups are able to stay engaged much longer than they were before.

Quickdraw doesn’t work with staff. Is that intentional because the trait says “RANGER weapon skill” and staff is a druid weapon? ’Cause if so that is stupid.

@Kitty also realize they aren’t tuned yet and heal scaling is far from right. I’d expect current healing output to be tuned to full heal gear with buffs at launch, making many think Druids were nerfed when in actuality they were tuned.

arkealia.2713:

I really wish we could see allies HP without having to mouse over them, it would help a lot.

This PLEASE. Have this be a toggle so that those who don’t want health bars up don’t have to have them, but for being on support we absolutely NEED this.

hi

So, my personal opinion on the druid:

First of all, I really like the druid, and I think that with some tweaking it could easily be my favorite elite spec.

Here are the aspects of the druid I DON’T like:

-Staff deals 0 condi dmg, this really limits build diversity as we need to use staff or troll unguent to fill the celestial bar, so one of our 2 weapon “kits” WILL deal 0 condi dmg..
-Staff nb. 2 should deal aoe dmg around your target and the dmg should be increased a little bit
-Staff nb. 3 is REALLY CLUNKY and will play out the whole animation even when you are only moving a little bit to the side, also it isn’t a dodge (why?), it should definitely be one
-staff nb 4 doesnt deal enough dmg and it should apply bleed (+ torment?)
-staff nb 5 should have a slightly increased duration (6-7 secs)

Glyphs are meh, I often found myself using a single glyph (the one that dazes) in my daze build.. but they are pretty bad and relatively boring sadly, they should have additional effects, like giving stabi to everyone around you or applying DAMAGING condis.. having the celestial version of them doesnt really help too much

Celestial form is amazing visually and “gameplay-wise”, but there should be more dmg on the skils, otherwise→ no loot bags in wvw. Also, the nb 2 skill should deal good power dmg+ burning or smth. and the nb 3 skill should deal HIGH power dmg

Traits are good imo., nothing I would change there

Pets are really cool! the smokescale deals good dmg (finally a pet with high dmg..) , the electric wyvern f 2 feels responsive and seems to be instant cast, this is great!

Overall, I like the concept and I had fun playing the druid but PLEASE at least add some damaging condis here and there, because now it’s really not optimal for condi builds

thank you for your consideration!

Everyone has a lot of interesting ideas on developing the mechanics further.

I suppose my two cents is that if you pop Ancestral Grace (staff 3) while you have quickness, you’ll only travel half of the distance. I imagine the intended result would be (as with any other activated skill) you travel the full distance in half of the time (or 75%— h/e the math works out).

~ Kovu

Aidenwolf.5964:

If this class as constituted is good enough to main heal raids then raids will fail. Many seem to want Druid to be a hybrid damage / healer but if you’re able to main heal a raid hybrid then raids were a waste of Anet’s resources.

What you’re saying here really strikes me as if you believe that the only ‘correct’ raids are ones that look like the ones you’ve already played, where healers apparently have to devote all of their time and/or mana to healing once they’re actually in a fight.

But it’s self-evidently true that there’s more than one way to make any given thing work, especially something as complex as a raid. While not following your demands might result in raids that aren’t to your taste, they won’t automatically end up any worse than that.

Healing itself doesn’t need to be a thing for raids to be adequately challenging. Healing is just one bullet point in a much longer list of things a group needs to get right in order to clear any given fight.

FFXIV’s healing meta usually calls for at least one healer to DPS, and sometimes even spend most of their time DPSing, and there are even raids that are virtually impossible to clear without healer DPS.