First off I want to say that I love the Druid. Was a little jaded when it was fully announced because, like most of us, full healer didn’t sound like it was going to fit in with the play style that GW2 offers. Now, this is not to say that I was not ecstatic to hear that I was finally getting my healer class. Love the Druid.
Now for the issues; starting with the staff. A lot of people have brought this up and I feel I should throw in my opinion as well. The staff needs to be held like a caster holds a staff. Druid, being a ranged supporter, holding the staff as a melee weapon does not feel right. And the way we cast Solar Beam feels and looks wrong. Also the synergy with pets. Aside from a few traits for the pets f2 to heal and such there is little to no synergy between the Druid Spec and the pet. And the pets that were added did nothing to help that. That’s really it for complaints.
As for improvements: As said before pure healer does not fit into the way GW2 is played. What I mean by this is not everyone wants to be a pure healer. I, for one, have always loved the idea of Condition Rangers. Because nature is a beautiful blend of both medicinal and poisonous plants and wonders. This should be felt in the Druid, and Ranger over all. We have the healing aspect. But why not allow for conditioning and damaging aspects as well.
For example; Seed of Life: This skill heals and cleanses conditions on allies. Why not add a poison application to this skill to give Druids a bit of offensive capability. The plant that can heal may also poison.
Another example; Cosmic Ray and Solar Beam: Both of these skills could easily apply burning. Even if it’s a short 2 second stack per hit. This would allow something that naturally burns, Solar Beams, to also heal (Other way around in game, but you get the point).
Last example of condition application; Astral Wisp: Now this may be a little out of place as it’s an astral creation, however, it is still a wisp. Now a wisp, or Ignis Fatuss, is a phosphorescent light that hovers over swampy areas caused by spontaneously combusted gasses from rotting organic matter. However is also seen as a light that can mislead or delude ones perception. Now the first part could, in the case of this skill, apply burning per second enemies are within it or, in case of the second, apply confusion/torment per second enemies are within it.
Another thought on wisp: Not condition related but still to add damage, would be to have is siphon health from enemies and add the siphoned health to the base healing of this skill. This would allow for higher healing the more enemies that are within.
Glyphs:
Empowerment: Liked this skill as it gave a boost to those in my party that were still running straight dmg builds. This was the only glyph I ran post testing. Great skill, but one change I would like to make that I will bring up later.
Equality: This skill being a stun break in CA or a daze as base felt out of place as a utility at 30s cd. Most people are running at least one stun break of their own and with the addition of a Rev in the party running Invocation stun breaking isn’t an issue. And with Lunar Impact on 5s cs, and CA being easy to build up and jump into, the Daze wasn’t needed.
Tides: This skill should have reversed abilities. Pull should be the base effect and Push should be the CA effect. This should have been sort of obvious. As if you are trying to panic heal a group you want enemies away from the party. So jumping into the center of them, dropping Lunar impact then Glyph of tides would allow enough relief to heal some before dropping out of CA and pulling back in.
Alignment: Not worth the use as a dmg utility as it’s very little. Ranger have better access to Weakness and Cripple via pet than needing this utility. And the condi cleans and heal are NOT worth the slot when we already have CA with a spammable seed of life that does the exact same thing.
Unity: Couldn’t find use for this. Maybe in PvP, but I stuck to PvE this weekend for my testing. The damage share of this skill felt null as, as a Ranger, we avoid most dmg or enemies are focused on our pets. And the CA healing link did little when Druid already does massive amount of group heals without it. Felt like a weak choice over SotP or Entagle for dealing dmg not depended on enemies hitting us.
Rejuvenation: Tried it. Didn’t like it. Again. Already have enough healing power as Druid that this skill didn’t add much healing that was needed. And as Glyphs don’t gain any added abilities with the trait it wasn’t worth taking over WHaO or Healing Spring.
Now as for that thing I was going to mention with Glyph of Empowerment. I saved this because I would like to bring up a base Ranger trait; Instinctive Reaction (Nature Magic). Now as I brought up at the start of this post, Nature being both a healing and poisonous force, I think this trait, as well as Empowerment, should be changed to Condition damage. There are enough traits out there that benefit the zerker pure dps meta. Why not give more options to condition dmg.
Or give them both. As Rangers are already in a sore spot when it comes to dmg why not boost that with this one trait. Given the rest of Nature magic is support based why not drop the % from 7% to 5% to both Power and Condition Damage.
I’m not saying all this because I don’t like being a healer. Or that I don’t like handing over offense in order to heal. I’m suggesting these so that Druids are able to help, even a little bit, with the damage to bosses and such. A lot of this also goes back to playing Ritualist back in GW1. Running Restoration/Channeling build for heavy healing with added dmg.
Anyways. Thoughts. Be constructive and respectful, please.
(edited by Vyriis.6258)