Guild Wars 2

I was looking to test out the Druid Celestial Avatar Form, but it appear that Druids are not supposed to ever use it. At least it seems impossible (with out using Troll’s Unguent) in Open World PvE to generate enough Astral Force, before the Astral Force decay kicks in.

So I decided to head over to the Frozen Maw and try it out in a PvE World Boss fight. I whipped out the staff, spammed #1 and #2 while strafing along trying to hit everyone with my beam. Boss died before my Astral Force bar filled to 100%. Anyone else have similar results with World Boss events (besides the Super long ones)?

if this new mechanic is intended, then I see no point of including a Druid in raid. I speculate whoever thought this up, for Astral Force generation, has never played a Healer class, or a MMORPG.

/sadface

that seems quite impossible. just using staff skill 1 hitting through your pet while soloing fills up the bar pretty fast. hitting through a blob of fellow players shouldn’t be slower.

you gain a % of AF according to the amount healed per tick/pulse or skill use so use Outgoing healing boosts like Sigil of Benevolence in addition to Druid traits bigger numbers more AF%.

i’;d think its all about finding that healing power Sweet spot now and a slight re-balance of AF on None Staff weapons.

just wondering how much AF does a Clarions+warhorn blast on a waterfield charge AF with?

ArenaNet regrets to inform you that druids were not meant to be in the final product. They are very sorry for this and will take all measures to remove any impact they may have on the game. Please have a wonderful day.

Astral Force bar isnt a bad mechanic considering the burst healing and everyone having thier own heal, the ISSUE is the time it takes to build up and the decay.

Imagine playing Warrior without having the time to build up and use burst skills, that’s literally Druid right now.

Relshdan.6854:

that seems quite impossible. just using staff skill 1 hitting through your pet while soloing fills up the bar pretty fast. hitting through a blob of fellow players shouldn’t be slower.

The problem is the current Astral Force generation, I am unable to generate almost any force via straight Damage, but if the 3 target limit Staff Skill #1 decides to hit 3 allies at full health, then I get no Astral Force generation from heals either. Hence why I was able to only get to 90% Astral Force by the time the Shaman died. Also, his health bar dropped pretty quick. Maybe 60 seconds for the fight duration.

I’m calling bullkitten on this. On a normal Maw you would be hitting a full 9 times per staff cast. I was refilling the bar in literal seconds in wvw during the beta.

Even with a 40% drop in build rate, there is no way you didn’t fill the bar in the 30-60 seconds it takes to kill maw.

Substance E.4852:

I’m calling bullkitten on this. On a normal Maw you would be hitting a full 9 times per staff cast. I was refilling the bar in literal seconds in wvw during the beta.

Even with a 40% drop in build rate, there is no way you didn’t fill the bar in the 30-60 seconds it takes to kill maw.

Depends on how many other Druids/players were there healing at the same time.

If there were a lot and the people in melee didn’t require healing because of the many small ticks coming from elsewhere, I see no reason why it would ever charge up.

The charge from damage is just not enough, you still need to hit 130 times for it to charge the AF, which is 53s of AA with Staff. So if it lasted 60s, he should have been able to generate enough AF from just AAing, but it would be possible to not get any healing generation at all, even with so many people around.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Substance E.4852:

I’m calling bullkitten on this. On a normal Maw you would be hitting a full 9 times per staff cast. I was refilling the bar in literal seconds in wvw during the beta.

Even with a 40% drop in build rate, there is no way you didn’t fill the bar in the 30-60 seconds it takes to kill maw.

Depends on how many other Druids/players were there healing at the same time.

If there were a lot and the people in melee didn’t require healing because of the many small ticks coming from elsewhere, I see no reason why it would ever charge up.

It would fill the bar even if you didn’t actually proc green numbers during the beta.

I could just stand in place and shoot my pet in the butt a bunch of times out of combat to fill it. The same with trolls.

It still works the same way now though it’s less obvious given that you need to be in combat to do so.

Substance E.4852:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Substance E.4852:

I’m calling bullkitten on this. On a normal Maw you would be hitting a full 9 times per staff cast. I was refilling the bar in literal seconds in wvw during the beta.

Even with a 40% drop in build rate, there is no way you didn’t fill the bar in the 30-60 seconds it takes to kill maw.

Depends on how many other Druids/players were there healing at the same time.

If there were a lot and the people in melee didn’t require healing because of the many small ticks coming from elsewhere, I see no reason why it would ever charge up.

It would fill the bar even if you didn’t actually proc green numbers during the beta.

I could just stand in place and shoot my pet in the butt a bunch of times out of combat to fill it. The same with trolls.

It still works the same way now though it’s less obvious given that you need to be in combat to do so.

Through more extensive testing, you are partially correct. It seems to be kind of a “Hit or Miss” when not actually causing healing. Tested with a Friend down in Orr on some Champs.

Server lag also plays an interesting part. Did another World event and noticed a similar issue as Frostmaw. Sometimes the bar would charge, and then it would not charge when staff #1’ing it on a Zerg. I would speculate that Astral Force Generation calculations are Server Side. If this calculation was Client side, one could write a script to artificially inflate Astral Force without needing to use staff at all, and always give a Full Astral Force bar when in combat.

In the end, if they would just remove the kitten Astral Force decay completely, this would not feel so bad. From a Healer Mechanic stand point in PvE/Raids, the current system does not work. No Healer should be penalized for up to 60 seconds without being able to use healing in case something goes wrong. Otherwise, what is the point of bring a healer then?

From a PvP mentality perspective it works, since PvPers do not want healer to be able to heal so they can get easy kills.

Druid felt so smooth and nice in BWE3. I refuse to believe they intentionally ruined such a promising class.

LegallyBinding.4937:

Druid felt so smooth and nice in BWE3. I refuse to believe they intentionally ruined such a promising class.

I don’t. They did it for plenty of times already.
I’m enjoying the new pets as a life-long Beast Mastery enthusiast for now.

Rangers have fine DPS, I refuse to play druid till they fix their mess. And I’m gonna kick every druid in my fractal groups, too.
That just feels so useless and I really already tried every build for various scenarios. Druid just doesn’t work. You have no way of keeping people alive outside of CAF and your form doesn’t last long enough to fit a role of healer.

Right now it’s just a random healing mechanic that has high delay, 30% chance to hit moving targets and overheals into pointless infinity in case it hits (a single person goes from 20% to 100 in max 3-5 seconds, then you are wasting the the form duration).

Also, I don’t remember when did I actually use the CAF glyph versions last time … Probably in BWE.