I find the issue to be rooted in how long it takes to charge up Astral Force. The reason people are complaining about the degeneration on it is because it takes ages to build it back up. The point of the Elite Spec was to add a more supportive role to the fray, but since the change in AF generation from BWE3, I almost find myself forgetting to even switch into Celestial Avatar in longer battles because it’s taken so long to charge up. The issue is in shorter battles, I don’t get to use it at all.

I hope you guys look at it and tweak both the degeneration and the generation of Astral Force. Thanks for keeping an eye out on the community.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

I’m looking into the combat degen resulting in too heavy a gating of Celestial Avatar in PvE situations; from what I saw over the weekend it seemed overly restrictive in open world battles. If this continues it then the degeneration when out of combat is likely to be removed.

Serious design question, why is a time gated stance with abilities on cooldowns, required to generate AF at all?

10 sec cool down to re-enter the form
15 sec limit on remaining in the form
Abilities within the form on CD

Is it possible to simply 100% refill the AF bar upon entering CA and have the heals consume AF and then have healing/damage refill the bar while in the form?

It feels as though Celestial Avatar form is an afterthought currently and that’s a shame as I see a potentially fun Spec. I would love to see CA treated like an Elementalists attunement. The mechanics are already there.

Thanks for reading. (Tree form for reference).

Irenio you are a sage to the ranger community. I am extremely appreciative of how vocal you personally have been since the WHaO fiasco. Thank you so much.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

I’m looking into the combat degen resulting in too heavy a gating of Celestial Avatar in PvE situations; from what I saw over the weekend it seemed overly restrictive in open world battles. If this continues it then the degeneration when out of combat is likely to be removed.

Hey Irenio! Thanks for this changes however there is STILL a mayor flaw to AF generation the way you implemented it. It should be based on a percentage of damage dealt/healing done. Right now Troll Unguent will give you about 15 times more AF than any other healing skill. Is this intended? It just means to use Celestial Form you have to pick TU and thus limits build variety. I cannot believe this is intended.

Please change this to be percentage based instead of “per tick”!

Another thing is glyphes. Right now it doesn’t feel like they really work that well with their 2 aspects in celestial/normal form. Reason: celesital form skills are very strong and they obviously have to be. However since cele form is timed gated this means you don’t really want to spend animation time on anything on the right side of your skill bar since it means less time to use the CF skills. I am always in a rush to get as many in as possible already. Casting a glyph or anything else is basically getting punished.
Solution: make the time gated part weaker (lower consumption per second) but add an AF cost to each of the celestial form skills. Skill 4 could for example cost 10% but you only lose 1% per second. With that change I would again make it so that AF is set to zero whenever CF ends.

Thanks Irenio and don’t be discouraged by some minor outrages.

PS: Swap the smokescreen skills again. Personally I didn’t mind but it really means a lot to the ranger community.

The beta version was the best. It was unique in that it was different from necro or warrior forms and it was flexible, simple, and fun. I don’t want it to be like necro shroud because that’s uninteresting and if I wanted to play something similar to necro shroud, I’d play necro shroud.

I really hope the changes aren’t seriously going to be reverted this slowly. There were no qualms about obliterating Celestial Avatar in one massive sucker punch, can’t it be restored to the state that darn near everyone was happy with in the same instantaneous-and-out-of-kittening-nowhere fashion?

This is great! Very excited to hear this, assuming the ooc degeneration is removed.

While you’re at it, please take a look at celestial form skill 1. In a fast moving game like GW2, this skill is a bit too difficult to land on your teammates due to the delay and very small radius. Even of you try to “lead” the skill were you predict your ally will be moving, one small change in direction and this skill will miss. Either make it instant on the location you aim for, or increase radius.

Also, in general, please consider a bit more synergy between ranger and pet in regards to the druid as a whole.

In pvp at least, AF generation needs to be greatly increased as well. It’s just pathetic in the state it is in right now… then maybe (if the last 3 years are evidence then nm) we can move onto synergy with the core class?

Play through the daytime event chain at Faren’s Flyer outpost, especially around the middle of the chain when Faren’s training or you’re performing an escort. You’ll see what I mean.

Please do make AF stay while out of combat, it felt great during the beta weekend. All too often in PvE there would be an event where enemies are constantly attacking an outpost. Normal gameplay would be to engage a wave on one side then the wave on the other, or in larger groups to maintain a barricade on your side for each incoming wave. Either way, this sort of gameplay forces CAF to be only usable as a skirmish is ending or worse as all the players are breaking combat and auto-regenerating. Most situations calling for a CAF in that scenario occur during the initial engagement with a wave, for Lunar Impact and Natural Convergence or simply to protect a teammate who messed up the engage. But that can’t happen.

When I was playing a warrior I knew I had tools to automatically max out my adrenaline or other tools to provide adrenaline boosts, breaking combat cost some adrenaline but at least I was back at full health. With a Druid, the frequent breaks in combat makes choosing the elite spec seem like a pointless idea.

I am getting really tired of seeing the comments of posters who think this resource is meant to be like warrior adrenaline.

Just because it was given decay doesn’t mean it is the same. It’s meant to be like death shroud. It’s basically the “healing form necromancer” and should work like that.

This is a step in the right direction, indeed. Please also consider removing the cooldown, since all the skills in it are support based. You are not being a very good support if there is that one person who needs a burst heal, and when your astral is off cd, the person is already dead and rages at you for mistiming your heals.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

If regen were removed it would be in all modes. I’ve seen that in PvP it is also a pretty heavy gating, but in PvE it is appears worse due to the more frequent travel time between engagements.

I honestly think degeneration out of combat is brutally limiting in all modes. Astral Force behaves far more like Life Force than Adrenaline, and in its transformation style I think the degeneration out of combat absolutely needs to be removed. Thanks, Irenio!

Aidenwolf.5964:

Serious design question, why is a time gated stance with abilities on cooldowns, required to generate AF at all?

10 sec cool down to re-enter the form
15 sec limit on remaining in the form
Abilities within the form on CD

Is it possible to simply 100% refill the AF bar upon entering CA and have the heals consume AF and then have healing/damage refill the bar while in the form?

It feels as though Celestial Avatar form is an afterthought currently and that’s a shame as I see a potentially fun Spec. I would love to see CA treated like an Elementalists attunement. The mechanics are already there.

Thanks for reading. (Tree form for reference).

I’ve thought of this myself and have come to the following conclusion:

1) Anet’s attempt to gate CAF turned out to be a massive fail in BWE3. Druids were entering CAF practically at will and were able to face-roll heal people without breaking a sweat.

2) Anet comes to the conclusion that they need to gate CAF better but they don’t have the time to come up with a solid plan/solution since HoT is being released just around the corner.

3) An OP healing Druid would be a nightmare to deal with in HoT, with all of the other things going on, so Anet’s solution is to make sure that Druid healing won’t be a problem by throwing every gating mechanic under the sun at it as a short-term fix.

4) After HoT has settled a bit, go back and work on Druid AF mechanics.

This is what happens when your elite spec is last minute.

Are you sure you’re not gonna remove the combat degen just to say “Ha! Got ya!” and make it degen twice as fast afterwards?

It seems to be a trend with ranger tweaks these days.

Seeing how you got an eye on tha threadt, Irenio, I’ll permit myself to chime in. I’m usually discrete and reserved, and the only times I post is to shine happy rainbow sunshine on a subject, but this time I’d like to share my sadness.

Been maining ranger ever since I started in 2014, not knowing anything about their status as least liked class in the game (I can point you to a very recent user survey of 12 000 players where Ranger barely scrapes a little percentage of votes) but still I love the class and played more than my share of satisfying speed runs in dungeons and high level fractals thanks to great buddies.

Learning the name of my Spec’ scared me a bit. Druid sounded healing and what is healing’s place in GW2’s soft trinity? I saw Wooden Potato’s very pertinent experiment about high-level healing with the elementalist and knew what to expect : sad, unsatisfying role that neither gives credit for the role played or for the monsters slayed. On top of that, our and the Engineer’s spec would be the least play-tested and changed as we got the short stick of the deal and only had 1 weekend worth of chance to speak our mind.

Learning of raids changed my dreadful feelings a little bit. I threw myself at the Druid in BWE3 and had crazy fun despite my fears and despite some very bothersome aspects I’ll touch on later. I felt useful, I felt mobile, I even like staff contrary to a lot of other players. Changes to staff 3 made me very happy as I felt that skill was a big part of what allowed me to shine as a healer and manage my placement on the battlefield.

Unlocking my spec ever since launch made me crazy sad. I was in a though spot in new fractals thinking “If only I had my Druid!” then realized I had a staff lying around in my bags and decided to go for it. Right away I felt the difference in usability compared to BWE3; for such a shoe-horned, limited role of mostly healing, Druid had to excel at it, and now it was… meh. Half-decent damage, half-decent healing, never enough AF to feel useful. So here are my tidbits of constructive criticism :

1- Astral Force should work like Death Shroud. Mechanics are more similar to it; it cannot be compared to Warrior adrenaline which encompasses a single burst in a slot that doesn’t affect the rest of the gameplay; degen is legitimate as we are talking about a separate skill only worth a damage burst.

Entering Celestial Avatar changes all your weapon skills and the way you play. Most of the versatility of the Druid as a Healer comes from the fact that we can burst heal when needed instead of continuous regen like Ventari’s tablet with the Revenant. Gimping our access to CA means we cannot burst when it is needed, or help control the crowd with skill 5 as now we sheepishly save up whatever little AF we have just in case the next damage phase is worst then the one you have now.

2- Animations for the change of skill when entering/leaving CA was long enough that I had the impression for a split second that I could use later skills of my skillbar if the rotating icons weren’t quite there yet, and it isn’t the case. I pressed a few skills for nothing quite a few time because my visual confirmation and reaction quickness was faster than the icon swap and did not reflect actual skill availability.

3- When using Death Shroud 5 as a Necro, if I’m on the verge of being kicked out of Death Shroud I can launch the skill and as long as I respect the tether conditions the skill will resolve normally; CA’s skill 5 will not and with such a shortened duration, the high risk of the skill gets even more disproportionate as I either use it at the beginning of the CA’s form, never at the end or else it will not resolve… Very very annoying and makes a otherwise very great risky skill feel like it is not worth the risk gauging if that little sliver of white will allow it to resolve or not.

4- Weapon restriction still feels quite a bit limiting. I had to swap out of my staff as we entered a fractal level I was used to having the AR for but forgot my staff was just an exotic, thus forcing me back to my sword. My Healing Spring with Call of the Wild burst managed little more than one CA use per Mai Trin’s burn phase. Druid still feels a lot like it’s staff or nothing.

*5- Glyphs- I haven’t had the chance to play around with yet. Having the Glyph of Empowerment shine on top of affected party members was a blessing. In BW3 they felt too short-ranged for any actual use in a fight where mobility is extreme for staff placement, and I still feel like Glyph of Tides should be inverted : pull in when you are in ‘damage’ form and push out when you are ‘protecting omg my pals’ in healer form. Just makes more sense that way as it’s at these time that I jump in the fray to save my melee pals in CA.

Just my two coppers there. On a few quick notes (I’ve blabbered way too much) thank you and whoever is responsible for removing pet targeting in the Jade Maw fractal. I have finally stopped being a super bother with my pet being the target of choice and stowing working in very limited conditions. And now our pets survive PVE fights for real. I am overjoyed and so grateful!

Also, good healing power combination stats are scarce and very costly (looking at you, Zealot) and after spending the better of a year equipping my Ranger in Ascended, I don’t feel like the spec is worth paying for a test set of armor with the stats of my choice considering how poorly it heals now. Druid after launch feels bad at it’s one role; I am not a wealthy player and I am now considering stopping to invest in my Druid as I am afraid to spend hundreds of G’s for a specialization that just won’t work and will be shunned in any organized run (Scale 100 fractals are already easily completed without good healing, and that was my only other hope beside raids…). Druid can only be good if using the most optimal healing power build now, and I don’t think I can afford it.

I really really want to love Druid. Please? Pretty please please?

Leodon.1564:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Serious design question, why is a time gated stance with abilities on cooldowns, required to generate AF at all?

10 sec cool down to re-enter the form
15 sec limit on remaining in the form
Abilities within the form on CD

Is it possible to simply 100% refill the AF bar upon entering CA and have the heals consume AF and then have healing/damage refill the bar while in the form?

It feels as though Celestial Avatar form is an afterthought currently and that’s a shame as I see a potentially fun Spec. I would love to see CA treated like an Elementalists attunement. The mechanics are already there.

Thanks for reading. (Tree form for reference).

I’ve thought of this myself and have come to the following conclusion:

1) Anet’s attempt to gate CAF turned out to be a massive fail in BWE3. Druids were entering CAF practically at will and were able to face-roll heal people without breaking a sweat.

2) Anet comes to the conclusion that they need to gate CAF better but they don’t have the time to come up with a solid plan/solution since HoT is being released just around the corner.

3) An OP healing Druid would be a nightmare to deal with in HoT, with all of the other things going on, so Anet’s solution is to make sure that Druid healing won’t be a problem by throwing every gating mechanic under the sun at it as a short-term fix.

4) After HoT has settled a bit, go back and work on Druid AF mechanics.

This is what happens when your elite spec is last minute.

Druids in BWE3 were less effective in sPvP than Reapers, Heralds, and Chronomancers; did you see any of them get nerfed?

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Leodon.1564:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Serious design question, why is a time gated stance with abilities on cooldowns, required to generate AF at all?

10 sec cool down to re-enter the form
15 sec limit on remaining in the form
Abilities within the form on CD

Is it possible to simply 100% refill the AF bar upon entering CA and have the heals consume AF and then have healing/damage refill the bar while in the form?

It feels as though Celestial Avatar form is an afterthought currently and that’s a shame as I see a potentially fun Spec. I would love to see CA treated like an Elementalists attunement. The mechanics are already there.

Thanks for reading. (Tree form for reference).

I’ve thought of this myself and have come to the following conclusion:

1) Anet’s attempt to gate CAF turned out to be a massive fail in BWE3. Druids were entering CAF practically at will and were able to face-roll heal people without breaking a sweat.

2) Anet comes to the conclusion that they need to gate CAF better but they don’t have the time to come up with a solid plan/solution since HoT is being released just around the corner.

3) An OP healing Druid would be a nightmare to deal with in HoT, with all of the other things going on, so Anet’s solution is to make sure that Druid healing won’t be a problem by throwing every gating mechanic under the sun at it as a short-term fix.

4) After HoT has settled a bit, go back and work on Druid AF mechanics.

This is what happens when your elite spec is last minute.

Druids in BWE3 were less effective in sPvP than Reapers, Heralds, and Chronomancers; did you see any of them get nerfed?

Its not a matter of being OP relative to other professions. Its a matter of Anet not having a clear idea as to how to gate CAF in time for HoT launch, as seen by their approach to take mechanics from other professions and just slap it on Druid to see if any will stick.

This is why the current Druid AF generation/CAF gating methods seems like a mashup of several different ideas/design philosophies to me; a bit of Death Shroud mechanics, a bit of Adrenaline mechanics, some unique things to Druid such as having to be at max AF, etc.

Thank you kindly,
I believe removing or mitigating Degen is a good area to focus on, and I appreciate keeping the lines of communication open.

Warrior’s rage should get the same treatment then

computer.4372:

Warrior’s rage should get the same treatment then

I actually agree, there’s no real reason that Warriors need to degenerate Rage outside of combat. Warrior has really been hurting lately in terms of viability in PvP outside of Rampage and somewhat shoutbow support builds. It really hurts losing all your rage on your f1 to a mesmer who can instantly spam blind you over and over as well.

computer.4372:

Warrior’s rage should get the same treatment then

Not necessarily. Getting a full bar takes <10 seconds for a warrior, but >45 seconds for a druid. Plus, warriors have skills that give them full (or nearly full) bars instantly. There just isn’t a comparison.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

computer.4372:

Warrior’s rage should get the same treatment then

Not necessarily. Getting a full bar takes <10 seconds for a warrior, but >45 seconds for a druid. Plus, warriors have skills that give them full (or nearly full) bars instantly. There just isn’t a comparison.

I liked your idea but it does not address the problem, you will still be forced to get regen sources. Just make AF gather faster on other weapons, problem solved.

Comparing Adrenaline to Astral Force is a bit apples to oranges.

Damage is infallible, Healing is situational.

It makes sense a Damage-based resource would be Tactical, and a Healing-based resource would be Strategic. You may not want to use your Burst Skill just then, but it’s always going to be relevant. You just can’t say the same for Healing in this game, so having the resource be about managing how it fits in the bigger picture of multiple encounters seems it’s really making the most of sporadic usefulness.

computer.4372:

Warrior’s rage should get the same treatment then

Not necessarily.

You cannot put Druid healing/mechanics in the same category as DS/Adrenaline since both of the latter mechanics are geared towards offense. Healing has to be flexible/powerful enough to deal with incoming DPS or else there is no point in touting Druid as a “healer” since it cannot live up to the role. Offensive and defensive measures cannot be made equal to each other, or defense will always lose in the long run. (e.g., You don’t create an Aegis spell that takes 2 seconds to cast if most offensive spells take 2 seconds to cast; Aegis needs to be faster casting than its offensive counterparts.)

Leodon.1564:

Its not a matter of being OP relative to other professions. Its a matter of Anet not having a clear idea as to how to gate CAF in time for HoT launch, as seen by their approach to take mechanics from other professions and just slap it on Druid to see if any will stick.

No it’s a matter of Anet having this asinine idea that AF should be gated at all.

It should have been weaker heals/longer cooldowns but on a simple toggle mode that we could pop in out of at will or with a small cooldown. Why do we need resource management for something that is no different than Elementalist attunements?

The staff could then be replaced with a CC/condition weapon and we could get traits that proc effects when healing others in place of the “entering/leaving AF” ones.

I tolerated the BWE iteration of druid because AF was so easy to generate it was a non-issue. This new version is beyond awful.

Dear based Irenio, I am currently forming a cult in your name. With Druid getting fixed I shall hail your name across Map chat and the Forums. The Revanants and Dragonhunters will cry as their false Gods forsake them and Irenio’s cult shall spread…

Substance E.4852:

Leodon.1564:

Its not a matter of being OP relative to other professions. Its a matter of Anet not having a clear idea as to how to gate CAF in time for HoT launch, as seen by their approach to take mechanics from other professions and just slap it on Druid to see if any will stick.

No it’s a matter of Anet having this asinine idea that AF should be gated at all.

It should have been weaker heals/longer cooldowns but on a simple toggle mode that we could pop in out of at will or with a small cooldown. Why do we need resource management for something that is no different than Elementalist attunements?

From my understanding, Anet’s design for Druid is for it to be the best healer in the game (total healing output and burst healing capability) by a comfortable margin. We are able to excel in that role because we sacrifice in other areas (i.e., we give up boon support/dps for our superior heals).

I believe AF is being gated so as to try and create that “bursty” aspect of Druid healing. I don’t agree with Anet’s method though because it is far too rigid for the needs of a healing class and because Druid healing can be made to feel/be bursty without hard gates, such as 10 CD or having to be at max AF to enter CAF.

Edit: I am not sure why Anet decided to go with a DPS/heal model (i.e., you need to dps/heal to gain AF) for determining AF generation but it seems the easiest route would have been to just have players gain a percentage of AF per second, with an increased bonus for wielding a staff. If the whole point of balancing AF generations among weapons/abilities now (which sounds like a huge undertaking) is so that they are normalized to a certain median, wouldn’t it be just easier to set AF generation to that median?

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

I’m looking into the combat degen resulting in too heavy a gating of Celestial Avatar in PvE situations; from what I saw over the weekend it seemed overly restrictive in open world battles. If this continues it then the degeneration when out of combat is likely to be removed.

It’s too heavily gated in PvP as well. When A Druid can’t use CAF more than once or twice over the course of an entire PvP match, something is seriously wrong.

Exactly, the OOC degen just should not exist at all.

Tipper.6973:

The Warrior Berserker spec has the same problem – thoughts on that?

Warrior has many many ways of generating Adrenaline and the issue is not even close in nature to Druid requiring 130 attacks to even use the mechanic at all.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

I’m looking into the combat degen resulting in too heavy a gating of Celestial Avatar in PvE situations; from what I saw over the weekend it seemed overly restrictive in open world battles. If this continues it then the degeneration when out of combat is likely to be removed.

Serious design question, why is a time gated stance with abilities on cooldowns, required to generate AF at all?

10 sec cool down to re-enter the form
15 sec limit on remaining in the form
Abilities within the form on CD

Is it possible to simply 100% refill the AF bar upon entering CA and have the heals consume AF and then have healing/damage refill the bar while in the form?

It feels as though Celestial Avatar form is an afterthought currently and that’s a shame as I see a potentially fun Spec. I would love to see CA treated like an Elementalists attunement. The mechanics are already there.

Thanks for reading. (Tree form for reference).

Yeah, I don’t see a real point for its existence. I feel its just unnecessary complexity.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

If regen were removed it would be in all modes. I’ve seen that in PvP it is also a pretty heavy gating, but in PvE it is appears worse due to the more frequent travel time between engagements.

I honestly think degeneration out of combat is brutally limiting in all modes. Astral Force behaves far more like Life Force than Adrenaline, and in its transformation style I think the degeneration out of combat absolutely needs to be removed. Thanks, Irenio!

Couldn’t agree more!

Public Opinion Polls

By the way, Irenio, please look at these two polls.
Smokescale F2 Poll
Astral Force Generation Poll

I don’t mind the degen that much in pvp. I mean yeah obviously it would be better if it didn’t degen, but with staff you can still fill AF fast. Pve though the degen is a big problem. I think the core problem of AF generation needs to be addressed before other changes are made, otherwise we’re just in a weird state of flux.

Some suggestions for AF generation and CAF gating:

1. Have AF generate by a certain percentage in normal (non-CAF) mode; degenerate when in CAF mode. Wielding staff provides bonus AF generation in normal mode; decreases rate of degeneration in CAF mode. You can use this method to quantifiably set and normalize AF generation across players, instead of trying to tweak individual AF generation numbers on weapons/heals to reach desired target levels based on observation of gameplay.
2. Start AF at a full globe (tied in with the proposed change from 1 above).
   Unlike a DPS model, healers should not have to “build up” to enter into a pure defensive mode. You should be able to enter a fight between others and immediately go into CAF for some clutch healing; instead of joining the fight, DPS to build enough AF, and then go for some “clutch” healing. When a person comes at you in a 1v1 situation, he’s coming at you with all he has in the first 5 seconds of the fight. You need access to your full defensive kit to deal with that.
3. To create the “bursty” healing gameplay, use soft gating methods to encourage players to fill the AF bar instead of using hard gates, such as a 10 CD/max AF restriction. Hard gating methods, taken from DPS oriented models, are not flexible enough to deal with the time-sensitive and situational nature of a healing class. Some soft gating methods you can use instead to create a bursty healing druid are:

• Add AF cost for entering CAF to discourage players from going in and out of CAF form unnecessarily.
• Tie heal strength with how full the AF bar is when you entered CAF (e.g., 50% AF bar = 50% heals). This will encourage players to reach max AF before entering CAF to mimic a bursty healing spec but without imposing a hard gate.
• Add percentage bonus to DPS for every level of AF bar generated (e.g., 1% increase in DPS for every 20% AF bar generated) to relieve some of the anxiety players feel from having a full bar of AF but without having a reason to change to CAF. This will also help to alleviate some of the DPS loss perceived by Rangers when taking the Druid line (i.e., at least you’re getting a DPS bonus if you are not using CAF much).
• While in CAF, have total healing done feedback into refilling AF bar for increased CAF duration. This will reward players who invest heavily into healing power which is traditionally viewed as an unfavorable stat.

With the above changes, a player can be the type of bursty player you envision Druid healing to be but you leave the choice in the hands of the player. They can choose to be suboptimal healers (balanced with other healing/support classes in mind) for more constant healing, if the need arises. The above changes should also be alot easier to implement/balance from Anet’s side, as opposed to trying to normalize every combination of weapon/heal/ability for AF generation.

Removing AF degeneration would correct many issues with the druid.

Eric.7813:

Removing AF degeneration would correct many issues with the druid.

No it’s not.

Anyway you have to firght in duel about 70-130sec to get CAF…

My suggestions:

• Allow us to go in and out of Celestial Avatar with no restrictions (possibly keep the cooldown when leaving the form) while above at least 10% Astral Force
• Have the healing skills cost x amount of Astral Force
• Increase the rate at which you can gain Astral Force
• (Allow for AF regen/gain when in Avatar form somehow?)
• Avatar skills 1, 2 and 4 should all of them have some offensive ‘thing’ added to them. Lunar impact is a perfect example of a well thought out skill imho. Same thing in regards to Natural Convergence, but the other way around – make it beneficial for allies near you somehow, pulse regen perhaps

I really like the gameplay of the druid, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had with a healer archetype in any game, much due to the positional requirements and active gameplay.

Keep tweaking and adding to it, to add to the fun aspect of the specialization, and it will be even better!

Leodon.1564:

Some suggestions for AF generation and CAF gating:

1. Have AF generate by a certain percentage in normal (non-CAF) mode; degenerate when in CAF mode. Wielding staff provides bonus AF generation in normal mode; decreases rate of degeneration in CAF mode. You can use this method to quantifiably set and normalize AF generation across players, instead of trying to tweak individual AF generation numbers on weapons/heals to reach desired target levels based on observation.
2. Start AF at a full globe (tied in with the proposed change from 1 above).
   Unlike a DPS model, healers should not have to “build up” to enter into a pure defensive mode. You should be able to enter a fight between others and immediately go into CAF for some clutch healing; instead of joining the fight, DPS to build enough AF, and then go for some “clutch” healing.
3. To create the “bursty” healing gameplay, use soft gating methods to encourage players to fill the AF bar instead of using hard gates, such as a 10 CD/max AF restriction. Hard gating methods, taken from DPS oriented models, are not flexible enough to deal with the time-sensitive and situational nature of a healing class. Some soft gating methods you can use instead to create a bursty healing druid are:

• Add AF cost for entering CAF to discourage players from going in and out of CAF form unnecessarily.
• Tie heal strength with how full the AF bar is when you entered CAF (e.g., 50% AF bar = 50% heals). This will encourage players to reach max AF before entering CAF but without the hard restriction/gate.
• Add percentage bonus to DPS for every level of AF bar generated (e.g., 1% increase in DPS for every 20% AF bar generated) to relieve some of the anxiety players feel from having a full bar of AF but no reason to change to CAF. This will also help to alleviate some of the DPS loss perceived by Rangers when taking the Druid line (i.e., at least you’re getting a DPS bonus if you are not using CAF much).
• While in CAF, have total healing done feedback into refilling AF bar for increased CAF duration. This will reward players who invest heavily into healing power which is traditionally viewed as an unfavorable stat.

With the above changes, a player can be the type of bursty player you envision Druid healing to be but you leave the choice in the hands of the player. They can choose to be suboptimal healers (balanced with other healing/support classes in mind) for more constant healing, if the need arises. The above changes should also be alot easier to implement/balance from Anet’s side, as opposed to trying to normalize every combination of weapon/heal/ability for AF generation.

I think it’s a good way to start improving Druid by letting us keep the energy out of combat even though it does not solve the in-combat problem which is not being able to heal your allies in need because your heals (since you can not auto attack allies to heal them directly) are gated behind 10 seconds cooldown and not having full energy to enter Celestial mode. I believe that these suggestions are necessary to bring Druid again at a decent level.

Jim.4935:

I think it’s a good way to start improving Druid by letting us keep the energy out of combat even though it does not solve the in-combat problem which is not being able to heal your allies in need because your heals (since you can not auto attack allies to heal them directly) are gated behind 10 seconds cooldown and not having full energy to enter Celestial mode. I believe that these suggestions are necessary to bring Druid again at a decent level.

This. The 10 seconds cooldown is unnecessary (healing needs flexibility).

However, resource gating is needed. In my opinion, AF generation with staff is fine atm.

PS: bring smokescale’s F2 back… or add a second type of smokescale with smoke cloud F2.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Serious design question, why is a time gated stance with abilities on cooldowns, required to generate AF at all?

10 sec cool down to re-enter the form
15 sec limit on remaining in the form
Abilities within the form on CD

Is it possible to simply 100% refill the AF bar upon entering CA and have the heals consume AF and then have healing/damage refill the bar while in the form?

It feels as though Celestial Avatar form is an afterthought currently and that’s a shame as I see a potentially fun Spec. I would love to see CA treated like an Elementalists attunement. The mechanics are already there.

Spot on. The AF resource doesn’t feel quite right.

I feel like AF should degen very slowly and the casting of CA skills should be what consumes the majority of AF. The current rapid rate of degen forces you to spam your skills as fast as possible & mindlessly before AF runs out rather than using the CA intelligently.

Should either be fast to build and fast to consume or slow to build and slow to consume as well. Slow to build and fast to consume makes the class feel… flat IMHO.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

Hi Irenio, smokescale? Why father ranger?! :’(

CA should simply be a toggle like death shroud, but with a 10s cooldown after leaving because of traits. No astral force generation at all. You can just swap forms at any time.

If your role is to be a healer, then you should just be able to stay in CA and not be forced back into your other weapon sets.

So CA should be like a 3rd weapon set with its own weapon swap cooldown of 10s.

lernio just come to fix all the massup roy did..
so stay cool guys i’m sure its gonna be fixed soon ..

Thanks for the information. I found it rather hard to keep it up and the degen is far too fast. Also make Celestial Avatar duration longer – it’s very short.

Irenio, a few suggestions.

1. fix out of combat degeneration of AF, it is really far too fast.
2. let our AF bar change with how much Healing Power we have. If someone wants to be a stronger, more dedicated healer then they should be able to remain in Astral Form longer than a zerker.
3. provide more scaling with healing power. There still seems to be too little difference between when running zerker gear and slotting healing power. Also, full investment into healing power as a stat seems pointless as the gains beyond ~70-1,000 healing power seem negligible.
4. CAF #1 should have a wider range, similar to the aoe size that CAF #2 is now. it should also come with some form of condition added to it. I like the idea that was previously suggested of adding a very short duration burn to it, something like 2s.
5. CAF#2 and 3 need to do more healing but have longer cooldowns. #1 should be the only spammable skill, the others should be situational. #3 should be for big burst heals or when the immediate CC is needed. #2 should be for when allies need cleansing or a moderate heal is needed.

Those changes would create a differentiation between a zerker druid and cleric druid. They would make each skill have a purpose in a rotation and increase the skill cap for druid over mashing buttons over and over.

Just adding my own experience and opinion after a few days of playing druid in PvE and WvW.

It really did feel like it was too hard to get into avatar form…It took painfully long to build up. I think both healing and damage should push the bar up more quickly. I was generally only able to use the form once if at all in a fight, and it was at or near the very end of the fight.

I felt like I was using it just because “omg it’s finally ready to use!” rather than using it tactically and effectively for the abilities it offers. It should be available to me enough so that I can use the skills at the best times…the way it is, it’s pretty much never there when I need it, which makes it more of a useless gimmick than something which should be highly useful (considering it’s the basis for the whole elite spec).

I also felt like my time in avatar form was too short. I was rushing to use the skills before it totally ran out… ending early wasn’t much of an option if I actually wanted to use the skills, so I was starting from scratch every time.

I’m not really sure I understand the need for cooldowns on the avatar abilities if it’s going to take ~30 seconds to build up the life force only to spend a very short time in the form and spam the skills one time before it ends. Having the abilities have cooldowns gives me the impression that the intention is for druids to be able to spend a reasonable amount of time (50% or more maybe?) in avatar form during fights. I think the spec would feel much better if that was the case.

After paying close attention to this issue during my play yesterday, I can honestly say I think Druid will be in a pretty good place with this change.

Degeneration is just a frustrating mechanic and makes the Druid rather clunky to play, especially running around in PvE where you are constantly dropping in and out of combat. In PvP too it makes you incredibly weak at the start of a fight.

Really hope to see this change, Druid will be a lot more fun with it.

Let’s think about AF for a second.
What a druid is supposed to be? It was developer-confirmed Healing specialization. Plenty of people were shocked, some disappointed some thrilled… But it was a good idea. A person dedicated to look for other people’s lives is a good thing. It also takes some skill-cap to predict the movement and hit the heals which is also a good thing to prevent it from facerolling PvP.

But here comes the but:
In BWE:

• You had hard time being a healer with DPS build and weapons. Which logically is fine. You had that situational “snap” button.
• You also were punished after leaving the astral form by depleting all the Astral Bar. Which forced you to think twice about healing people up or doing damage/utility.
• If you were smart, you could control your astral force so that you could look after people’s HP. If you failed – people died.

WHAT HAPPENED THEN
HoT came live and we got stuck up with a rare-to-be-used Astral Form. You cannot use it when you need to, you cannot build it quickly enough, you are forced to stay in for as much as you can spamming skills and you are forced to stay out of it for 10 seconds if you decide you need to Use Glyph of Tides to protect your allies.

And that’s absurd.

• You cannot be the healer anymore. You are a situational “snap” bot for organized content only. Where people won’t need you because your AF nerf made you worse than other healers who can constantly keep sustaining you.
• Druid cannot heal people anymore. He can only get them to 100% in 3 seconds and then randomly spam abilities without any needed effect.
• If the form last that long as in BWE, you could choose to activate it at heavy dmg phases to keep people alive during it for a cost of 10 sec punishment after it depletes (so people would die if you mess up the time window). Now it lasts 15 seconds that is not enough either in PvP or PvE.
• Glyphs are just horribly designed after this phase because getting into AF is so rare that you won’t ever use astral form for the secondary effect of the glyph. Punishments are way too harsh.

Astral form in current state indeed is a failure due to weak potential and mathematical reasons.
Astral Form should be a form that players can choose to play in or outside. We are supposed to choose when do we want to enter or leave the form. We should be ones to decide when do we want to use our secondary glyph effects, when do we want to start dealing damage or build back our astral force again…

But now leaving the form early is punishing, activating it isn’t rewarding, staying in the form till the end is a waste (since most goes to overheal) and using it requires huge amount of prediction and skill.
This just needs to be changed into something we want to use.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Let’s think about AF for a second.
What a druid is supposed to be? It was developer-confirmed Healing specialization. Plenty of people were shocked, some disappointed some thrilled… But it was a good idea. A person dedicated to look for other people’s lives is a good thing. It also takes some skill-cap to predict the movement and hit the heals which is also a good thing to prevent it from facerolling PvP.

But here comes the but:
In BWE:
-You had hard time being a healer with DPS build and weapons. Which logically is fine. You had that situational “snap” button.
-You also were punished after leaving the astral form by depleting all the Astral Bar. Which forced you to think twice about healing people up or doing damage/utility.
-If you were smart, you could control your astral force so that you could look after people’s HP. If you failed – people died.

WHAT HAPPENED THEN
HoT came live and we got stuck up with a rare-to-be-used Astral Form. You cannot use it when you need to, you cannot build it quickly enough, you are forced to stay in for as much as you can spamming skills and you are forced to stay out of it for 10 seconds if you decide you need to Use Glyph of Tides to protect your allies.

And that’s absurd.
-You cannot be the healer anymore. You are a situational “snap” bot for organized content only. Where people won’t need you because your AF nerf made you worse than other healers who can constantly keep sustaining you.
-Druid cannot heal people anymore. He can only get them to 100% in 3 seconds and then randomly spam abilities without any needed effect.
-If the form last that long as in BWE, you could choose to activate it at heavy dmg phases to keep people alive during it for a cost of 10 sec punishment after it depletes (so people would die if you mess up the time window). Now it lasts 15 seconds that is not enough either in PvP or PvE.
-Glyphs are just horribly designed after this phase because getting into AF is so rare that you won’t ever use astral form for the secondary effect of the glyph. Punishments are way too harsh.

Astral form in current state indeed is a failure due to weak potential and mathematical reasons.
Astral Form should be a form that players can choose to play in or outside. We are supposed to choose when do we want to enter or leave the form. We should be ones to decide when do we want to use our secondary glyph effects, when do we want to start dealing damage or build back our astral force again…

But now leaving the form early is punishing, activating it isn’t rewarding, staying in the form till the end is a waste (since most goes to overheal) and using it requires huge amount of prediction and skill.
This just needs to be changed into something we want to use.

Excellent post.

This is all that needs to be said really.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Let’s think about AF for a second.
What a druid is supposed to be? It was developer-confirmed Healing specialization. Plenty of people were shocked, some disappointed some thrilled… But it was a good idea. A person dedicated to look for other people’s lives is a good thing. It also takes some skill-cap to predict the movement and hit the heals which is also a good thing to prevent it from facerolling PvP.

But here comes the but:
In BWE:

• You had hard time being a healer with DPS build and weapons. Which logically is fine. You had that situational “snap” button.
• You also were punished after leaving the astral form by depleting all the Astral Bar. Which forced you to think twice about healing people up or doing damage/utility.
• If you were smart, you could control your astral force so that you could look after people’s HP. If you failed – people died.

WHAT HAPPENED THEN
HoT came live and we got stuck up with a rare-to-be-used Astral Form. You cannot use it when you need to, you cannot build it quickly enough, you are forced to stay in for as much as you can spamming skills and you are forced to stay out of it for 10 seconds if you decide you need to Use Glyph of Tides to protect your allies.

And that’s absurd.

• You cannot be the healer anymore. You are a situational “snap” bot for organized content only. Where people won’t need you because your AF nerf made you worse than other healers who can constantly keep sustaining you.
• Druid cannot heal people anymore. He can only get them to 100% in 3 seconds and then randomly spam abilities without any needed effect.
• If the form last that long as in BWE, you could choose to activate it at heavy dmg phases to keep people alive during it for a cost of 10 sec punishment after it depletes (so people would die if you mess up the time window). Now it lasts 15 seconds that is not enough either in PvP or PvE.
• Glyphs are just horribly designed after this phase because getting into AF is so rare that you won’t ever use astral form for the secondary effect of the glyph. Punishments are way too harsh.

Astral form in current state indeed is a failure due to weak potential and mathematical reasons.
Astral Form should be a form that players can choose to play in or outside. We are supposed to choose when do we want to enter or leave the form. We should be ones to decide when do we want to use our secondary glyph effects, when do we want to start dealing damage or build back our astral force again…

But now leaving the form early is punishing, activating it isn’t rewarding, staying in the form till the end is a waste (since most goes to overheal) and using it requires huge amount of prediction and skill.
This just needs to be changed into something we want to use.

You know how devs will read your post…

Tragic Positive.9356:

Let’s think about AF for a second.

…
Bla bla bla…
…..
now leaving the form early(since most goes to overheal)

Oh!!! Yes! Overheal are not intended, so we should nerf overheal in next 10 hours, because it will brake our perfect balance!!!!
Other part of class looks like OK.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

I’m looking into the combat degen resulting in too heavy a gating of Celestial Avatar in PvE situations; from what I saw over the weekend it seemed overly restrictive in open world battles. If this continues it then the degeneration when out of combat is likely to be removed.

How about making CA form a “stance” that can be maintained until downed? All you’ll need to do it adjust cool downs.

Maybe add a low damage burning condition to the heals?

Increase radius of skill 1?

How about a Druid trait that provides stability in CA form?

Rizo.9534:

You know how devs will read your post…

Tragic Positive.9356:

Let’s think about AF for a second.

…
Bla bla bla…
…..
now leaving the form early(since most goes to overheal)

Oh!!! Yes! Overheal are not intended, so we should nerf overheal in next 10 hours, because it will brake our perfect balance!!!!
Other part of class looks like OK.

I’m aware… But I felt like an analytical approach should appear somewhere around here. What can I do.
I always go bullheaded when I can prove my point with facts.

I am preaching the problem with CF and gylph usage since BWE. CF should NOT be solely time gated because you will always just use as muhc of 1-5 as possible. Unless the glyphs have no animation and you can just press the button you actually get PUNISHED for using gylphes.

My solution to that is make CF only partially time gated (like 1% decay per second) but also attach an AF cost to the 1-5 skills. For example skill 4 costing 10% AF, skill 5 costing 20% and so on.