Guild Wars 2

To the Mods: My deepest apologies for my behaviour, I should not have posted what I did. It was immature and will not happen again.

I’d like to leave it at that really.

So, I’m going through the thread and updating the list with all your feedback, its going to take a while due to my suspension and not being here to do it.

Again, sorry all for being a tool, I was just very frustrated and acted out of character.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

To the Mods: My deepest apologies for my behaviour, I should not have posted what I did. It was immature and will not happen again.

I’d like to leave it at that really.

So, I’m going through the thread and updating the list with all your feedback, its going to take a while due to my suspension and not being here to do it.

Again, sorry all for being a tool, I was just very frustrated and acted out of character.

hehehe I got suspended over the weekend for calling out a whole 3 clickbait thread titles.

Ashen.2907:

anduriell.6280:

Mcrocha.3891:

Wildfang.3271:

Just posting this on behalf of my friend, Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 who got suspended.

“Apologies to all for my bad behavior. I will update the thread when my suspension is over which is currently the 13th of October, but I have contacted support about that duration. Thanks all.”

Brilliant lol, our thread leader got suspended.

That’s what you get for trying to help here?

I suppose its all a matter of what you consider help. Verbally abusing the moderators on the very boards they moderate might be the problem.

As one who has been abused by moderators in email, I can well understand why someone would “go off” after working so darn hard while not seeing improvements but seeing additions that are just as problem ridden.

I’ll probably have a more decided opinion once I’ve had the chance to play the druid this weekend – especially since I wasn’t able to watch the reveal due to work. My initial impressions based on what I have managed to see, though:

It’s interesting. Probably the most intriguing elite spec in HoT. There’s a chance it would appeal to many of my “I want to be a healer ” friends that initially dismissed GW2. I’m definitely interested in trying it. I’m not sure I’ll love it (I did play some Monk in GW1 and it was… an experience but not my favorite class) but from time to time, in the situations that need it…

However, it does not really seem too “druidy” from what I can tell so far. The visual theme doesn’t really match. The emphasis on healing is a part of a typical druid, but only a part; not that that’s necessarily a problem because if you tried to capture everything a D&D druid is within the amount of “features content” a single elite spec gives you, it probably wouldn’t be very satisfying. So maybe I can just look forward to that stuff in future elite specs?
The visual thing remains, though. Sort of would have expected more plant-y, less like the Avatar state from TLA/Korra. At least for the non-celestial state skills, anyway.

The new pets are cool, and thanks for adding them. I’m hoping that the “why isn’t this a pet?” candidates from the rest of Tyria get some love eventually as well, though – some of them are pretty cool and would be fun to play with.

As to the rest… I will find out this weekend and look for the survey in my in-box.

I don’t mind that Druids have a big healing capability; but I am bummed that it’s the sole focus of the spec. For ex., there should have been a summon skill of some kind. Either a temporary 2nd pet or something like the warhorn #4 skill as a utility, but with a swarm of bees or something (applying confusion and poison).

I’m puzzled over the “Grace of the Land” GM trait, which grants -33% incoming condition damage while in celestial form. But celestial form already comes equipped with a strong, spam-able group condi cleanse (1/2 second cast, 1 second CD) that you can even stagger and place 1200 units away if you’re on the move (there’s a short delay, thus the usefulness of placing it where you know you’re going to be). Isn’t a spam-able condi cleanse superior to a mere damage reduction grandmaster trait? Further, since Druid is a support specialization it makes sense that it’d see the most play in group settings where there’s already an abundance of AoE cleanses flying around. So in what situation would anyone ever want to take this trait?

Personally, I’d like to see “Grace of the Land” reworked or replaced with something a bit more DPS oriented, or something that synergizes with the pet. As it is, I wouldn’t even take it as an adept trait, let alone a GM.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Welcome BACK mate!

We love you! xD

Love the new pets (based solely on what’s been leaked)

The Druid

I like the idea of a pure healing line in theory but a few things don’t work.

Staff 1 – A beam with a LOS heal means the druid is expected to be mid to backline firing through allies.

I would much prefer simply cloning the guard staff 1. AOE heal no CD and damages all foes in the area.

Staff 2 – Cast a Wisp to an enemy healing in passthrough? This is very Guardian but also backline.

I would prefer a ground targeted healing / damaging pulse (think guardian underwater)

Staff 3 – Looks solid

Staff 4 – Is good but… It’s designed incorrectly imo.

I wonder why it’s not more like our elite and an AOE. When I get to the glyphs this will make more sense.

Staff 5 – Is fantastic but could / should be a dome as we’re fighting mobs above us theoretically, but I like it.

The Glyphs which are 600 range or less effects on a class whose new weapon dictates he/she are running around away from allies to LOS heal through them, make no sense.

I think the glyphs say the Druid is a frontline player, but the staff says backline, and either way it needs more damage.

Bump, so it’s not lost with all the WHaO stuff.

Druid nerf 3 days after HoT launch. I predict the 5 skills that aren’t just aoe heal spam will be removed.

Will be same as Icebow.

Oh yeah! Druids! Druids!
Celestial Healing -50% of whole heal, and now you heal only 3 targets instead of 5!

Enjoy!

Rizo.9534:

Will be same as Icebow.

Oh yeah! Druids! Druids!
Celestial Healing -50% of whole heal, and now you heal only 3 targets instead of 5!

Enjoy!

But to compensate, the glyphs will be made usable underwater.

I feel that dedicating the Ranger to be the Healer was, in fact, a cop-out. The druid consists of too many undynamic heals and very boring, similar, and unimpactful glyphs. The whole specialization seems lackluster and boring- one thing you don’t want in an action MMO.

Vatlaaw Fierceshot.5713:

I feel that dedicating the Ranger to be the Healer was, in fact, a cop-out. The druid consists of too many undynamic heals and very boring, similar, and unimpactful glyphs. The whole specialization seems lackluster and boring- one thing you don’t want in an action MMO.

The specialization wouldn’t be bad except for the fact that it will inevitably be nerfed and it’s so 1 dimensional that it will then become worthless.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Just verifying that this thread is being read by the developers. I know it’s long, and there’s a lot of detail here, but thank you for participating!

Hi Gaile, I’ve actually gone through the whole thread multiple times and placed a majority of the actual feedback into my OP, along with my own feedback. Hope this helps.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Just verifying that this thread is being read by the developers. I know it’s long, and there’s a lot of detail here, but thank you for participating!

Hi Gaile, I’ve actually gone through the whole thread multiple times and placed a majority of the actual feedback into my OP, along with my own feedback. Hope this helps.

Nice job so far. I went back and read most of the additions and they look good. Small note that on Tidal Surge it will be possible to finish in the field if you pet swap with Clarion Bond. Its minor and requires traiting, but it is possible.

Druid lacks of DMG. Yes I know it’s a ’’healer’’, but GW2 have many modes.

Staff :
1) Bigger beam or AoE at the end.
2) Make it AoE DoT on the target and around.
3) Perfect.
4) Bigger cone and damage.
5) Situational at best. It’s an utility and it should have been in utilities like : mesmer feedback and guardian wall of reflection. Also, it doesn’t have any combo with staff skills. No field and Staff doesn’t have a projectile to use if you put a field.

CA : Needs some more damage, maybe on the 1).

And I agree with this :

Aidenwolf.5964:

I think the glyphs say the Druid is a frontline player, but the staff says backline, and either way it needs more damage.

I personally hope they add some more damage options to the class. I understand the Celestial Form will be based on healing, but the Staff Abilities outside of the Celestial Form should be focused on more damage and less healing. I didn’t sign up to be a full healer, which is what being a Druid is looking to be like.

• Lots of Respect for the Dev’s for making this thread, knowing there was lots of controversy, and getting feedback from the community to find out what the community wants to see from the Druid. I truly hope the Dev’s take all of this feedback into consideration and change up alot of the Druid.

SirGinga.3576:

• Lots of Respect for the Dev’s for making this thread, knowing there was lots of controversy, and getting feedback from the community to find out what the community wants to see from the Druid. I truly hope the Dev’s take all of this feedback into consideration and change up alot of the Druid.

They didn’t make this thread, Heimskarl Ashfiend created, then a mod wrongly merged yo a generic topic and then to fix that mess dev made this thread and re-merged the original one.

Excited to play the Druid this beta weekend:

One more Druid thought:

Staff 2 should do AoE damage. This would help the Druid tag multiple mobs for loot and credit.

Celestial Avatar 1 should also do low AoE damage in addition to the heal. Again this would help Druid tag mobs for credit.

Celestial Avatar 2. Perhaps in addition to healing/cleansing, it should poison enemies on the AoE?

Do the Druid apply any boon at all?
Reading the wiki, and I can’t see anything

ProtoMarcus.7649:

Do the Druid apply any boon at all?
Reading the wiki, and I can’t see anything

Nope, no boons at all, druids have plenty of cond cleanse and access to dazes.

ProtoMarcus.7649:

Do the Druid apply any boon at all?
Reading the wiki, and I can’t see anything

Nope and thats why they won’t get group places.

Holy Macaroni… No Boons… At All…

Seed of Life
Change it to

Seed of Gimme Some Boons at least please
Summon a seed that heals Allies and converts 2 conditions into boons when it Blossoms

…Ranger has a pretty hard time with conditoin management… And no boons from a HEALING/SUPPORT specialisation is painful!

Previous suggestion also applies to the Glyph Trait that spawns Seeds of Life on Glyph Use. Obviously.

If the healing provided by the druid is significant enough, then is there really a reason to add boons? inflating skills with boons is like nailing jello to the wall.

I’d be happy seeing healing that is significant enough to replace boons for a change.
Again, regeneration might make sense for the druid, but anything else would be out of the druid theme in my opinion. This would also protect diversity between the different support classes/builds in gw2

condition cleansing and dazing is an interesting mix. I’d like to see another daze be added to a skill to carry that theme.

Eric.7813:

If the healing provided by the druid is significant enough, then is there really a reason to add boons? inflating skills with boons is like nailing jello to the wall.

I’d be happy seeing healing that is significant enough to replace boons for a change.
Again, regeneration might make sense for the druid, but anything else would be out of the druid theme in my opinion. This would also protect diversity between the different support classes/builds in gw2

condition cleansing and dazing is an interesting mix. I’d like to see another daze be added to a skill to carry that theme.

Not when other classes healing builds can bring healing and some form of support making Ranger pointless.

While the concept of Druid is interesting, I am worried that it is too singly focused on healing to benefit Rangers even in challenging group content. Druid lacks the versatility required for top-tier gameplay due to: lack of damage modifiers (which are boring, but necessary), little damage mitigation/prevention, limited accessibility to boons/conditions, and few field/finisher skills. Druid also synergizes extremely poorly with the Ranger class mechanic, the Pet, and with existing Ranger weapon skills and utilities.

Why I’m worried about Druid’s place in raids:

• Rangers have relatively low baseline DPS even with their most damage-focused builds—lower than the majority of other classes, and certainly lower than elementalists and guardians (our main competitors for healing at this moment, though revenant will likely be a strong healer as well). Unless Druid’s healing is 100% required to complete raids (unlikely, especially as a) ArenaNet prefers making content that does not require a dedicated healer, and b) raiding groups get more knowledgeable and skilled over time), Druids (and Rangers) are going to be once again shuffled to the side in favor of more versatile classes that can offer control, support, and damage in one neat bundle.

• Druid as of now only offers (limited) support, with no damage and limited control. This means that Druid will be useless, barring significant changes, in 95% of the core game. Currently, DPS is king in core PvE , along with active damage prevention/mitigation. Druid gives no damage boosts to Ranger and has seriously limited damage mitigation. As a Ranger main, I was hoping that our elite specialization would be useful in existing content, and not just in one small aspect of the coming expansion. I also do not want to be relegated to “healerbot” should Druids be required for raids. In general, players did not make their Rangers for this purpose.

Overarching issues with Druid

1. Lack of versatility means that it is overshadowed by existing classes.
2. Lack of boon/condition application.
3. Lack of stunbreaks.
4. Lack of synergy with the pet, Ranger’s class mechanikitten
5. tle to no synergy with the Ranger base class. Celestial Avatar adds a new layer of complexity, but is entirely separate from the Pet. Because Celestial Avatar charges more on heals, Druids are encourage to camp Staff (the only healing weapon) rather than use traditional Ranger weapons. Celestial Avatar also interacts ONLY with the new utilities, Glyphs, reducing build options for Druids.
6. Lack of synergy within Druid. Staff is a long-range weapon, but Glyphs are point-blank AoEs.
7. Made to react to damage, not be proactive in preventing damage. This does not encourage skillful play and reduces Druid playstyle to “spam heals on allies”.
8. Taking the Druid line forces Rangers to give up significant damage and utility, but does little to nothing to negate this loss. Druid in its current state has no place in the vast majority of Guild Wars 2 PvE and will only have a small (or nonexistent) niche going forward.

Possible Solutions

Many good suggestions have been made in this thread, and I would like to add/emphasize a few.

Staff

1. Change the autoattack of the Druid staff. Because of the PBAoE nature of Glyphs, Druids will need to stay close to allies and enemies in order to utilize their full set of skills. Use the Guardian staff as a guide and make staff a short-range weapon that cleaves multiple enemies (and heals multiple allies) with its cone-shaped attack. This has the bonus of also fitting aesthetically with the Druid’s celestial theme. The short-range autoattack also synergizes well with Astral Wisp and Vine Surge. If the Druid needs to heal from a distance, he/she can use Astral Grace as an escape and switch to Celestial Avatar for long-range healing.
2. Astral Wisp: A very interesting concept. Usefulness will be determined by damage, healing, and duration.
3. Add evasion to Astral Grace. Because the healing is backloaded, the Druid is extremely vulnerable when using this skill.
4. Increase the radius of Vine Surge, possibly making it cone-shaped. This skill will be very difficult to land even in PvE due to enemy movement.
5. Sublime Conversion is another very interesting concept, but I worry about the effectiveness. It is outclassed in most PvE content by reflect skills, which both prevent damage and deal damage. I would encourage testing this skill as a “bubble” around the Druid, similar to Guardian shield 5 (which both protects from projectiles and heals as well).

Glyphs

The effectiveness of glyphs is almost entirely dependent on their final numbers. However, glyph radius NEEDS to be larger than 300 if you a) want to enable Druid to fight effectively out of melee range and b) want to discourage players from stacking. Glyphs should also be usable underwater.

• Glyph of Rejuvenation: Improve the base heal amount for the Ranger. This skill is in direct competition with Healing Spring, which has a good base heal, grants Regeneration, clears conditions, and can be blasted for group healing. If you want to see this glyph used, it needs some tuning. Perhaps adding boons (protection, regeneration, resistance) on the base form and/or the Celestial form would help bring it up to the level of Ranger’s other available heals.

• Glyph of Alignment: A good basic damage/control/mitigation skill—I like it quite a bit. The damage and condition durations may need tuning, but the idea is solid. The low cooldown helps mitigate some of the Druid’s poor damage, but does not make up for it. The heal and condition removal on its Celestial Avatar form seems like a very natural reversal.

• Glyph of Equality: A niche skill, given its high cooldown. This could probably use some tuning, but I’m hesitant to say without testing it. Perhaps nixing the damage (which is negligible, given the high cooldown) and decreasing the cooldown would make this skill more useful. This would be an excellent skill to add a self-stunbreak on base form and/or stability (consider AoE stability on Celestial), especially if you nix the damage aspect.

• Glyph of the Tides: I have seen this suggestion before, and I would like to second it: the base Glyph of the Tides should pull enemies toward the Druid, and the Celestial Avatar version should knockback. Knockback in general is a defensive skill and fits more appropriately with the defensive aspects of Celestial Avatar. This would also be a good skill to apply stability, especially on its Celestial form.

• Glyph of Empowerment: While good at first glance, this skill is significantly weaker than Frost Spirit (as well as other classes’ utilities, such as Banners). Either increase the damage buff or increase the duration of the damage buff. The (very small) radius of this skill and its PBAoE nature encourages melee stacking. Consider adding boons on both base and Celestial forms. The Celestial form is somewhat weak—consider a base damage reduction of 10% (which can be applied proactively as well as reactively), rather than improving allied heals.

• Glyph of Unity: Another very interesting idea, but it again is hampered by a very small effect radius in both forms.

Celestial Form

• The lack of damage in this form is concerning. Adding a small amount of base damage to the autoattack would improve Druid’s viability by allowing Druid’s to both heal allies and tag enemies for loot. This is doubly important in WvW.

• Please reconsider the ground targeting and incredibly tiny radius on Cosmic Ray. As Engineers can tell you, ground-targeted autoattacks are killer for wrist and hand health, and the tiny radius makes it impossible to heal allies who are moving.

• Please also consider making the skills more versatile. While it’s great to have a theme, it would be nice if every skill wasn’t “heal heal heal” save for Natural Convergence. Perhaps focus on damage prevention and mitigation for some of the skills, rather than healing.

Traits

In general, traits need a bit of love to make Druid versatile enough to be competitive for placement in raids and general PvE.

• Druid traits have little to no synergy with the pet.

• The singular focus on healing with the minor traits is problematic. Perhaps the Minor traits should focus on improving the Druid mechanic, Celestial Avatar (such as by making Druidic Clarity baseline, but limiting condition removal to 1-3 conditions and/or removing a number of conditions per second (similar to necromancer shroud traits). Minor traits would also be more useful if they synergized with the pet, such as making “Cultivated Synergy” baseline. Make the “healing” traits optional, not required—otherwise you are shoehorning players into healing-based builds. Druid needs to have more options than healing if you want it to see use.

• Adept, Master, and Grandmaster trait selection locks Druids into healing-centric builds and discourages build and playstyle diversity. Because Ranger has low base damage and damage modifiers are spread throughout different trait lines, there needs to be at least one damage modifier trait in the Druid line. This will help make up for the loss of a base Ranger trait line such as Marksmanship, Skirmishing, Beastmastery, or Nature Magic.

• Add a damage-modifying trait to the Adept tier. This will give Druids a choice between healing/staff and damage, improving build variety.

• Celestial Shadow is unnecessary, given the short durations of both stealth and superspeed. It is clumsy as an escape skill, since it requires building + entering + leaving Celestial Avatar and some serious coordination with teammates as well. This skill also does not fit terribly well thematically.

• Verdant Etching looks great, but is highly dependent on changes made to Seed of Life.

• Grace of the Land is redundant. Druid has plenty of access to condition cleanses, which negate condition damage entirely.

• Lingering Light is somewhat redundant as well, adding healing on top of healing. Perhaps this should be changed to something like “cast Astral Wisp on enemies that strike you in melee combat”. This would be excellent for both offensive and defensive Druids. ICD should be per enemy if changed in this manner.

• Ancient Seeds may prove an excellent trait for control/condition Druids, but may need some tuning—especially on the proc requirements.

Scrimschaw.5784:

~snip~

I wish you had read my post at the start, it would have saved you writing all that out, its pretty much the same.

Scrimschaw.5784:

While the concept of Druid is interesting, I am worried that it is too singly focused on healing to benefit Rangers even in challenging group content. Druid lacks the versatility required for top-tier gameplay due to: lack of damage modifiers (which are boring, but necessary), little damage mitigation/prevention, limited accessibility to boons/conditions, and few field/finisher skills. Druid also synergizes extremely poorly with the Ranger class mechanic, the Pet, and with existing Ranger weapon skills and utilities.

Why I’m worried about Druid’s place in raids:

• Rangers have relatively low baseline DPS even with their most damage-focused builds—lower than the majority of other classes, and certainly lower than elementalists and guardians (our main competitors for healing at this moment, though revenant will likely be a strong healer as well). Unless Druid’s healing is 100% required to complete raids (unlikely, especially as a) ArenaNet prefers making content that does not require a dedicated healer, and b) raiding groups get more knowledgeable and skilled over time), Druids (and Rangers) are going to be once again shuffled to the side in favor of more versatile classes that can offer control, support, and damage in one neat bundle.

• Druid as of now only offers (limited) support, with no damage and limited control. This means that Druid will be useless, barring significant changes, in 95% of the core game. Currently, DPS is king in core PvE , along with active damage prevention/mitigation. Druid gives no damage boosts to Ranger and has seriously limited damage mitigation. As a Ranger main, I was hoping that our elite specialization would be useful in existing content, and not just in one small aspect of the coming expansion. I also do not want to be relegated to “healerbot” should Druids be required for raids. In general, players did not make their Rangers for this purpose.

Overarching issues with Druid

1. Lack of versatility means that it is overshadowed by existing classes.
2. Lack of boon/condition application.
3. Lack of stunbreaks.
4. Lack of synergy with the pet, Ranger’s class mechanikitten
5. tle to no synergy with the Ranger base class. Celestial Avatar adds a new layer of complexity, but is entirely separate from the Pet. Because Celestial Avatar charges more on heals, Druids are encourage to camp Staff (the only healing weapon) rather than use traditional Ranger weapons. Celestial Avatar also interacts ONLY with the new utilities, Glyphs, reducing build options for Druids.
6. Lack of synergy within Druid. Staff is a long-range weapon, but Glyphs are point-blank AoEs.
7. Made to react to damage, not be proactive in preventing damage. This does not encourage skillful play and reduces Druid playstyle to “spam heals on allies”.
8. Taking the Druid line forces Rangers to give up significant damage and utility, but does little to nothing to negate this loss. Druid in its current state has no place in the vast majority of Guild Wars 2 PvE and will only have a small (or nonexistent) niche going forward.

Possible Solutions

Many good suggestions have been made in this thread, and I would like to add/emphasize a few.

Staff

1. Change the autoattack of the Druid staff. Because of the PBAoE nature of Glyphs, Druids will need to stay close to allies and enemies in order to utilize their full set of skills. Use the Guardian staff as a guide and make staff a short-range weapon that cleaves multiple enemies (and heals multiple allies) with its cone-shaped attack. This has the bonus of also fitting aesthetically with the Druid’s celestial theme. The short-range autoattack also synergizes well with Astral Wisp and Vine Surge. If the Druid needs to heal from a distance, he/she can use Astral Grace as an escape and switch to Celestial Avatar for long-range healing.
2. Astral Wisp: A very interesting concept. Usefulness will be determined by damage, healing, and duration.
3. Add evasion to Astral Grace. Because the healing is backloaded, the Druid is extremely vulnerable when using this skill.
4. Increase the radius of Vine Surge, possibly making it cone-shaped. This skill will be very difficult to land even in PvE due to enemy movement.
5. Sublime Conversion is another very interesting concept, but I worry about the effectiveness. It is outclassed in most PvE content by reflect skills, which both prevent damage and deal damage. I would encourage testing this skill as a “bubble” around the Druid, similar to Guardian shield 5 (which both protects from projectiles and heals as well).

Glyphs

The effectiveness of glyphs is almost entirely dependent on their final numbers. However, glyph radius NEEDS to be larger than 300 if you a) want to enable Druid to fight effectively out of melee range and b) want to discourage players from stacking. Glyphs should also be usable underwater.

• Glyph of Rejuvenation: Improve the base heal amount for the Ranger. This skill is in direct competition with Healing Spring, which has a good base heal, grants Regeneration, clears conditions, and can be blasted for group healing. If you want to see this glyph used, it needs some tuning. Perhaps adding boons (protection, regeneration, resistance) on the base form and/or the Celestial form would help bring it up to the level of Ranger’s other available heals.

• Glyph of Alignment: A good basic damage/control/mitigation skill—I like it quite a bit. The damage and condition durations may need tuning, but the idea is solid. The low cooldown helps mitigate some of the Druid’s poor damage, but does not make up for it. The heal and condition removal on its Celestial Avatar form seems like a very natural reversal.

• Glyph of Equality: A niche skill, given its high cooldown. This could probably use some tuning, but I’m hesitant to say without testing it. Perhaps nixing the damage (which is negligible, given the high cooldown) and decreasing the cooldown would make this skill more useful. This would be an excellent skill to add a self-stunbreak on base form and/or stability (consider AoE stability on Celestial), especially if you nix the damage aspect.

• Glyph of the Tides: I have seen this suggestion before, and I would like to second it: the base Glyph of the Tides should pull enemies toward the Druid, and the Celestial Avatar version should knockback. Knockback in general is a defensive skill and fits more appropriately with the defensive aspects of Celestial Avatar. This would also be a good skill to apply stability, especially on its Celestial form.

• Glyph of Empowerment: While good at first glance, this skill is significantly weaker than Frost Spirit (as well as other classes’ utilities, such as Banners). Either increase the damage buff or increase the duration of the damage buff. The (very small) radius of this skill and its PBAoE nature encourages melee stacking. Consider adding boons on both base and Celestial forms. The Celestial form is somewhat weak—consider a base damage reduction of 10% (which can be applied proactively as well as reactively), rather than improving allied heals.

• Glyph of Unity: Another very interesting idea, but it again is hampered by a very small effect radius in both forms.

Celestial Form

• The lack of damage in this form is concerning. Adding a small amount of base damage to the autoattack would improve Druid’s viability by allowing Druid’s to both heal allies and tag enemies for loot. This is doubly important in WvW.

• Please reconsider the ground targeting and incredibly tiny radius on Cosmic Ray. As Engineers can tell you, ground-targeted autoattacks are killer for wrist and hand health, and the tiny radius makes it impossible to heal allies who are moving.

• Please also consider making the skills more versatile. While it’s great to have a theme, it would be nice if every skill wasn’t “heal heal heal” save for Natural Convergence. Perhaps focus on damage prevention and mitigation for some of the skills, rather than healing.

Traits

In general, traits need a bit of love to make Druid versatile enough to be competitive for placement in raids and general PvE.

• Druid traits have little to no synergy with the pet.

• The singular focus on healing with the minor traits is problematic. Perhaps the Minor traits should focus on improving the Druid mechanic, Celestial Avatar (such as by making Druidic Clarity baseline, but limiting condition removal to 1-3 conditions and/or removing a number of conditions per second (similar to necromancer shroud traits). Minor traits would also be more useful if they synergized with the pet, such as making “Cultivated Synergy” baseline. Make the “healing” traits optional, not required—otherwise you are shoehorning players into healing-based builds. Druid needs to have more options than healing if you want it to see use.

• Adept, Master, and Grandmaster trait selection locks Druids into healing-centric builds and discourages build and playstyle diversity. Because Ranger has low base damage and damage modifiers are spread throughout different trait lines, there needs to be at least one damage modifier trait in the Druid line. This will help make up for the loss of a base Ranger trait line such as Marksmanship, Skirmishing, Beastmastery, or Nature Magic.

• Add a damage-modifying trait to the Adept tier. This will give Druids a choice between healing/staff and damage, improving build variety.

• Celestial Shadow is unnecessary, given the short durations of both stealth and superspeed. It is clumsy as an escape skill, since it requires building + entering + leaving Celestial Avatar and some serious coordination with teammates as well. This skill also does not fit terribly well thematically.

• Verdant Etching looks great, but is highly dependent on changes made to Seed of Life.

• Grace of the Land is redundant. Druid has plenty of access to condition cleanses, which negate condition damage entirely.

• Lingering Light is somewhat redundant as well, adding healing on top of healing. Perhaps this should be changed to something like “cast Astral Wisp on enemies that strike you in melee combat”. This would be excellent for both offensive and defensive Druids. ICD should be per enemy if changed in this manner.

• Ancient Seeds may prove an excellent trait for control/condition Druids, but may need some tuning—especially on the proc requirements.

I think Scrimschaw.5784 made some good adjustment here i am supporting for the adjustment that Scrimschaw.5784 suggested

Druid need damage modifier in the trait line since ranger trait line only MM provides damage modifier and as a druid we can also provide damage not only healing so let us make the choices either we want to support or damage rather than lock us down on supporting the team. Hopefully dont ruin our Halloween and dev please notice this.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Scrimschaw.5784:

~snip~

I wish you had read my post at the start, it would have saved you writing all that out, its pretty much the same.

The more that voice the same the merrier!

If it provide better self healing, than elementalist, then it will be nerfed by Roy anyway.
No class have to me in pare with Ele.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Just verifying that this thread is being read by the developers. I know it’s long, and there’s a lot of detail here, but thank you for participating!

You’re a boss, Gaile.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Scrimschaw.5784:

~snip~

I wish you had read my post at the start, it would have saved you writing all that out, its pretty much the same.

Never fear, I read your post at the beginning. I’ve had this typed out since the Twitchcon reveal—you wouldn’t deny me the happiness of posting it in full, would you? And it’s always good for the developers to see Rangers/future Druids in agreement on certain things

There needs to be at least small dmg / scaling on all celestial abilities, 40% of the kit is basically if I’m not in a group or near other people, this is useless .

Why would anyone want the rangers staff to be close range oriented?
that makes no sense.
-staff skill 3 is a perfect segue into using the glyphs.
-Druid is a caster-style specialization on the RANGER
- lets not copy guardian skills and paste them onto the druid.

If the staff is a long-range weapon like currently, then it’s easier to line up attacks that pass through allies from a distance (which heals them). Let the guardian be guardian, I want to see the druid/ranger use the staff as intended, which is ranged.

Eric.7813:

Why would anyone want the rangers staff to be close range oriented?
that makes no sense.
-staff skill 3 is a perfect segue into using the glyphs.
-Druid is a caster-style specialization on the RANGER
- lets not copy guardian skills and paste them onto the druid.

If the staff is a long-range weapon like currently, then it’s easier to line up attacks that pass through allies from a distance (which heals them). Let the guardian be guardian, I want to see the druid/ranger use the staff as intended, which is ranged.

Eric, I would like to see the staff be a closer-range aoe weapon for several reasons. I am not interested in making Druid a Guardian clone—otherwise I would main a guardian instead. And if you are worried about copying and pasting skills, then I would suggest you test the Mesmer greatsword autoattack and double-check if that is the autoattack you would prefer for a party-support caster like Druid.

1. Ranger has access to an excellent long-range single-target weapon that can be traited to pierce (longbow). Druid will also have access to long-range healing in Celestial Avatar form. While losing a long-range, non-projectile attack will hurt a bit, making staff a long-range, single-target piercing weapon for damage and healing is redundant. Staff can help fill a niche in the Ranger class if it is a close-range AoE, while providing stronger group support and synergy with glyphs.
2. Mob and ally tagging with a long-distance single-target beam attack (even with piercing) is incredibly difficult (see Mesmer greatsword—which is both visually and conceptually very similar to the current Druid autoattack). Given its focus on healing, which currently does not confer credit to the player, Druid needs to be able to tag enemies in WvW and PvE with its main weapon, staff, in order to be played in PvE and WvW. While you may argue that Druid doesn’t have to use staff, staff is currently the only weapon that has healing synergy with Celestial Avatar.
3. Healing allies by trying to pass a small-radius beam through them while targeting an enemy for the autoattack is clumsy at best. A cone-shaped AoE would allow for a non-targeted heal on allies that would be much easier to land than a beam-attack focused on an enemy. Remember, you can’t focus the beam on your allies for targeted healing, and the small radius of the beam means that you are going to have a tough time providing support if you, your allies, and/or your enemies are moving in combat. (Remember that, in general, difficult combat in Guild Wars 2 is movement-intensive.)
4. Staff skill 3 functions better as an escape or a clutch heal for your allies, rather than a gap closer for glyphs. Given that there are no evade frames and that the heal is backloaded, using staff skill 3 to ENTER melee range with cleaving enemies/large enemy AoEs for the sole purpose of spamming glyphs is incredibly risky and unlikely to pay off.

Gaile, make sure your colleagues at ANet nerf druir prior to its release. It’s going to break your today’s record of the ridiculous 1-day ranger nerf.

Im with Corpus Christi.2057 on this,

You may want to remove all healing by 99.9% and damage by equal, also remove the ability to group heal before Roy comes in claiming its overpowered and unbalanced.

Better yet, just hit that big delete button on druid because its becoming pretty evident that he likes to gut other classes that he was not necessarily in charge of making or bringing classes in line with another. Oh… Wait…

But seriously, 1 day to patch/nerf the ranger… fastest speed ever to fix an underpowered class to ensure it never sees the sun.

While ranger base will never be fixed, at least we can be heal bots. I am excited to be a heal bot assuming it is going to be viable.

Please do not let the toxic salt overflow into a constructive thread. It really is pointless.

@ scrim; there really is no point making staff a shorter range, since you can do the same thing with short or long range. At this point I don’t think a re-design is possible anyway. And no, I’d never wish to deny you the happiness of contribution

Kitty.1502:

While ranger base will never be fixed, at least we can be heal bots. I am excited to be a heal bot assuming it is going to be viable.

Get used to “Shut Up and Heal”

The problem with being healbots is 0% contribution towards loot. If anything I would like to see them invert how contribution works, such as healing #’s = direct contribution

For example if Subject X has damaged Z number of monsters; and Subject F heals Subject X, F will get credit for everything X has touched

Dradiin.8935:

Kitty.1502:

While ranger base will never be fixed, at least we can be heal bots. I am excited to be a heal bot assuming it is going to be viable.

Get used to “Shut Up and Heal”

its ok healing will only be useful in raids and potentially wvw (I have my doubts as do others about this)

Kitty.1502:

Dradiin.8935:

Kitty.1502:

While ranger base will never be fixed, at least we can be heal bots. I am excited to be a heal bot assuming it is going to be viable.

Get used to “Shut Up and Heal”

its ok healing will only be useful in raids and potentially wvw (I have my doubts as do others about this)

Burst healing can be useful in pvp as well for sure. It is also useful for the probable 75% of people who play this game casually that like to run whatever builds they like and being able to heal their friends or something will make a lot of people happy in general pve content.

Mcrocha.3891:

Kitty.1502:

Dradiin.8935:

Kitty.1502:

While ranger base will never be fixed, at least we can be heal bots. I am excited to be a heal bot assuming it is going to be viable.

Get used to “Shut Up and Heal”

its ok healing will only be useful in raids and potentially wvw (I have my doubts as do others about this)

Burst healing can be useful in pvp as well for sure. It is also useful for the probable 75% of people who play this game casually that like to run whatever builds they like and being able to heal their friends or something will make a lot of people happy in general pve content.

Not really, the majority of pve in this game is solo stuff, or stuff people do solo so dps will be best here. All dungeons/fractals currently can be done without the need of a healer again dps > healing. Furthermore while healing can be useful in spvp druid will fail by virtue of the ranger class when comparing to other support/bunker specs since they all are able to also output damage to a decent degree. Also – burst DPS is king in wvw and spvp, and a ranger can be burst down really fast.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Scrimschaw.5784:

~snip~

I wish you had read my post at the start, it would have saved you writing all that out, its pretty much the same.

well, its good to post anyways, cuz the devs will see other people want the same thing

Kitty.1502:

Mcrocha.3891:

Kitty.1502:

Dradiin.8935:

Kitty.1502:

While ranger base will never be fixed, at least we can be heal bots. I am excited to be a heal bot assuming it is going to be viable.

Get used to “Shut Up and Heal”

its ok healing will only be useful in raids and potentially wvw (I have my doubts as do others about this)

Burst healing can be useful in pvp as well for sure. It is also useful for the probable 75% of people who play this game casually that like to run whatever builds they like and being able to heal their friends or something will make a lot of people happy in general pve content.

Not really, the majority of pve in this game is solo stuff, or stuff people do solo so dps will be best here. All dungeons/fractals currently can be done without the need of a healer again dps > healing. Furthermore while healing can be useful in spvp druid will fail by virtue of the ranger class when comparing to other support/bunker specs since they all are able to also output damage to a decent degree. Also – burst DPS is king in wvw and spvp, and a ranger can be burst down really fast.

Whether or not dps is the most efficient way, many people enjoy support and healing as a playstyle. Fractals can be done without healing, sure, but a cleric guard makes it so smooth and easy, its absurd, and people like to play it. Why not let them? It’s not like PvE isn’t just facerolling the keyboard anyway, who really cares if the F50 takes minutes longer if everyone has fun doing it? Nobody I play with anyway.

Nobody has played Druid as yet, so you cannot say that it cannot output damage like other support/bunker specs. Some of the builds I have been working on look to be very nice damage. Good Rangers do not get bursted down really fast, unless it is focus from multiple players, in which case, anything goes down.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Kitty.1502:

Mcrocha.3891:

Kitty.1502:

Dradiin.8935:

Kitty.1502:

While ranger base will never be fixed, at least we can be heal bots. I am excited to be a heal bot assuming it is going to be viable.

Get used to “Shut Up and Heal”

its ok healing will only be useful in raids and potentially wvw (I have my doubts as do others about this)

Burst healing can be useful in pvp as well for sure. It is also useful for the probable 75% of people who play this game casually that like to run whatever builds they like and being able to heal their friends or something will make a lot of people happy in general pve content.

Not really, the majority of pve in this game is solo stuff, or stuff people do solo so dps will be best here. All dungeons/fractals currently can be done without the need of a healer again dps > healing. Furthermore while healing can be useful in spvp druid will fail by virtue of the ranger class when comparing to other support/bunker specs since they all are able to also output damage to a decent degree. Also – burst DPS is king in wvw and spvp, and a ranger can be burst down really fast.

Whether or not dps is the most efficient way, many people enjoy support and healing as a playstyle. Fractals can be done without healing, sure, but a cleric guard makes it so smooth and easy, its absurd, and people like to play it. Why not let them? It’s not like PvE isn’t just facerolling the keyboard anyway, who really cares if the F50 takes minutes longer if everyone has fun doing it? Nobody I play with anyway.

Nobody has played Druid as yet, so you cannot say that it cannot output damage like other support/bunker specs. Some of the builds I have been working on look to be very nice damage. Good Rangers do not get bursted down really fast, unless it is focus from multiple players, in which case, anything goes down.

People can play what ever they want doesn’t make it balanced, good or get you into groups that will have less headaches.

It is also bad design to design around the lowest common denominator.