Guild Wars 2

Currently, druid is far too forgiving to play and not very fun in both PVE and PVP. It relies far too much on a small number of skills, which are amazing, give up very little.

1.) make CAF generation passive. Why encourage heal spamming on staff? It doesn’t really encourage thoughtful use of healing skills.
2.) make staff better. To balance #1, staff needs to get better. Change staff 2 to release a large orb that heals in a line towards any direction and have it be ground targeted like ele air wh5. Make it a projectile that can be reflected, except if it is reflected, it just heals a second time (there is way too much reflect and it’s time some counter play to reflects be put in). Make this a larger heal than the autoattack. The current staff 2 doesn’t seem to have much use or play other than building up CAF. It’s a set it and forget it skill.
3.) Change CA1 to make it instant (currently there’s still a short delay between casting and the heal dropping), and slightly increase its area of effect. CA skills are currently way too forgiving, with 3 and 4 being both easy to use and huge heals. CA1 and 2 should be the primary heals in this form. In order for this to happen, CA1 and 2 need to be less cumbersome.
4.) Change CA2 so the seed pops in 1/2 the time it currently does.
5.) Increase the cast time of lunar impact by 2x and make it a rooted skill. Lunar impact has a strong daze and a huge heal, there’s no reason the cast time should be as short as it is. The targeted area should function like ele earth dagger 5, pulsing cripple to enemies and retaliation to allies while the cast happens.
6.) Reduce the healing of CA4 by 60%. To make up for this, have it drop the waterfield when it completes, similar to an ele overload, and have it pulse a little protection and vigor even after the skill has completed. CA4 should build the same amount of GotL.

Not considering balance with other classes (many of which need to have similar spam-reducing changes made), I think this will make druids and healing in general much more interesting to play.

I agree the druid line is ill conceived, relying on staff to make use of astral form and the minor traits. Without staff you simply do not build astral force fast enough to be able to enter cele avatar often enough to make use of some of the traits (celestial shadow for example). Now you can take garbage traits like natural healing or the meh signet of the wild or the god awful rune of the dolyak to compensate if you are not using a staff, but you should not be forced to take garbage if you choose to role without a staff.

No other elite spec is so tied to its weapon as druid is. Dragon hunter comes in second and even then the minor trait ‘pure of sight’ still gives you a 7% dmg boost if you are in melee, not the full 13% the trait offers if you are more than 600 units away but the traits is still active. Now look at the druid minors, unless you are spamming the staff auto they are useless.
I especially hate the ‘natural mender’ trait, which has 0 effects on you. Traits like this that are made with team support/team synergy in mind are not good as minors because they are forced upon you, what if i want to solo roam in wvw? I get a potato minor trait that does me no good, might as well be a blank slot there.

Another point i want to make is the druid mechanic is a total disconnect from the core ranger mechanic, the pet. This is a issue because it makes the celestial avatar feel as if it could have been a part of any other elite spec, simply put it feels slapped on.

Further all other elite specializations get allot of power because they synergise with traits that boost the vanilla class mechanic, or add to it but still take advantage of the traits that boost it. For example a chronomancer gets another shatter, but it IS a shatter so any traits that boost the mesmers shatters also boost the elite shatter. Same for guardians & necros that get their class mechanics augmented, they still get boosted by traits that affected the previous versions.
The celestial avatar has 0 to do with the rangers class mechanic and therefor gets no synergy with any of the traits that boost it. It is the reason it is so kittenty and why it feels slapped on, it would make as much sense on a warrior.

My main issue with how gw2 plays currently is that almost all skills are low risk, even though some are extremely high reward. You have huge incentives to just use these skills on CD. I cant remember the last time I held off on using lunar impact in pvp or CA4 in pve. It makes the game play in a more mindless way than other mmos. It feels like a spam fest.

Druid is the worst offender due to CAF generation REQUIRING spamming of heals without much thought. I wish the game was at least a little more measured. Guild wars has always been a little bit spammy but at least burst combos came with some risk in the past, like the old quickness skills having a penalty. I think giant heals should not be as easy to pull off.