Guild Wars 2

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

I’m too busy dodging cannon balls to know if druids are balanced or not.

Justine.6351:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

That and the nerf to ancestral grace.

But I doubt either of those nerfs were enough to make any of the bunker druids change their builds (maybe they had to add a bit more healing gear). My fear is that all these nerfs accomplished was to force a lot of glassy druids to pick up bunker gear to compensate.

Since most druids are probably running guardians in the labyrinth at the moment, Its really hard to tell. Cant remember even meeting one since tuesday.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Justine.6351:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

That and the nerf to ancestral grace.

But I doubt either of those nerfs were enough to make any of the bunker druids change their builds (maybe they had to add a bit more healing gear). My fear is that all these nerfs accomplished was to force a lot of glassy druids to pick up bunker gear to compensate.

Yeah this. Kind of the opposite of what I was hoping for. The disconnect between the player and pets re: stats means a druid can even go nomad or minstrel and still do decent damage. The extra 5 secs on ca hurts but bunker is much more forgiving than running glass.

Reh.5986:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Justine.6351:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

That and the nerf to ancestral grace.

But I doubt either of those nerfs were enough to make any of the bunker druids change their builds (maybe they had to add a bit more healing gear). My fear is that all these nerfs accomplished was to force a lot of glassy druids to pick up bunker gear to compensate.

Yeah this. Kind of the opposite of what I was hoping for. The disconnect between the player and pets re: stats means a druid can even go nomad or minstrel and still do decent damage. The extra 5 secs on ca hurts but bunker is much more forgiving than running glass.

Yeah the real problem is they still haven’t given rangers a better option. HoT added so much projectile hate to the game that glassbow isn’t a viable option against organized groups.

Instead of giving rangers a way to make their attacks unblockable for a short amount of time they gave it to the pets instead. This just buffs the bunker spec (that relies on pet burst) even more. To go along with that they buffed GS which was the bunkers go to weapon besides staff.

So the options they opened up were play bunker with a buffed GS or play bunker with x/wh for easier might stacking and unblockable pet burst.

Really the only good thing to come out of this balance patch is clarion bond just happens to be in the marksmanship trait line so some players might be encouraged to pick up that line instead of running NM/BM/Druid.

I’ve fought 3 different druids since patch on my dragonhunter and the results were 1 win and 2 losses for me.

My overall sentiment is that the 15 secs astral cd helps balance the class slightly but not by much since they still have very strong range and mobility and invis uptime. The usual fights don’t require them to enter astral too quickly if they manage their mobility and invis well, while pressuring their opponents during the 15 sec gap. It does make the fights closer though as we have more chances to end the fight before they enter astral again.

1 vs 1 fights still extremely tough against them, on my DH at least. Not enough on demand gap-closer and interrupts to break their healing.

I’m interested to know the opinions of daredevils and chronos though who generally have easier access to interrupts like steal/headshot and shatter/mantra on what their experiences are like now vs a druid.

i run shout trooper i still can manage condis very well i switch between LB and GS with staff LB work well vs ranged/casters GS work well vs most melee with the buff of GS and rune of intelligence Maul can do so much dmg vs glass thiefs and also the option of escaping GS swoop and staff ancestral grace when chased by groups/zergs i dont think most of the nerfs affected my build so much ,still the most annoying build with hard time to fight Medi/trap DH multi stealth thiefs

full melee druids seems to be a thing now. great mobility, imobilize/daze, spammable bear maul. great damage. great healing. invis leap through smoke field too.
I fought one JQ full melee druid and he was very skilled. I think it is an extremely deadly and cool build in skilled hands. Rarely see such full melee druids though.
Usually staff/LB.
still hoping to hear form thieves/mesmers on how they find druids now.

It doesn’t prevent druid from being a healing machine. Just a slightly less effective healing machine.

In WvW at least they didn’t increase the heal cooldown on WHAO, so it still does a lot on a relatively short time-frame.

The change on CA to 15 seconds from 10 is nice…although even an increase of 50% at those timers is fairly short (five seconds is still only five seconds after all). Unless players were using CA every 10 seconds before it won’t be much of a nerf if they ended up using it every 15 seconds on average and the cooldown now only matches their usage.

Like engineer the biggest issue I have with druid is probably the stealth access. High durability and high healing with the ability to break targeting is what gives druid and some scrapper builds their insane survivability. Until they address that in a meaningful way the druids healing focus combined with low cooldown heals like WHAO will make winning against a properly played druid difficult.

EremiteAngel.9765:

1 vs 1 fights still extremely tough against them, on my DH at least. Not enough on demand gap-closer and interrupts to break their healing.

I’m interested to know the opinions of daredevils and chronos though who generally have easier access to interrupts like steal/headshot and shatter/mantra on what their experiences are like now vs a druid.

Druids are a soft counter to DH and have been for some time now. The healing nerfs were pretty minor; it’s honestly their main heal, damage mitigation (protection and 3 stunbreaks) and restealthing that makes them so tough for DH/guard to fight. I imagine the +5s cd on CA form helps in duels since you may actually be able to wear them out now but a very zerky druid is still going to be a nightmare to fight.

Daredevils have told me that they can more easily down druids now due to the CA form nerf but it hasn’t been all that big of a change.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Justine.6351:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

That and the nerf to ancestral grace.

But I doubt either of those nerfs were enough to make any of the bunker druids change their builds (maybe they had to add a bit more healing gear). My fear is that all these nerfs accomplished was to force a lot of glassy druids to pick up bunker gear to compensate.

Wrong. Bunker Druid does not have enough condition removal to face condi mesmers now. That and the AG nerf reduces ability to mitigate endless drones. I switched to GS/SB Demolisher, but think Druid makes a good target now.

It should definitely be the first target in a team fight. Low stability up time, limited condi removal and stun breaks. Good target. You should be able to 1v1 a good one with relative ease if you run a condi heavy build.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I’ve fought 3 different druids since patch on my dragonhunter and the results were 1 win and 2 losses for me.

Win some, lose some. That is how it should be. I’m sure there are days when you are on top.

1 vs 1 fights still extremely tough against them, on my DH at least. Not enough on demand gap-closer and interrupts to break their healing.

I do pretty well fighting Druids when I’m on my DH. Maybe it helps playing both. You have some pretty good options to close the gaps than pre-hot.

I’m interested to know the opinions of daredevils and chronos though who generally have easier access to interrupts like steal/headshot and shatter/mantra on what their experiences are like now vs a druid.

I honestly wouldn’t worry about what other classes can or cannot do vs. Druids. Even before the last so-called balance patch (lets just call it nerf Druid patch, ok) the main takeaway when fighting Druids is know their animations and when to interrupt. Pets do not get a free pass and ignore like you did pre-hot. I’ve fought a few solid DH’s and they are always in my face and knowing when to time their interrupts.

I mean seriously when I’m done I feel they are in my personal space. It is that bad. Few occasions zerg warfare is going on yet this particular DH always seeks me out whereas everyone else and their mother, brother, and kissing cousin leave me alone. This guy singles me out and the fight is on.

Patch is done but a lot of the yelling for Druid adjustments came from people not knowing how to play the game or fight classes. Sort of like me struggling when I fight a Chrono/Mesmer. I don’t blame them rather my lack of skill, staying on the right target, or sheer ignorance. Yet I don’t go to their forums asking for class change(s). Just my opinion. In other words, some people are just better.

Archon.6480:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Justine.6351:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

That and the nerf to ancestral grace.

But I doubt either of those nerfs were enough to make any of the bunker druids change their builds (maybe they had to add a bit more healing gear). My fear is that all these nerfs accomplished was to force a lot of glassy druids to pick up bunker gear to compensate.

Wrong. Bunker Druid does not have enough condition removal to face condi mesmers now. That and the AG nerf reduces ability to mitigate endless drones. I switched to GS/SB Demolisher, but think Druid makes a good target now.

It should definitely be the first target in a team fight. Low stability up time, limited condi removal and stun breaks. Good target. You should be able to 1v1 a good one with relative ease if you run a condi heavy build.

You might want to get in a bit more practice vs condi mesmers, or spend a few weeks playing one. With trooper runes, blocks, stealth, and a full cleanse every 15 sec you shouldn’t be getting overwhelmed by condi’s.

Condi mesmers are definitely strong in a 1v1 but it’s a pretty even fight.

The problem with condis is that the Druid healing is gated behind that full cleanse, (the only cleanse coming from the profession,) most professions know to hold off on the bomb until the Druid pops CA (and they’re going to, its how they stay alive). So the Druid can either utilize their (now weaker) heals, and risk being loaded up again right away, (as they can’t block or evade while channeling/casting CA’s abilities) or pop right back out for the stealth to kite and hope to hell WHaO is up. Even then, it might not be enough because condition duration is out of hand these days.

As a Druid I run both cleansing sigils & druid cleanse and I still find I have a lot more issues against condition builds than power. Not calling out mesmers specifically, but professions that can load up conditions while kiting and stealthing are a particular pain.

They should probably throw resistance on one of the survival skills, or have Signet of Renewal grant the pet resistance.

~ Kovu

Kovu.7560:

They should probably throw resistance on one of the survival skills, or have Signet of Renewal grant the pet resistance.

~ Kovu

well 3 quarters of our sigils need to be reworked, they are completely outdated. 25% movement speed with a crap active when we have multiple ways to keep up 33% speed. Stability that isn’t a stun break and has a full second cast time. And yeah SoR… I mean it was bad enough before condi’s stacked in duration, now it’s just a death sentence for your pet.

Personally I’d like to see the range limit on SoR removed and have it grant x seconds of resistance for each condition it pulls. But I’d also like to see pets reworked to only take 25% condi damage unless they are targeted. They die far too easily to random aoe condi’s.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Archon.6480:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Justine.6351:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

That and the nerf to ancestral grace.

But I doubt either of those nerfs were enough to make any of the bunker druids change their builds (maybe they had to add a bit more healing gear). My fear is that all these nerfs accomplished was to force a lot of glassy druids to pick up bunker gear to compensate.

Wrong. Bunker Druid does not have enough condition removal to face condi mesmers now. That and the AG nerf reduces ability to mitigate endless drones. I switched to GS/SB Demolisher, but think Druid makes a good target now.

It should definitely be the first target in a team fight. Low stability up time, limited condi removal and stun breaks. Good target. You should be able to 1v1 a good one with relative ease if you run a condi heavy build.

You might want to get in a bit more practice vs condi mesmers, or spend a few weeks playing one. With trooper runes, blocks, stealth, and a full cleanse every 15 sec you shouldn’t be getting overwhelmed by condi’s.

Condi mesmers are definitely strong in a 1v1 but it’s a pretty even fight.

The problem is the confusion itself and how is applied. After burning is the strongest condition and mesmers can apply a lot of those just for standing there.

Another problem is how confusion works. Because you get full damage on autoattacks you probably will instadie if you are using a sword or shortbow.

anduriell.6280:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Archon.6480:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Justine.6351:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I remember there was a massive thread here on how OP the druid was in small scale fights.
High damage great mobility insane healing daze invis pets all in one build.

Are they more balanced now in the current patch?

Not really. With like 400 healing power I heal ~6.5k casting lunar beam + rejunvenating tides.

The balance came with the 15sec hard cooldown on Celestial Avatar.

That and the nerf to ancestral grace.

But I doubt either of those nerfs were enough to make any of the bunker druids change their builds (maybe they had to add a bit more healing gear). My fear is that all these nerfs accomplished was to force a lot of glassy druids to pick up bunker gear to compensate.

Wrong. Bunker Druid does not have enough condition removal to face condi mesmers now. That and the AG nerf reduces ability to mitigate endless drones. I switched to GS/SB Demolisher, but think Druid makes a good target now.

It should definitely be the first target in a team fight. Low stability up time, limited condi removal and stun breaks. Good target. You should be able to 1v1 a good one with relative ease if you run a condi heavy build.

You might want to get in a bit more practice vs condi mesmers, or spend a few weeks playing one. With trooper runes, blocks, stealth, and a full cleanse every 15 sec you shouldn’t be getting overwhelmed by condi’s.

Condi mesmers are definitely strong in a 1v1 but it’s a pretty even fight.

The problem is the confusion itself and how is applied. After burning is the strongest condition and mesmers can apply a lot of those just for standing there.

Another problem is how confusion works. Because you get full damage on autoattacks you probably will instadie if you are using a sword or shortbow.

Confusion absolutely should trigger on auto attacks. The real problem with confusion is Anet added a passive tick to make it useful in pve but this made it broken in wvw.

Their unwillingness to balance the game modes separately is one of the biggest problems with this game. The druid spec is a perfect example of why they need to balance things separately, they designed a healer for pve raids in a game that was never meant to have healers.

Lolz go take your tears somewhere else. First off druid is a great elite spec for us rangers, we needed something with utility and team fights. I would’ve preferred a deeps spec too but hey now we have something viable. That’d why peeps used to hate on us cause rangers are super selfish (everyone loves even teefs when they stealth/venom them)
Secondly against Condi mesmers you should be fine against all but the best. Hell if your struggling that much just run lb/staff and run ws signt of removal bm and druid with trooper runes, Condi bomb builds can’t hurt ya.

Also not every class should be the best against everything

There should be a rock paper scissor shoe effect. Like for teefs,eles, revs, rangers, necros I like using lb/gs for scrapers/warriors/mesmers/guards staff and sword and axe
For when there’s too many peeps out there and team fights I run staff/sword warhorn

You can build against condi mesmer if there’s a prevelance of them that day or your dueling one.

If you don’t take the right equipment to the right fight then your not playing ranger right. Instead of just QQing build around it, druid cleanse is fine the nerf/buff was actually really good

About the healing, just a small comparison what some classes are capable of:

Druid heals per sec with 0 healing power (cast times taken into consideration):
573 hp/sec
Druid heals per sec with 1050 healing power (menders amu):
869hp/sec
Warrior heals per sec with 0 healing power:
877 hp/sec

To druid I counted “We heal as one” , “Rejuvenating Tides” and “Lunar Impact”. All of druid healing skills can be interrupted.
To war I counted healing signet and andrenal health x3.

And just for the druid dmg. Take a war with 2,6k+ defence, which is able to dodge twice (spike barrage and smoke assault) and try to get him low on heatlh, such war will mostlikely outheal all the druid dmg.

So, was the druid really so OP? Probably yes. Did druid need a nerf? Probably yes. But there is at least another 8 builds of other classes which are OP the same way the druid was. Were are the nerfs?

Druid can heal a lot more than just 573 hp/s with 0 healing power. Even with the 3 skills you have mentioned -and druid has more than those 3.

I do like how most saying Druid is fine in WvW are running trooper runes. So, when those get nerfed, then what? A condition clear every 15 sec (at best)?

Have fun surviving, because even as a condi Ranger (non-druid) I could load up way more condi damage then can be cleared with AF alone.

I KNOW a necro or mesmer could do a lot better in the condition department.

Meaning? Ranger still has one of the worst access to stability and condition clear in the game. Which is why the forums are filled with builds about how to get some stealth out of smoke field / LB or rely on a crutch like trooper runes.

And STILL people come to the forums and complain that Druid is ‘too hard to 1v1’. Really? Please, for academic interest, those crying OP post up some videos of you being dominated in WvW by OP Druids. I’m suspecting we will find a ‘learn2play’ issue.

Never said anything about ranger not having enough cleanse. core ranger should have better actual cleanse, the healing was op, and I’m glad you have to take healing power to get good heals.

What needs to be said is for a net to rework sig of renewal and give base line stuff better access to cleanse

Aye, Druid doesn’t need more cleansing. Base Ranger cleanses need to be improved. Thought I’d clarify. Locking the profession to a specific runeset because they can’t deal with the conditions without it is not a solution. I’m not going to buy a set of runes every time I’m facing an opponent with a particularly heavy condition spec.

~ Kovu

Well wilderness knowledge still works fine but empathic bond definitely needs to be updated.
The real problem with our condi removal is our class mechanic needs nature magic (fortifying bond) and BM to be fully effective. Makes it pretty tough to pick up wilderness survival.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Well wilderness knowledge still works fine but empathic bond definitely needs to be updated.
The real problem with our condi removal is our class mechanic needs nature magic (fortifying bond) and BM to be fully effective. Makes it pretty tough to pick up wilderness survival.

Agree, unless you drop druid. EB isn’t horrible with HoT pets, I’ve been running it for a little while now and don’t have all that much trouble with conditions.

I have way more trouble with CC, especially considering half our useful skills are like 3/4 second cast.

Ranger is suffering at the moment. It is not only condi problem. You either go full glass cannon (but no lb. people fart reflects nowadays) or full bunker, begging your pet to do the damage (I really HATE the pet mechanic in this game). Anything you can do in between would result negative vs an experienced player.

Easy option for dps = Rework a signet, give ranger 6 seconds of unblockable attack chance (like signet of might from warrior)

Easy option for bunkers = add a condi cleanse option

Easy option for everybody = adjust the pickle-ish pet mechanics and stats (tie them to ranger stats to be fair)

These might work. Might not work. I seem to care less and less, so my opinions are not praiseworthy.

Eleazar.9478:

Lolz go take your tears somewhere else. First off druid is a great elite spec for us rangers, we needed something with utility and team fights. I would’ve preferred a deeps spec too but hey now we have something viable. That’d why peeps used to hate on us cause rangers are super selfish (everyone loves even teefs when they stealth/venom them)
Secondly against Condi mesmers you should be fine against all but the best. Hell if your struggling that much just run lb/staff and run ws signt of removal bm and druid with trooper runes, Condi bomb builds can’t hurt ya.

Also not every class should be the best against everything

There should be a rock paper scissor shoe effect. Like for teefs,eles, revs, rangers, necros I like using lb/gs for scrapers/warriors/mesmers/guards staff and sword and axe
For when there’s too many peeps out there and team fights I run staff/sword warhorn

You can build against condi mesmer if there’s a prevelance of them that day or your dueling one.

If you don’t take the right equipment to the right fight then your not playing ranger right. Instead of just QQing build around it, druid cleanse is fine the nerf/buff was actually really good

Who is this negative rant even in response to?

about the condi cleanses:
having them locked in one traitline isnt a good desing to begin with.

Now im talking about the base ranger:
move EB to beastmastery traitline as GM and make it cleanse one condition every 3-4 seconds instead 3 every 10 so the ranger has an actual choice.
Rework the water spirit to also cleanse and improve somehow the healing.
bring back the trait of mobile spirits.

the trait to share yhe boons with the pet from te ranger made baseline, so we arent forced into NM.

That should give enough choice to not tobe locked into the 2 traitlines and the rune set.

Now for the two traitlines about dps: the power one should bring more utility to be able to inflict damage more consistenly. A trait to give signet short unblockable attacks sounds fine to me.

The condi one should also bring more utility reestrucuting the traitline so there arent conflicting traits in the same spot, and also rework some effects so the role its better defined.

A ranger/druid should be able to choose one buker lines and one dps without loosing basic functionality.
otherwise we are being forced to choose the option that sucks less

anduriell.6280:

about the condi cleanses:
having them locked in one traitline isnt a good desing to begin with.

Now im talking about the base ranger:
move EB to beastmastery traitline as GM and make it cleanse one condition every 3-4 seconds instead 3 every 10 so the ranger has an actual choice.
Rework the water spirit to also cleanse and improve somehow the healing.
bring back the trait of mobile spirits.

the trait to share yhe boons with the pet from te ranger made baseline, so we arent forced into NM.

That should give enough choice to not tobe locked into the 2 traitlines and the rune set.

Now for the two traitlines about dps: the power one should bring more utility to be able to inflict damage more consistenly. A trait to give signet short unblockable attacks sounds fine to me.

The condi one should also bring more utility reestrucuting the traitline so there arent conflicting traits in the same spot, and also rework some effects so the role its better defined.

A ranger/druid should be able to choose one buker lines and one dps without loosing basic functionality.
otherwise we are being forced to choose the option that sucks less

Agree with all of this except the mobile spirits. They just need to be completely reworked.

Instead of npc’s that Anet has had a terrible time balancing they should be changed to aoe wisps. They can either be wisps that circle and buff allies, or circle and harm enemies, adding a secondary benefit to allies they pass through and harming enemies they pass through.

Nice! Wisps idea is perfect. Love it. Moving EB to BM is not something debatable but common sense (pet buffing = BM in my opinon so you are right). I think trait lines should be adjusted especially in the case of Ranger. There are some misplaced traits.

And for the one millionth time, pet mechanic and stats needs a rework.

EB is not a pet buffing trait though, it is actually a pet harming trait. And as such it doesn’t make much sense in BM (this trait doesn’t make much sense at all, but whatever …).

UmbraNoctis.1907:

EB is not a pet buffing trait though, it is actually a pet harming trait. And as such it doesn’t make much sense in BM (it doesn’t make much sense at all, but whatever …).

It really needs to be reworked to convert condi’s to pet boons on transfer. It’s desperately needed that change since they changed condi’s to stack in intensity instead of duration.

Well pet buffing is buffing your pet for your taste, not for your pet to be stronger but useful Otherwise you are right. But I do not have that much hope for these changes. They are slow.

All these nerfs did is that they made druid significantly weaker against condition heavy specs on all professions. Now, they all have 5 more seconds to time a condi burst on the druid, which is huge.

Druid could always deal with power builds with ease, and still can, but slightly less so, which is fine. Druid was disgustingly broken, foolproof and mistake-friendly in small scale.

Eleazar.9478:

Never said anything about ranger not having enough cleanse. core ranger should have better actual cleanse, the healing was op, and I’m glad you have to take healing power to get good heals.

What needs to be said is for a net to rework sig of renewal and give base line stuff better access to cleanse

Just so we are on the same page, I am talking about PvP where core ranger is complete trash against anyone competent and we are stuck using Menders, and only Menders amulet. Pre-patch, we could just barely out duel a perfectly played Mesmer (read top 5%). Post patch, it’s not possible.

The combined nerf to Ancestral Grace, Lunar Impact, overall healing, and of course adding 50% nerf to CA cleanse has totally tipped into the favor of Mesmer.

This is going to be horrible for PvP viability. If Mesmer can decap Druid with ease, there is no need to have one anymore. Period.

Edit: I am fine with the nerf to healing if we are compensated in some way. Increase pet damage, fix main hand sword after cast so quickness actually does something. Add damage to CA abilities? Something Useful?

If condi is something destroying druids they can simply opt to drop either natures magic or beastmastery for wildness training will lose stuff in return but the option is there.

If people really feel the need to pick up more survivability because the Mender’s build doesn’t feel like it’s doing it for them (having played this post patch a lot I don’t think that it’s necessary and find Druid in a perfect spot right now; not so strong that anybody who can actually play the game would complain about), take the meta build (glyph of equality, signet of renewal, signet of stone), swap out We Heal as One with Healing Spring, and swap out Beastmastery for Skirmishing if you really want to go the extra mile, Staff and Sw/D of course.

You have to play your pets a lot smarter since you increase the swap time and lose a healing source for them (AF generation too, but irrelevant with Healing Spring), but as long as you know how to press F3, it really isn’t a problem. Nothing on it’s own will be able to kill you and you’ll kill anything 1v1 over time, and having to rotate more than 1 to deal with you (or you get to free farm somebody or free roam the map at your leisure) is exactly what you want to be able to do in order to carry games.

I don’t really think it’s necessary to even change from the metabuild to playing like this though. But with less boons to be corrupted, cleansing for days, and quickdraw proccing important skills (staff 3 and possibly 5, dagger 4, always dagger 4, not to mention CF3 and 4) and another water field to blast and leap through, again, what’s going to kill you that you can’t kill (hint: nothing is the correct answer).

Just to follow up on what I posted earlier. I was wrong. After switching builds, I really like the direction Druid is moving.

I swapped offhand dagger for warhorn and traited it in nature magic. Changed Bristleback for Tiger and have been wreaking havoc on, well, just about everything.

Very nice changes indeed, the ability to rip through blocks with the pet is just, wow. It makes up for the loss in healing. Also, we are no longer stuck using a single rune for AF gain. With a 15s threshold on CA we can now use any of the toughness runes, which gives us more options. I am really enjoying this patch.

Disclaimer: I am talking about pvp

Miyu.8137:

About the healing, just a small comparison what some classes are capable of:

Druid heals per sec with 0 healing power (cast times taken into consideration):
573 hp/sec
Druid heals per sec with 1050 healing power (menders amu):
869hp/sec
Warrior heals per sec with 0 healing power:
877 hp/sec

To druid I counted “We heal as one” , “Rejuvenating Tides” and “Lunar Impact”. All of druid healing skills can be interrupted.
To war I counted healing signet and andrenal health x3.

And just for the druid dmg. Take a war with 2,6k+ defence, which is able to dodge twice (spike barrage and smoke assault) and try to get him low on heatlh, such war will mostlikely outheal all the druid dmg.

So, was the druid really so OP? Probably yes. Did druid need a nerf? Probably yes. But there is at least another 8 builds of other classes which are OP the same way the druid was. Were are the nerfs?

how can the warrior heal so much with the healing signet? because that signet alone sure doesnt do it.