Guild Wars 2

What about while in avatar the druid can get astral force from the heals so it can last longer.

Simple fix and easy enough to do should bring the supposed healer back in the game?
As right now it is not the bursty healer and obviously it never was the constant healer either.

Also, and this is just an idea, the trait cultivated synergy effect could change to:

• Astral force degradation while in avatar is greatly reduced. Astral force generation improved by 50% while in avatar state. ( 2% for heal)

Thus if the druid trait for it, while is healing the group it should be able to stay in avatar state almost indefinitely.

This is good for raids to keep the buffs up now that you should only need to bring one and groups in wvw as support.

Ya it would be good.

Avatar should be something like necro shroud from the beginning. Skills and numbers should have been adjusted according to this. And I still think it should be converted to a shroud-like mechanic with proper traits. Anet said they were going to change the nature of the druid profession in one of their patch notes, so that would be a reasonable change in my opinion.

I like the idea, but I can’t see Anet ever giving druids that without major nerfing to some/most abilities.

50% increase of 1½% is 2¼%. Also, seeing how easy it is to gain Astral Force, especially through Regeneration and other heals-over-time, I disagree to that trait suggestion.

The simpler form of your suggestion is just to allow AF generation while in CAF. Unfortunately, the 15s duration has to be removed, and as OG said, it will come with consequences. Most likely in the form of increased cooldowns if it the player is able to retain the form almost indefinitely.

So, if you don’t mind the idea of cooldown increases that might leave Druids spamming Cosmic Ray while Seeds of Life is increased from 1s to 3s, Lunar Impact 8s to 10s, Rejuvenating Tides 8s to 12s, and Natural Convergence from 10s to 15s – then by all means, ask away, because that’s how we’ll get it.

Edit: Probably say goodbye to gaining AF from regen and heals-over-time, too, if you want this change. Currently, AF depletes 6.66% per/s, with Dolyak Runes, Mango Pie, Signet of the Wild, and Natural Healing – those combined generate 7.5% per/s. Once you throw in healing from regeneration, healing skills, and CAF skills, “almost indefinitely” becomes indefinitely.

Be prepared for some major nerfing if you really want this.

the thing is i dont understand is why it should be nerfed. We have in game a crazy amount of conditions and is being buffed everywhere except the ranger, we get power one shot builds everywhere, we have the 10k healing every 2 seconds ventari revenant to fight the crazy powercreep. Druid had already many crazy nerfs with no reason in form of the cast spamming in form of increased cooldowns in most skills and nerf in the effects. I dont thin unbalance anything if the druid when healing 5 guys can keep the avatar up.

if druid needs to be competitive, and not only talking about pve, druid need to be the healer is was defined for. And for that if we don’t want the stealth abuse the druid has to be able to heal in reliable way.

Druid should not be able to keep permanent avatar form with this change when alone only last a bit longer, but should be able to stay in avatar when healing a group. This way it should not change the balance 1v1 but be really useful in team combat (raids, fractals or wvw)

otherwise the druid lost any reason to use any healing or heal, because for the damage buff is better as little heal as possible so it can reach the full AF as soon as possible.

My point is: for purity of purpose druid should be able to keep the healing state if the group needs the healer. To be balanced with the rest of the game AND follow its own design of healer \CC playstyle druid should be able to keep a permanent avatar state.

I would do other changes as i dont understand how an purely attack skill like ancient seeds is in druid traitline instead wilderness survival and in its place a bunker\support gm trait, but at this point with all the crazy buffs to other classes i would simply love to see Anet got their designs straight and defined to stop this no-sense.

anduriell.6280:

the thing is i dont understand is why it should be nerfed

Me neither, but I know this company by now. Ask for one thing, and they give you that, they then take away two other things, because reasons.

Hey man, I’m with ya – but this is Anet. Couple that with how much people hate this profession, and you have what OG mentioned: 1 (buff) step forward, 2 (nerfs) steps back.

anduriell.6280:

My point is: for purity of purpose…

We and Anet have different definitions for that term. The last time it was used, Engineers were pretty upset, which is an understatement considering they’re usually chill peeps.

anduriell.6280:

What about while in avatar the druid can get astral force from the heals so it can last longer.

Simple fix and easy enough to do should bring the supposed healer back in the game?
As right now it is not the bursty healer and obviously it never was the constant healer either.

Also, and this is just an idea, the trait cultivated synergy effect could change to:

• Astral force degradation while in avatar is greatly reduced. Astral force generation improved by 50% while in avatar state. ( 2% for heal)

Thus if the druid trait for it, while is healing the group it should be able to stay in avatar state almost indefinitely.

This is good for raids to keep the buffs up now that you should only need to bring one and groups in wvw as support.

And that’s what I talked about in my post you decided to shoot down…

Gw2 was intentionally designed to have mostly offensive gameplay designs, and as a result, all team support designs, skills, qol features… are some of the weakest I’ve ever experienced.

I remember during beta testing, one of the devs mentioned they wanted druid to be good at burst healing while rev good at overall healing per second.

But to be honest, I like your idea better. I like the idea that druid stays in avatar for longer and actually use different skills to maintain healing and cleansing.

Current druid is all about entering and exiting avatar form repeatedly and abuse celestial shadow and druidic clarity.

A change like this would not only make it possible to stay in CA infinitely, but also make it easier to enter it on cooldown, because you would have more AF left after exiting, basically buffing DC and CS.

Druid doesn’t need any buffs. It is decent in all 3 game modes.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

A change like this would not only make it possible to stay in CA infinitely, but also make it easier to enter it on cooldown, because you would have more AF left after exiting, basically buffing DC and CS.

Druid doesn’t need any buffs. It is decent in all 3 game modes.

The only limiter on Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow is the CD. It’s been that way since they changed every random green number tic to contribute to Astral Force Generation.

If I had to change anything to increase the uptime on Celestial Avatar without a major rework it would be to generate Astral force while channeling Rejuvenating Tides (since necromancer Life Transfer does this) and make it so you do not lose additional Astral force just by leaving the form. However, I dont believe it is something that you should be in more than 50 percent of the time, as situation warrants it.

The problem is: Astralforce is not the thing that terminates the CA. I tested it with a mushroom. I refilled AF while in CA and it still canceled after 15 sec. At that time AF was still filled by 50%. The internal functionality would have to be reworked for a trait like -50% AF degeneration to work.

Then they should change the player→avatar→countdown(); for player→avatar→AF_depeleted();

In any case it shouldn’t be much work. If the dev was happy the code shouldn’t be an spaggetti hell.

In any case, if the avatar had the timer mechanic, what was the point to deplete the AF bar? it would have been easier and better to see the countdown, at least we would know exactly how much time is left…

mmm i cant edit or quote any post, i dont see the icons to do so…

I don’t really like the idea of being able to stay in avatar indefinitely.

Firstly healing druid is already far too good, it needs nerfing, not buffing.

Secondly, you’d likely still need to exit avatar to drop glyphs (Empowerment for example), so it wouldn’t change much overall.

Theoretically this is already in practice for the meta rotation (which is why you always use celest avatar 2 at the end of your healing combo, removing celestial avatar before the seed procs the heal to return a little bit of celestial energy).

I don’t think it would be productive for people to camp celestial avatar mode though, especially in a game that promotes active defenses over healing.

alain.1659:

Avatar should be something like necro shroud from the beginning. Skills and numbers should have been adjusted according to this. And I still think it should be converted to a shroud-like mechanic with proper traits. Anet said they were going to change the nature of the druid profession in one of their patch notes, so that would be a reasonable change in my opinion.

This. Current avatar is so short it is pretty much a button spam. You can’t even read what glyphs do.

Nerf avatar and make it more tactical, with a less spammy role.

I do not support this idea, largely because (as others have mentioned) I foresee other kitteny nerfs to CA in exchange for the uptime boost. I don’t raid and do very little WvW, so not sure how it would be in those areas; however I feel CA is more than good enough currently for fractals, dungeons, and spvp.

voltaicbore.8012:

I do not support this idea, largely because (as others have mentioned) I foresee other kitteny nerfs to CA in exchange for the uptime boost. I don’t raid and do very little WvW, so not sure how it would be in those areas; however I feel CA is more than good enough currently for fractals, dungeons, and spvp.

still not see why they should nerf avatar skills as they are already pretty nerfed., although you people kept saying that.

Not it does not involve any direct nerfing. The only actual “nerf” will be that druids will have to choose between Druidic clarity and this new cultivated sinergy.

Being the first trait good for roaming\spvp or the second for raids\zerging as the new trait will only be useful when the druid has more people around so it can generate enough AF to prevent the decay.

So in an actual gameplay players won’t see any difference, except that the druid now may fulfill it’s role as healer without making the druid stronger 1v1.

Hey who said it was difficult to fix the profession without power creep…