Hello
With recent release of Guild Wars: Heart of Thorns i spend all week playing Druid in new zones and some Fractals.
I notice overall issues with Astral Force generation and Celestial Avatar form across already mentioned in other threads and i want to share my troughs about that issues.
- To Note: i’m start playing at Druid only with game release, i’m not played him at beta weekend.
First of all, before recent “Astral Force degeneration after combat fix” all our Druid gameplay looks like Sisyphus work:
- 1. We charge up our Force as quick as possible to open possibility to spend it. As quick as possible too.
- 2. All our hard work is gone after every fight, even if we not need Celestial Avatar Form.
Basic design bring a rabbit hole, what we can’t control entering Celestial Avatar form on demand, as Healer role requires – we must full charge and only after that we can do something.
And after that fix, we still limited to that “full charge me, and after that…” mechanic, what’s DEMANDS us to use staff and all our party heals to fill up that hole and have maximum charge.
What worst the most – we cannot precharge it before fight – and Druid’s trait’s what benefits from Entering/Leaving Celestial Avatar form also start have very rare usage.
Even if you put a fix that add some numbers to Weapon Damage Force generation, it’s still will be limited to full charge mechanic and healing with staff/utility.
I notice, what i’m rarely use Celestial Avatar Form Glyphs because of that – if i spend all my time to charge Astral Force, i use it only for spamming heal, i don’t have time window to use my glyphs.
- So, my suggestion is transform it to two step Astral Force charge mechanic:
What we have now:
“You have one Astral Force Bar”
“You can enter Celestial Avatar Form only on full Astral Force charge”
“Celestial Avatar Form Duration – 15s”
“Celestial Avatar Form recharge Rate – 10s”
“Terminating Celestial Avatar Form retaining half current astral force”
“Healing others fills bar”
“Dealing Damage fills bar”
My suggestion (Look at attachment picture):
“Astral force bar have 2 sections – 0-49%, 50-99% and 100% full charge section”
“You can enter Celestial Avatar Form any time, even with 0 Astral Force charge”
“Charging Astral Force to full 100% reset current Celestial Avatar Form Recharge Rate”
- “Entering Celestial Avatar Form on 0-49%”:
- “Duration – 5s:
- “Recharge Rate – 20s”
- “Terminating/Leaving Celestial Avatar Form removes all current astral force”
- “Entering Celestial Avatar Form on 50-99%”:
- “Duration – 10s:
- “Recharge Rate – 15s”
- “Terminating/Leaving Celestial Avatar Form removes all current astral force”
- “Entering Celestial Avatar Form on 100%”:
- “Duration – 15s:
- “Recharge Rate – 10s”
- “Terminating/Leaving Celestial Avatar Form retaining half current astral force”
“Healing others can fills all 0-49, 50-100% bars”
“Dealing Damage can fills only first 0-49% bar”
So, how it works?
Let’s take classic “Pew-pew” Ranger trying adapt build with Druid:
We take marksmanship/beastmastery(skirmishing) and Zerker/Marauder Gear with LB/GS or LB/S&D.
For example, we take Druid line for Celestial Shadow, Druidic Clarity and Ancient Seeds type of build:
- With current system we barely can charge up our Celestial Avatar form to use it frequently to proc Celestial Shadow or Druidic Clarity – dealing damage fills single bar very slow, and we don’t need full 15s of Celestial Avatar, for our needs.
- With new system we just enter Celestial Avatar Form to do limited by 5s amount of time things:
- “Use Celestial Avatar only for Lunar Impact Daze and Seed of Life Condyclear”
- “Use 1-2 Celestial Avatar type Glyphs”
- “Leave condipressure with Druidic Clarity”
- “Grant Celestial Shadow by instantly leaving on DEMAND”
- “Our main costs – is Celestial Avatar Recharge Rate – 20s (It can maybe more, ofc) and total no synergy with our healing traits.”
Also, Weapon fill rate only work with 0-49%, so we cannot achieve endless power 100% charge bar healing state with this damage build – only 50-99% stage sometimes, if we want, because reaching 100% need healing.
Next one is ConditionBunker or BeastmasteryBunker build types – it even can be full celestial trap ranger, poison ranger and etc, with Trooper Shout build. It can use any weapon or any trait and traitline.
In Druid line we also probably take every trait what we want for our build:
- With new system we can maintain 50-99% charge state, which give us full 10s of Celestial Avatar state with almost every 15s Recharge rate, if we do our role:
- “Use Celestial Avatar for all type of skills, support our Bunker role – our Party healing start to be noticeable”
- “Use 1-2-3-4-5 Celestial Avatar type Glyphs”
- “Use Cultivated Synergy for more AoE healing”
- “Leave condipressure with Druidic Clarity”
- “Grant Celestial Shadow by instantly leaving on DEMAND”
- “Second Bar 51-99% Astral Force is main build oriented for entering Celestial Avatar Form, but if we spend time to charge Astral Force, we can very frequently have access to 100% charge Celestial Avatar Form”
And last one is Full Healing Support Druid with staff and all ealing/support utilities and traitlines:
- Everything is same as in previous state, but because we have:
- “Charging Astral Force to full 100% reset current Celestial Avatar Form Recharge Rate”
- “Terminating/Leaving Celestial Avatar Form retaining half current astral force”
- We can maintain Celestial Avatar State 24/7 and leave it only for buffing/utility/weapon skills or dealing damage and our healing is fully controllable:
- “For example: we keep stored 100% charge and deal damage, suddenly see our Party needs Stealth or Condicleance or Healing:
- “We switching to Celestial Avatar State for 1-5s, and after leaving we have like 70% charge, what we quickly charge back to 100%, which reset our 10s recharge.
With these changes, all Druid players decides for himself what access to Celestial Avatar State they wants:
- “Frequently, with nice utility skills and mostly for self, with cost of high recharge rate, lowuptime and low healing.
- “On demand, with medium uptime, medium recharge rate but constant healing”
- “Or full controllable strong heal/utility support”
So this is my basic idea about current Druid state – it CAN be very good if it’s not be tied to 100% Astral Force charge and have levels with different strengths and powers.
