Guild Wars 2

I know other people have said it, but I feel like it really bares repeating. Astral force generation should be based on the amount you heal and not how constantly you can keep your tiny heal ticks going. If you burst heal 5 people for 7000 each, that should not count the same as healing 5 people for 150 each. That’s just ludicrous. Once again you’ve made it so that people who don’t spec healing at all are actually better healers than those who do. People who spec to heal should be able to fulfill that role better than people who wear no healing gear and just produce a high number of healing ticks constantly. I can see why the previous iteration of AF generation was a problem because the bar was full a lot of the time, however now once again people who spec healing don’t have CAF ready when they need it because they burst heal everybody to full so the AF bar no longer fills up from the constant small health ticks.

What should it be though? 100 healing for 1% of astral force? So 10,000 healing gives you celestial avatar form? I can get my regens way over 400 healing on allies (lets round it to 500), so if I apply regen to 5 allies, I build astral force in 4 seconds?…too fast, but compared to builds with no healing at all, 130 regen healing on 5 allies would take 15 seconds, 3 times as long. Then there’s every other heal out there as well…

Its not a bad idea, but Anet would have to be very careful with tuning the healing per astral force amount to make it well balanced across all levels of healing power, and prevent a full condi-clear/stun-break every 10 seconds every time for maxed healing builds. You also don’t want to screw over solo players into not being able to build Astral Force at all….maybe by making self heals build twice as much astral force.

Unless they use different % conversions for different skills it wouldn’t work.

There’s no flat rate that would make regen generate any noticeable amount while preventing skills like WHaO from filling over half the bar instantly.

Just regenerate astral force by time and not by hit. Otherwise you will never balance it for Pve single/group content, WvW roam/zerg and PvP

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Just regenerate astral force by time and not by hit. Otherwise you will never balance it for Pve single/group content, WvW roam/zerg and PvP

Yeah… the rate of thief endurance or make it the same as Revenant energy? But then are we just a copy of them (Ventari) but with more healing power? I dunno….

Sure, something could be done to favor heal amount instead of heal/time… make it like the necro shroud and how they gain shroud from (s)kills or warrior adrenaline by being in combat to get AF gen over time. But, again, a copy of what they already have on another class.

Am I saying the copy idea is bad? No. It means they already have the mechanics and “balance” around those methods. However, be forewarned about the loss of uniqueness and all the qq’rs that go with.

Instead, it really should just be a gain by overall percentage of heal. Make the AF pool some reasonable number (Vita + Heal Power + Tough) * X and then when you heal, say, 7000 points, you get 700 (10% as an idea) of the AF pool. This is then similar to Necro but better themed for healing. It would support healers using tough/vita/heal gear but still allow solo roaming without too much consequence (everyone has that base 1k vita and 1k tough). Keep the drain over time a constant percentage, like 1% per second or something, to keep it balanced so you are not camping too hard.

You could, with skill spam, build up AF out of combat real easily, but they could alter AF out-of-combat to make it not worth it (as that seems to be what the nerfs are doing) with a 50% cap (like Revenant) or just not build up out-of-combat (or, heaven forbid, that 10% became a .1% so it takes long enough to not be worth it).
Problem then is PvP counts as continuously being in combat, right? But even now you could hide in a corner and quickly fill up AF before your team departs so I do not see a big deal there. Just means you lose that time against the other team.

I am absolutely against gating Druid’s best healing (CAF) behind mediocre healing (Glyphs, regeneration, Spirits, and Staff), especially considering the lack of synergy with base Ranger skills and traits. There is no way to properly scale CAF generation behind total healing without making Druid incredibly underpowered in solo combat and incredibly overpowered in groups, and balancing individual heals becomes a nightmare with regard to programming and balance. It also rewards poor gameplay—it enables groups to facetank damage without any strategic play, active/passive defenses, or even dodging, because this will fill CAF faster and their Druid can heal the difference.

Keep CAF generation simple. There is no need for complicated gating mechanisms that ultimately undermine skillful play and reduce effective build variety. Have a static CD (that can be traited for CD reduction, like Berzerk Mode, Attunements, and Shroud), or have it perform as a resource (Energy, Initiative) that generates over time, and each skill drains a set amount of CAF (with individual skill CDs if necessary to prevent spamming).

If it is similar to other class mechanics, then so be it. Other class mechanics are already similar to one another—not out of lack of imagination, but because there are limited ways to make things work effectively within the confines of the game itself.

Or perhaps just look at the class with technically the most similar mechanic: necros (who also get a new skillset when they fill up a bar).
Give a % of CAF generation to certain skills, now you can balance the thing skill by skill and not run into these unforeseen “supergenerating” builds.

Added on that you can also give a small (a lot smaller than it is now) extra percentage of CAF generation per heal, like necros get per kill.

It’s not the most novel mechanic, but it works; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.