Guild Wars 2

I know we already have many threads pointing the clunkiness of the AF, but i think is a good idea to remind this from time to time.
Right now the mechanics of the Astral Form is really undesirable and they don’t work as intended if its intention was to allow the druid to heal when needed.

I propose:

• When in CAF, Astral force is not drained by time but by skill instead. Different skills drain different amount of CAF in function to balance the uses.
• We may enter in CAF whenever is needed, not when the Astral Force bar is full. The cooldown of 10 seconds stays thou to avoid CAF spamming.
• And please, for the love of melandru, adjust the CAF skills to bring different utility between them. Is ok if all heal, but at least give me a reason to use cosmic ray, seeds of life or natural convergence , right now the reward/utility does not worth the risk.
• Entering the Astral Form is really clunky. It takes as much as 2 full seconds to be able to cast any CAF skill. Please increase the speed, it’s kinda confusing you have already the Astral form skills but hitting the button does nothing.

• This is an offtopic note but i still think that the staff needs some rework.
  -> Vines Surge is too slow/buggy to be of actually any use (and that i have to say that i can realialibly “catch” enemy players with it). Too short duration, to slow casting for the effect.
  -> The sublime conversion is still to short in duration for 25/20 seconds cooldown skill. Please could you extend the wall duration at least to 10 – 12 seconds so i can actually be used as defense?
  -> An increase of any kind of damage would be very welcome. Right now does in 2.2K power build the weapon does around 300 damage/hit. That is half the damage the shortbow does, and we all know the power damage from the shortbow is really bad. Please at least bring it to the shortbow level.

After the fantastic job done with the new shouts (please also adjust the old ones to be more in line of the new) , i have hopes you can actually adjust the Astral Form to make it more playable instead so

+1
And here I’ll put some random letters so that my message isn’t too short for posting.

+1 agreed with most of the post. Only a few things bug me:

anduriell.6280:

• but at least give me a reason to use cosmic ray, seeds of life or natural convergence , right now the reward/utility does not worth the risk.

Natural convergence actually does decent damage and gives stab. This skill has a lot of uses, its great for break bars, can allow you to stomp, good group cc etc. I personally feel the risk is much worth the reward.

anduriell.6280:

An increase of any kind of damage would be very welcome. Right now does in 2.2K power build the weapon does around 300 damage/hit. That is half the damage the shortbow does, and we all know the power damage from the shortbow is really bad. Please at least bring it to the shortbow level.

the thing is staff hits 3 times in one second, so its about 900 dps at 2.2k power which is higher than sb, moving into lb and gs aa territory. It does pretty much the same as a long bow auto, but its way better for proc application. Sigils that are on hit or crit proc based work amazing with the weapons as does our only condi application trait. I think staff is fine damage wise, we just need more % on hit/crit style traits.

That said the rest of staff is pretty much a joke outside of our wall, which doesnt last to long and ancestral grace.

Only things I want is to use Solar Beam without a target and a small amount of damage added to Cosmic Ray so I can proc “on-hit” or “on-critical” sigils like the underwater counter-part.

Maybe a design change for the flower on Seeds of Life, but that’s a stretch at this point. The rest of the design is tolerable.

-1 though for more staff damage and sublime conversion duration increase. Staff provides plenty of sustain and utility that tacking on more damage, even equal to shortbow, not only makes the weapon imbalanced, but further lowers the value of other weapons like shortbow.

Sublime Conversion is a 5-second water field and projectile denial. That kind of duration increase of double+ for the cooldown is not balanced at all. Sheesh, people.

I’m sorry Wondrouswall and Eval but i think you are wrong in some points, maybe because lately you don’t play much with the druid?

Natural convergence actually does decent damage and gives stab. This skill has a lot of uses, its great for break bars, can allow you to stomp, good group cc etc. I personally feel the risk is much worth the reward.

Natural convergence seems good in paper, but in the field is just a nightmare not worth using like ever.
The 2 seconds Stab is for the skill cast, before the stab is was simply a joke to try to use it. 1 seconds stab you can get if you cancel the skill at the perfect spot will not save you.
Number are in line of the skill Whirling Defense. So not that great. And you are rooted for 2 seconds while casting soaking in damage. So you most definitely will die if the other player is not a noob.
This skill doesn’t need much rework because i agree with you is mostly fine. But it needs to be more rewarding if you are going to stay in the middle of the zerg casting this, you have to see enemy players suffer.

the thing is staff hits 3 times in one second, so its about 900 dps at 2.2k power which is higher than sb, moving into lb and gs aa territory. It does pretty much the same as a long bow auto, but its way better for proc application.

Here i have to think you were joking or deeply confused.
Staff does damage to 3 enemies, 300 points each. Hit once a second (approximately) Shortbow does 600 damage up to 5 enemies.
Longbow does 1.2K damage up to 5 enemies.
Do not mistake targets with total damage, we have piercing in both bows. If the devs decide to give us a trait to make the staff better damage i agree, but at least to give us that choice. Right now the damage is just too weak if it wouldn’t for the AF nobody would use that weapon.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Only things I want is to use Solar Beam without a target and a small amount of damage added to Cosmic Ray so I can proc “on-hit” or “on-critical” sigils like the underwater counter-part.

Maybe a design change for the flower on Seeds of Life, but that’s a stretch at this point. The rest of the design is tolerable.

-1 though for more staff damage and sublime conversion duration increase. Staff provides plenty of sustain and utility that tacking on more damage, even equal to shortbow, not only makes the weapon imbalanced, but further lowers the value of other weapons like shortbow.

Sublime Conversion is a 5-second water field and projectile denial. That kind of duration increase of double+ for the cooldown is not balanced at all. Sheesh, people.

Do not get your hopes with the no target thing. Anet did it change the mechanic on purpose and i don’t think they will change it back. Probably because they did not want the CAF spam thing.

However staff needs better damage. At least in the line of the shortbow, right now it’s just a mobility stick. The heals from the skills expect Ancestral Grace are too weak for the lack of damage it has. Definitely we got the harry potter broom. A disgrace, nothing more.

Sublime conversion is too short for the cooldown. They can make it last longer or reduce the CD, however 5 seconds wall and a rare punctual use as water field is too short for 25 seconds cooldown.
I don’t think many people use it as wall and more as a very situational water field to waste two skills for one combo heal.

The bursting pustules to make them actually usable should change to this:

• The cast change to a growing flower that blooms with 2 phases that last 3/4 second each.
• first phase when the skill is cast and instantly it blinds and cleanse 1 condition.
• Second phase when blooms it cleanse another condition and apply the heal.

So my teammates can actually see the skill and have time to get at least the heal and 1 cleanse, and also if i need the cleanse right away i need the skill to cleanse and the blind so i don’t have to wait a full second and a half to cleanse the conditions when i cast the glyphs or i cast the skill.

Get your head out of your kitten with thinking we are “wrong” with our opinion because you think we don’t play Druid much.

Solar Beam revert seems more likely with how they placed gates than extending the duration of Sublime Conversion. Check on every projectile reflect and denial skill in the game. The only thing that comes close to decent duration with cooldown is on Revenant’s Hammer, and even then, they have an energy system in place to offset some of that.

Not to mention, you and others that I have seen want CAF skills to use a % of astral force built based on skills. You really want Anet to balance that? Think about that for a moment, especially, you of all people.

I agree with everything you’re asking.

But, Solar Beam and Crossfire do more or less the same damage. It doesn’t do half damage of it. Just open your combat log.

Crossfire do a little more (like 50-100 dmg more) and can hit to 5 targets. Solar Beam is very easy to target and stays ’’flat’’ (horizontal). Crossfire, like all arrows, tend to shoot not in a line if you don’t take the target behind, but up high in all directions (vertical). It’s even worse in close range.

Solar Beam is at 1200 and Crossfire at 900. IMO, for fast and reliable damage (instant) that won’t miss (projectile) and get reflected, Staff beats Shortbow.

Now, should Staff be reworked to do more damage ? Yes. Should Shorbow, too ? Yes. Astral Wisp could be something close to Orb of Light (Guardian Staff 2) and Vine Surge a reliable CIRCLE AoE or CoR (Revenant Hammer 2). Sublime Conversion a dome like Feedback (Mesmer).

Druid’s Staff is the ONLY weapon of the new specs that didn’t have changes to it since HoT beta. We also got NO CHANGE last patch to Druid.

anduriell.6280:

Eval.2371:

the thing is staff hits 3 times in one second, so its about 900 dps at 2.2k power which is higher than sb, moving into lb and gs aa territory. It does pretty much the same as a long bow auto, but its way better for proc application.

Here i have to think you were joking or deeply confused.
Staff does damage to 3 enemies, 300 points each. Hit once a second (approximately) Shortbow does 600 damage up to 5 enemies.
Longbow does 1.2K damage up to 5 enemies.
Do not mistake targets with total damage, we have piercing in both bows. If the devs decide to give us a trait to make the staff better damage i agree, but at least to give us that choice. Right now the damage is just too weak if it wouldn’t for the AF nobody would use that weapon.

Nope. We are talking about two different things. I am referring to DPS where as your referring to single hits. Staff hits a single enemy 3 times for one single channel. The point I was trying to make above is explained below:

In two and half seconds sb will only fire 4 times, staff will have hit 6 times. With the same power SB would only do 1280 at 320 per hit, where as staff would have done 300 as well and came too 1800. That makes the dps 220 higher on staff. Staff doesn’t just out shine Sb it out shines gs auto as well. Staff only loses out lb and sword for obvious reasons (their attacks have better coefficients).

The point I am making is solar beam isn’t the weak spot it does decent damage and it also heals. It shines specifically when applying on hit, or on crit effects which was another point I was trying to make. If your using sigils like air, or traits like sharpening edges, staff outshines a lot of our other weapons in application because of the sheer number of hits.

I am not saying it staff or sb do not need an increase in damage or better support, I said that maybe going the direction of introducing more traits that work off of % on hit or crit would be a good avenue for increasing staffs damage trait wise as the auto attack is already pretty solid in that regard and your completely discrediting that tidbit solely because it lacks a high coefficient to display big numbers.

Yes LB and short bow do have the edge on pierce but they have to trait for it. Staff does pierce, but it can hit up to three targets. Most of the time 3 targets is the limit for what you can hit to begin with unless your fighting trash mobs, in which case it doesnt even really matter