Polishing the Druid

Polishing the Druid

in Ranger

Posted by: Lord Snow.3257

Lord Snow.3257

To fix the issues of the Druid, while keeping it balanced.

Staff:

  • Astral Wisp (#2 skill) needs some love, give it some more on-hit damage/vulnerability on hit/pulsing burning, whatever you feel suits the skill best.

Traits:

  • Celestial Being, increase the AF gain on damage on to 3%. This will open up for non-staff builds while still keeping the staff as the #1 AF generating weapon. Also, make pet damage contribute to AF gain.
  • Live Vicariously, increase the heal to 500, but also increase the icd to 5 sec. The self-sustain of the Druid is a bit too strong atm, this will help tone that down (50% nerf to this minor trait). It will also make the Druid less reliant on the Troll Unguent heal skill, so there becomes more choice in healing skill.
  • Lingering Light, increase the icd to 4 sec, the blind spam (and to some degree the healing) was a bit overhand, this will bring the trait more in line with the other two grandmasters.

Glyphs:

  • Glyph of Rejuvenation, reduce the cd to 20 sec so it can compete with the other 3 heal skills of the Ranger (do something about Water Spirit already).
  • Glyph of Alignment, revert the 66% “on cast” damage nerf.
  • Glyph of Empowerment, make it an instant-cast.
  • Glyph of Unity, make it an instant-cast and give the Druid a 5% damage reduction effect for each tethered enemy, and 5% damage reduction for each of the tethered allies when in Celestial version.

Pets:

  • Change f1 into a toggle between attack and return, then let us slot one of the family skills in the f3 slot, this way we control two pet skills.
  • Universal buff: Increase the base movement speed of all pets by 50%, reduce the duration of cripple and chill on pets by 50%, give them the damage reduction treatment they have in pve in spvp and wvw as well (maybe not as high as 95% in spvp though).
  • Smokescale, nerf the damage of Smoke Assault by another 20%, it is still too strong (and you fellow Rangers know it). Swap Smoke Assault and Smoke Cloud back to how it was originally (this change is so we get a choice between slotting Smoke Assault or Takedown (the knockdown skill) in the f3 slot, as Smoke Cloud has to be player-controlled to function properly).
  • Wyverns, cut the cast times of the family skills by 50%, they are way too slow to hit anything atm. Fire Wyvern’s f2 should be ground-targeted. Lightning Wyvern’s f2 needs some bug-fixing.

Bonus: I still feel Celestial skill #1 and #2 should be merged, with the effects of both, but the animation of the #1 skill, then make a proper “autoattack” or something similar in its place.

Discuss!

Polishing the Druid

in Ranger

Posted by: Galbedir.9178

Galbedir.9178

Agree with pretty much most of the points. Except the reduction to Smoke Assaults dmg further…right now, it feels like the only viable pet dps for the higher level content, such as fractals/high lvl maps. Its fine as it is.