Guild Wars 2

One thing that has been bugging me about the Druid form is that it seems to go against one of the core aspects of GW2: there is no trinity. But then we get Druid, which more than any other elite introduced in HoT, is based around being a healer. Using the staff is almost entirely about healing, using the avatar form is nothing but healing. The trait line likewise is almost entirely dedicated to healing and condition cleansing. Hell, its kitten near impossible to even use unless you’re entirely dedicating yourself to be a healer due to how the resource gain works.

Now mind you, I am not against what Druid form is doing in its entirety. What I am against is that Ranger’s only new option in the whole of the expansion, is something against the games original philosophy.

With that in mind, I believe that Celestial Avatar should be given a DPS and or DPS/support hybrid counter part. When using a staff the avatar skill gains more resource with healing and less on damage (as it is now), and when switching to any other weapon, you gain more on damage than on healing. The form itself would have more damage and buffing components, rather than being entirely based around healing ones.

This would keep current druid relatively unchanged, especially since getting avatar up with anything but a staff is a chore in and of itself to the point where very few if any people are using avatar without a staff as is. While at the same time giving ranger an elite that isn’t against the games dynamic and allow them something to use when they arent grouping.

Avatar does have a secondary function: crowd control. Hard CC is more important than ever before with the crowds of tough enemies and defiance bars on champions.

Weapon CC → Celestial Avatar → Moonbeam → Convergence → Moonbeam is a devastating combo that is easy to pull off, providing extremely heavy cc in a short period of time.

I will have to dissagree with you, giving the druid DPS is not the solution. CC and Heal Bombs is its thing. Same as the necro shroud where its only has 1 role, the druid’s celestial form should have the same.

on the other hand i agree with your statement that the druid is forcing me to play out of my condi ranger into a healing support spec. (if i want to use my elite, alternatively i can remain a sub par class (ranger)).

Monk should have been a 2nd new class with these exact abilities the druid has, and the druid should have become more of a HEAVY CC (like the mesmer) using vines and/or banners debuffing enemies.

Most likely have to wait for a DPS based “elite” tree that might be able to keep up with Mesmer / Ele burst.

At one point in development the druid had more than one aspect.

Probably was too awesome and all non-ranger players would have been whining about how great a druid with so many options would be.

Rangers being looked up to or being on par? Nah, so we only got the healing form, which is fairly mediocre (if you are generous).

Now that they skipped the concept, I don’t think they will reinstall it. Sorry.

I do wish Cosmic Ray was Solar Beam in reverse (healing and damage numbers reversed).

I’m really trying to like Druid. Using CA and blasting heals isn’t really fun in PvE base Tyria. I enjoy the visual portion of it and the short cool down on skills. I enjoy that they removed the degen on it but it still feels pretty shallow. I don’t think that adding direct damage to using skills will help.

What I think would help is something like Retaliation application through trait when in CA. The reason I say ‘like’ is because retaliation only helps if you’re getting hit and in PvE this might not work the best. So perhaps a small bit of AoE damage when healing allies already at max health. Even adding a stack of Cripple to foes around your heal targets would be awesome. This feels like it would pair nicely with the Grace of the Land GrandMaster trait and Glyph of Unity by replacing the Condition damage modifier on the trait.

Perhaps even a trait that adds Might or another boon once you leave CA to encourage people to use Druid aside from healing.

given that celestial avatar is our ‘super heal form’ meant for when it all hits the fan i think it should stay that way. rather than a dps form, just have our staff do some solid damage instead.
have solar beam burn and maybe bounce between targets for some aoe.
astral wisp is good but feels a little lacking.
ancestral grace is probably my favourite thing about druid ever.
vine surge would be the perfect candidate for a bleed burst.
sublime conversion is really quite situational so i dont use it much at all except boss fights to give other ranged attackers some regen. having something like cleansing allies who pass through it would make me use it more frequently.

the only thing i really don’t like about CA form is the #1 skill, it has a small radius and takes a second to heal after casting so half the time my targets already rolled away from it before getting healed.

Father of Devils.6135:

What I think would help is something like Retaliation application through trait when in CA. The reason I say ‘like’ is because retaliation only helps if you’re getting hit and in PvE this might not work the best. So perhaps a small bit of AoE damage when healing allies already at max health. Even adding a stack of Cripple to foes around your heal targets would be awesome. This feels like it would pair nicely with the Grace of the Land GrandMaster trait and Glyph of Unity by replacing the Condition damage modifier on the trait.

Perhaps even a trait that adds Might or another boon once you leave CA to encourage people to use Druid aside from healing.

Here is a few things idk if you know of yet:

• CA has access to retaliation. Seed Of Life is a light field which you can blast for retaliation with clarion bond or lunar impact or ancestral grace.
• Ranger recently got tones of might application in its kit from WHaO changes as you can easily give your self the might you build up on pets from strength of the pack, or the might to pet on crit trait in beastmastery or sword auto attack.
• to add to the above Bristleback and Smokescale are both excellent at stacking might on you when you use strength of the pack.
• CA has access to cripple, SLOW! and immobilize via natural convergence. Which is awesome for breaker bars.

All the things your asking for here are already in the kit