Guild Wars 2

The problem with nerfing Astral Force generation is that it hits all aspects of Druid’s strengths- not just healing.

Celestial Avatar is Druid’s go-to for Healing, CC, and burst Buffing.

By making it so that your allies must take damage for Druid healing to increase the Astral Force bar, the Druid is rewarded for having allies with poor play.

Moreover, the amount of healing, cc, and buffing that Druid has outside of Celestial Avatar truly is very low (compare with an aura sharing tempest, who can literally just pump out consistent healing/buffing when needed).

The changes just seem very far out of left field. I’m not even sure I understand the purpose of them.

Were they to prevent Astral Force generation out of combat? If so, they’ve impacted in-combat Astral Force generation in a huge way- and then there’s no reason for Solar Beam to still be target locked.

Is it to make Celestial Avatar more tactical and have a lower uptime? If so, there are many more direct and obvious ways to nerf it that don’t reward bad play or counterintuitive builds.

The thing is, so many of Druid’s tools are locked behind Celestial Avatar- our burst CC, our burst Heal, our burst buffing- by popping CA to use one of these tools, we already sacrifice our access to the other 2 for at least 8 seconds.

Please clarify the reasoning behind these changes, because at the moment, they seem very shortsighted and reactionary to something that the community cannot see.

The reasoning is the same as it has been for 3 years.

Rangers (and now Druids) can’t have nice things.