Guild Wars 2

I have no clue about how the class is supposed to be played “effectively”, but I recently also leveled up my guardian and found sword/torch super fun. With sword 2 and “Judges intervention” constantly teleporting into the enemies faces and everything around you just starts to burn felt pretty good “Purging flames” and the Radiance trait “Radiant fire”, which constantly triggers your torch 4 regardless of cooldowns, enhanced this experience further.
It’s flavorwise not exactly paladin-esque and more of an battlemage approach, but maybe you’ll find this more to your liking as it felt very quick and fluent to me.

So the species known as Sylvari have two… Let’s say “Sub-Species” even though that isn’t a correct term. I don’t believe there is a correct term simply because no life on Earth is close enough to this form of life.

There is a term, its simply called “morphs” (forma). Same genotype with different phenotypes. You have it for example with some cnidaria (jellyfishs), some become some kind of plantlike structure which produces another form with same genes, the medusae, the ones that swim around.

Being not able to reproduce is just one of many factors why viruses aren’t categorized as living, I don’t know why the guy in your source puts so much emphasis on it. Thats probably even the least convincing argument.

They are just husks with nucleidic acid and some polypeptids in it and some surfaceproteins to bind on and open cellsurfaces. They don’t think/react to their enviroment due to their lack of sensormechanisms, they don’t move on their own, they have no own metabolism, they do nothing what fits in any definition of living being, so they are not considered as one, except you lower your standards of whats living pretty much.

Lets see what wikipedia says to the defining features of life:
1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature.
—> Viruses: nope, Sylvari: check
2. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells.
—> Viruses: hardly, Sylvari: check
3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism).
—> Viruses: nope, Sylvari: check
4. Growth
—> Viruses: nope, Sylvari: check
5. Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the environment.
—> Viruses: for their kind, yes due natural selection, for the individual, nope, Sylvari: check
6. Response to stimuli
—> Viruses: nope, Sylvari: check
7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms.
—> Viruses: with limitations, Sylvari: nope.

Your see, for Sylvari its something completely different. You cannot just strip the status of “living” from beings based on only one factor. Nature is very complex and creates a lot of beings that lack in some or another feature you would associate with a living being, because not everything needs everything to contribute to the survival of their kind. For example angiosperms (most ‘higher’ plants) put a separate second deformed but living embryo in every seed, which then grows just to get absorbed (7.) for nutrients later, when the main-embryo begins to grow. Or some parasites lose their metabolism (3.) almost entirely, because they just take everything from their host. Or some beings which had mobile ancestors lose their ability to move, because they don’t need to move anymore. Or some endosymbiotic bacteria lose almost their cellsurface (2.), because the plant creates a save capsule for them. Et cetera et cetera.

Well.. it depends on how nitpicky we are and how we want to believe Sylvari operate on a biologic level. In RL it would never be possible to build a organism out of plantcells which has the capabilities of a faunal organism for many reasons – how tissues are created and cells are tightly connected and can’t be interchanged as in animals, etc.pp.
A other issue would be the slowness of tracheidal and parenchymal cell-to-cell transport. These transportmechanisms just can’t handle the fast supply of oxygen and nutritions and fast removal of waste products a “brain” or “muscles” in these organisms would need. So you could argue a Sylvari would need something as a pump to accelerate the flow velocity in its tracheids to create something similar to a bloodstream. On the other hand its confirmed they have a thick sap, so that wouldn’t be possible anyway and – its a fantasy universe. The utter maximum-velocity any cell can grow is about 50 µm/min (2 milli-inch) – due to physical laws of how fast proteins and lipids for the cellstructure and surface can be synthesized and vesicels can flow where they are needed. Still Mordremoth is able to grow 100 metres of vines in a matter of seconds, and wounds can be healed in notime – so.. magic! and there have to be other physical laws regarding how fast stuff can flow and build up in cells within the GW universe, what would make it possible for Sylvari to just rely on their super-parenchym to provide their muscles.

No, please. I hate it how bloated and ugly the effects of many legendaries are – Nevermore is fine, if anything I would turn the spirit crow-effect down a bit. It doesn’t need additional visual noise.

At launch there was a system where your character “changed personality” depending on how often you use certain dialogue options and thereby unlocked additional options. It didn’t changed much but it added a little bit flavour – why was it removed?

They aren’t available yet. You can start making the new generation when raids are released.

DarkMagister.7429:

Add: or maybe make it usable in HoT maps only?

The mentor tag is meant to mark you as experienced player newcomers to the game can ask stuff. Would completely destroy the purpose.

1. the lore-section is the wrong place for these suggestions, try it in the normal Guild Wars 2 Discussion.
2. there is an item in the gemstore doing more or less exactly this. Would make it obsolete.
3. wouldn’t make sense lorewise. You pay the fee for the Asura to maintain the teleport network – you still use the network by travelling back to your racial city, hence you cause.. “etherical attrition” or whatever. Why would the Asura waive fees for you travelling home? I don’t get any fees waived when I fly/take the train home after travelling elsewhere.
4. the fees have the gamedesign-purpose of a gold-sink. Why leverage that?

The only reason I can think of is populating the racial cities better. But the effect would just be minimal – these 1-2 silver don’t hold me back from travelling to the city I’m most used to and like the most.

Once I made a norn at ~20% above the minimum to represent a quite young norn for roleplay purposes. Don’t see a problem with that.
But I get your general concern – the post here just will nothing do against it. Most people doing that don’t care about lore, they choose the min heigh because they want a human but like the hair on norn better, or like the racial skills better, or want to reveiling cultural armour, or hate (like me) how slow tall characters feel, because of the slow animations to compensate the higher leg length, etc.pp.. They don’t mind if it fits.

Right, Tyria is a planet. Not a moon, not a star. You can see a moon and stars, but how does this indicate tapping into the planet give any power over them? Especially how has the jungle the ability to command celestial bodies? Stars are not dots on a glasdome attached to the planet as the church teached not too long ago, they are thousands of lightyears apart.
Tapping into the jungle you get access to its spirits and its lifeforce, being able to manipulate it in the good way unlike necros. Widen the tapping onto the “strenght of the planet” you get elements (as we see do with glyphs). Doesn’t explain the star thing.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If the Pale Tree is not corrupted, then how are the sylvari dragon minions?

Is it absolutely clear that they are? I would guess people in Tyria just jump the gun a little by calling them dragon minions, because they leap to that conclusion after some Sylvari turned against the pact in a crucial moment. In fact they aren’t yet, they are just the only race responsive to his call, since they’re plants.
How would he have corrupted those seeds? He corrupts by persuading minds, and was asleep. How would he have prepared those seeds? Before he fell into sleep? Thousands of years ago? Probably would’ve decayed.

But if the Pale Tree is indeed a purified minion, the ancient race thing would be a possibility, yeah.

I’m wondering what the purpose of the barrier is.. imprison minions for the duration of the ritual.. maybe?

As I mentioned in another thread I don’t think the seeds had to be purified in the first place, because I would guess they are uncorrupted before they sprout and Blighted Trees get corrupted as they are growing. Seeds don’t have a mind on which Mordremoth can grasp his corruption.
Also it sounds very unlikely that Ventari or Ronan went deep into the jungle to place a seed (from which they likely can’t know its corrupted) in a circle, which they likely don’t know exists, to perform a ritual, which they likely don’t know either. And who did it for Malycks tree? Or do you think the cave where Ronan found the seed was from a (druidic?) cult who wants to stop Mordremoth by cleansing seeds? Sounds ineffective.

But I can definitely see the similarities and this circle having a place in the story for this purpose – to remove the corruption of an important character. I heard rumours once it would be possible for the sylvari player character to become a mordrem guard, I don’t know if its true or where this information is from, but if thats the case, thats probably our place to be, since we don’t want our PC to stay that way.

The champions are probably send to try to destroy the circle (for obvious reasons)?

Is it so hard to understand that they just can’t do this? A map has to be specifically designed in a certain way to allow this – the old maps aren’t. You would be able to break out of the map everywhere, see empty locations which aren’t modelled, since you couldn’t reach it anyway before, cheese out events, jumpingpuzzles and mechanics, etc.pp..
They would have to build invisible walls, like everywhere, until a point it isn’t fun anymore. Or rebuilt all 34 (!) maps from scratch.

I would fix it but making it reasonable bigger as intended initially. Bristle deserves it.

Magic in GW can be casted by kids by accident (see Marjory) without having any former contact with it, so in this universe it isn’t something too special. Yes, the ranger don’t channel the elements himself by calling upon the spirits, but this doesn’t have to imply, that there is no magic at all involved from his side to build the connection. He doesn’t even have to know that he just used magic by himself at this moment, he just did it.
You need magical education if you want to be a caster, which has full control over the magic he channels, and don’t hurt yourself or others by exploring your magic gift on your own, but its entirely possible in this universe that every class utilizes magic in some way or another, aware of it or not.

For the black hole and sacrifice thing. Yeah, nature is a cruel place, I don’t think spirits have too high moral standards. Druids aren’t flower petters, not in RL, not in Warcraft, not here. Things have to die, so something can grow from its ashes. If it fulfills a greater purpose and the positive benefit for overall nature outweights the sacrifice, its possible.
For the black hole you would have to ask, does anything suffer from the death of the star? Most stars don’t have planets, and most planets have no life, so.. The other question is does the druid sacrifice the star himself or just take advantage of a star dying somewhere by channeling some of the energy to Tyria? Natural convergence indicates the druid brings the realm of a dying star and his realm closer together by bending timespace.. or something along those lines, I don’t know.
But most importantly for me, how would have a mortal/spirit from the jungles the power to do ANY of these things? That sounds like something a god could do, but doesn’t sound right for druids. Maybe for a very powerful mesmer – a profession where I can see astral magic have a better place in general than the druid. Sadly this will not happen anymore :/

Btw Daniel? Please don’t quote the whole wall of text every time you respond to someone, just the part you’re referring to at the moment. You can delete stuff from the quote. Makes the post unnecessary bloated ^^

Mesmers are the closest we get in GW to classic Arcanists from other universes, which weave magic in its purest form (‘ley’/‘(a)ether’) via words/thoughts/runes/aether-grams/gestures into complex mathematical structures until it fulfills the wished purpose, so I guess they have the deepest understanding of how spells manipulate the ether and are the only ones who can analyse the etherial structures to detect and recreate spells, while other professions may just have a basic understanding of magic and control it more indirectly. Magic in GW is in general something more intuitive – kids are able to cast spells by accident, dumb/primitive creatures can cast powerful spells, while you have to study several years to cast something useful in Warcraft.
As a civilized culture you get (of course) educated to control it better and use it properly (if you have the gift to cast spells), but I would guess only Mesmers and some scholars learn how to get to the nitty-gritty of the ether. Thats why they can use it in the most complex, most fine-tuned and efficient ways.

Are willowhearts/oakhearts/pinesouls/… even referenced ingame with the term “treant” at any time? I don’t play with the english client, never saw something other than their orignal names in the german one. I guess the term treant ist just used by the playerbase to don’t have to differentiate between them when its unnecessary for the current discussion – as in this case. Don’t see a problem with it, since its a portmanteau of ‘tree’ and ‘giant’, whats pretty accurate for them. Why do you have to make a point out of minor nomenclaturial issues which don’t add something useful to the discussion? The druids became willowhearts (as indicated by the GW2 lore, e.g. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Return_the_arboreal_spirit_to_its_husk,_and_drive_away_the_hylek), if you call them by that name or simplify it with treants. The point remains the same.

What is even the point in discussing wether or not the ranger skills are magical in nature? We know for sure the ranger doesn’t manipulate elements himself, the spirits do it for him. Wether or not there is magic energy involved when a spirit is bond to the physical realm or lend its power to the ranger doesn’t seem very important to me, since magic in GW universe can be something very intuitional. The important thing is that rangers don’t use elemental magic.
The druid does. And I have no problem with the druid being a spellcaster. Its absolutely plausible for me that their culture taps into magic and bother with learning to control magic flows and maybe learn some or another elementalist-esque spell (which they seem to do with some of the glyphs), as long they keep in touch with the spirits and use it in their interest. It makes sense. We could’ve see it coming.
Just the whole celestial thing seems out of place. One or two “sun-themed” skills would be plausible for me, since sunlight is very important to the wildlife and serve the jungle/the spirits. But whats up with the celestial cycles, the moon, the stars, the gravity? These things just don’t matter much, especially there in the jungle (= no tides, no seasons, no change in day-night-cycle over the course of the year, no meaningful respond of the nature to the moon). Yes, it can be put very vaguely under the term of nature, but thats also true for, well, everything. Thats not an argument. They don’t built their skills around everything, they focus on celestial bodies. I just hope we get an (good) explanation from where the heavy obsession with astrology came so suddenly. If they had great interest in it BEFORE they left human realms, they wouldn’t have head to the jungles, because a jungle is after the underground the absolute worst place to study these movements in the sky. No clear sight to the sky (emergent jungle layer covers everything up, cloud cover every day), not really the ability to craft fine-tuned mathematical instruments, and if, they erode very quick due to the humidity and warmth, get fogged all the time, their documentations also have a very low durability, the enviroment is too hostile to just sit somewhere for weeks, watch something and document small changes, etc.pp.. If they developed the interest AFTER arriving to the jungle – why? From pure nature observation they maybe would’ve adapt to the religion of Hylek, which worship the sun. There has to be another reason for the other celestial bodies.
It made perfect sense for canthans to study astronomy, for a trible in the jungle becoming one with the enviroment (! not the universe/skysphere/whatever) not so much. I really hope they have a reasoning behind all this other than.. “well, the moon is kind of part of nature, y’know”.

By the way, druids didn’t shed their human body into a spirit right away, there definitely IS an intermediary condition: they became willowhearts in the first place, still having a mortal body. So after all they are more or less shapeshifters. They then could choose to leave their willowheart body as an arboreal spirit (or were forced to if it dies, I guess? Or maybe they would’ve died then, too). In Brisban wildlands you can see some lifeless, left-behind treant-bodies. These are former druids. You can see one in the loading screen, too. A sylvari touching a husk to arouse the spirit back into the treant-body.
Also not all druids did the whole spirit thing – the ritual of course had do be discovered first, by a couple of generations of druids after the first came to the jungle, indicating their culture studied various rituals and magic for a long time, before they unvealed this ultimate opportunity to serve the nature.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid_(group)#Physiology

dsslive.8473:

I do wonder whether the spirits of nature the ranger summons come from the same realm as per example; Owl spirit or more related (tho sadly missing in gw2, shame on you anet) ritualist spirits. Do these all come from the mists or are nature spirits present within tyria itself?

My interpretation:
The spirits a ranger summons are more or less the.. souls of plants. Every living thing has a soul, even a little blade of gras. While the spirit of a little grasblade is nothing more than a lifespark with a faint wish to grow, the soul/spirit of a very old, massive tree becomes something more complex in nature, obtaining an own will, able to communicate with empathic connections to those who open their mind to them like rangers, maybe other trees, Mordremoth. While very strong spirits like the spirit of the Pale Tree are powerful enough to incarnate an avatar on their own, others like regular treespirits and former druids need a ritual to manifest.
The frostspirit of the ranger has nothing to do with a frostelemental (ice perfused with magic to the point it get animated by it), it is the spirit of a tree which attuned to ice, e.g. due to its location in the shiverpeak mountains, so it had to learn to deal with the cold over the course of decades and is now able to manipulate it to some degree like an elementalist.

Channeling stuff himself would him require magical education to manipulate magic flows, which I don’t see a ranger partake in. However it seems more likely for a druid to participate in such things, but it feels kind of “un-druidish” to force the nature in certain directions without asking the spirits in his enviroment beforehand to do so. Thats why I hoped the druid expands more on the enviromental spirit theme.

I don’t see ranger using elemental magic himself in GW2 either – for me it all comes down to communicating with the eviromental spirits, which do the magic for him, e.g. begging to the spirits of the woods to send their roots and vines (= “Entangle”) or to enrich the water in the little groundhole he dug with nutrients, etc.pp. in return to protect the nature. He don’t force stuff with elemental magic like an elementalist.

As Ojyh and Conncept correctly stated you can’t just simply draw parallels between RL druids and these druids to justify the heavy celestial theme. The theme made kind of sense within european culture with the influence of celestial bodies to its seasons, day/night-cycle, moon induced tides, etc.pp.. But it makes no sense in respect to the druids from GW1. We know about them:
- they live or lived in the depths of the jungle
- they were suspected to worship Melandru, although we can’t be sure
- they transformed themselves into treants
- they became arboreal spirits (those sylvari can summon) after their treant-body died
- their abilities are based on drawing power from the jungle itself

So far not a single glimpse of worshiping something like celestial bodies. Why not expanding their believes to these? After all mooncycles are part of the nature and the greater system and so on. Because it doesn’t make sense for them. It made sense for europeans. It made sense for Warcraft druids, since their religion is based around the moon for good reasons like nocturnalism and the demigod of druidism being the son of the godess of moon. It doesn’t make sense for a tribe within the jungle, you know, a place where you can’t see celestial bodies 99% of the time, where you have not the instruments or capabilities to study these, where are no tides caused by the moon, where are no seasons, where the day/night-cycle is constant the whole year, where nothing in their enviroment really reacts to moons and stars in a way where you say to yourself “whoa, that moon there is something really special to the nature here, lets try to control it”. What they shouldn’t be capable of anyway since they draw their power from the jungle, which of course has no power over the movement of celestial bodies – neither should ANYBODY in Tyria.

Its a deciding factor for me, because I’m a roleplayer and I mind the lore and have to make something logical about anything illogical and inconsistent in the lore.

Nobody here wished for shapeshifting like in WoW – of course that would be crap, too.

The problem is it has to fit GW1 druids or at least a new kind of druids which origins in the jungle, not celtic druids. And those can’t fit to historic celtic, because you can’t compare a tribe living in the dephts of the jungle culturally with people in france/england some time ago. They encounter vastly different phenomenons, difficulties, draw other conclusions from observations of the nature around them, have another lifestyle, livingconditions. Living in the jungle you’ll never see the moon or the stars or observe meaningful impacts of those to the enviroment you live in, so why would they suddenly worship those.

It made sense for warcraft druids, since the religion of nightelves evolved around Elune, the godess of moon, because they developed as race of nocturnal hunters, so the moon was their companion, their point of orientation, their guidance (something you simply not have given in a jungle, due to the layers) and the demigod teaching the druidism to them claims to be the son of this godess. Unless the devs pull out some similar wierd story which explains a sudden obsession with celestial bodies which have no impact to their day to day life (except the sun, of course), I can’t take it seriously.

It just seems they looked at Warcraft and mindlessly adapted the concept of balance druids because it looks nice – thanks god scratching the shapeshifting.. kind of.

It clearly IS sunenergy/related to the sun when its called “ASTRAL wisp” and has the same color-scheme as sunbeam o.ô The word ‘wisp’ also means ‘small peace’/shred of something, in this case a small shred of sun-/starenergy, circling something and heal stuff by passing through it – its not implicitly a mythological playful/wicked, intelligent will-o’-the-wisp as you have in Warcraft. It doesn’t behave as one either.
And again, I give them the sunstuff thematicly, but not the other things which just seem totally off.

dsslive.8473:

We know that druids were heavily in tune with nature, going so far to shed their human forms and live on in an ethereal form. But there is nothing that defines what exactly the nature they worship relates to. There is nothing saying that it’s solely plant-based.

We know for sure they shed not in ‘ethereal forms’, but in arboreal spirits, as summoned by sylvari (“Summon druid spirit”) after becoming treants. (>> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid_ ) Which is clearly a heavy plant-focus, indicating nothing nearly to moon-stuff. They would’ve shed themselves into permanent “astral wisps” or permanent celestial avatars when its so important to them and they are able to.

Gomes.5643:

Amraston.2846:

Staff 1-3 skills are also astral-themed, staff 5 not classifiable, the glyphs being a middleground, more elementalist-esque than in line with rangers nature magic.

Skill 1 is Solar Beam. Ok the Sun is something cosmic, but also the Source of all life – it would be really weird if someone who “worshippes” nature would ignore the sun.

Skill 2 is Astral Wisp. Even having “Astral” in name, an Wisp is an nature spirit. It do not come from the moon. Also Skill 3 says: " Become a wisp of natural energy "

Skill 3 is Ancestral Grace, see Skill 2 for that.

Also Skill 5 is an Barrier with pretty little Flowers on it – that is plant themed for me.

Astral is per definition everything related to stars (not moons) – maybe astral has in the english language in colloquial useage an other definition, dunno I’m not a native speaker.
The sun is a star, ergo are these skills clearly astral, since 1 is a beam of sunlight, 2 a small ball of sunenergy, 3 a big ball of sunenergy.
As I said, I’m kinda okay with the idea of druids want to get their hands on it, but that is what should’ve been the celestial form. Not weird cosmic-alien-moon-gravity-tide-stuff.

dsslive.8473:

Final point, the druid isn’t “almost entirely” based on astral stuff, there’s a pretty 50/50 split between pure plant/animal stuff (staff skills regular glyphs) and the astral part (the celestial form and the changes to the glyphs- which are quite minimal as they’re just changed into aoe heals/condi removals)

I would be more happy with the theme if it would be the case that all staff skills and glyphs are earth related, while celestial-form contains all celestial-body-themed skills. But the only plant related skills are staff 4 and celestial 2 (and even this is a weird out-of-this-world celestial pustule). Staff 1-3 skills are also astral-themed, staff 5 not classifiable, the glyphs being a middleground, more elementalist-esque than in line with rangers nature magic.

It just seems odd that suspected worshippers of Melandru which sacrified themselves to become Willowhearts and ultimately spirits of the woods as summoned by rangers and sylvari had a cultural twist to heavy skywatching (whats hardly possible in a jungle and also would need a bunch of mathematical equipment, whats also unlikely in the jungle) and worshipping celestial bodies (whats actually more a Dwayna thing). If they cared about nature in a sense of the whole greater system with the universe etc.pp. and not the jungle/earth/plantlife itself, why bothering with living within a highly hostile enviroment in which its hard to ever even get a glimpse of seeing the sky – and not on top of a mountain, where you have clear vision, or in nordic seas, where moon induced tides actually play a role.
Stars and the moon have absolutely no meaningful impact on the jungle, their chosen habitat, and interfere in no way with the spirits of the jungle or can be controlled in any way from the earth. The only thing what makes slight sense in what a GW1 druid as we would think of would probably want to get it hands on and learn is to control the sunlight, channeling the light from above the treetops down to bring it to the bottom layers of the jungle to help it grow and heal. But even that seems off since it contradicts the laws of nature/the jungle, helping things grow that are not supposed do grow, bringing imbalance to the system an so on.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Caladbolg is literally a piece of the Pale Tree, while the sylvari are grown from her. So I would argue that if the Pale Tree cannot be recorrupted – as implied by Mordremoth trying to kill her instead of corrupt her – then I would also argue that Caladbolg cannot be recorrupted.

Caladbolg, a thorn of the pale tree, is as grown from her as a sylvari, ergo it can be corrupted. While Mordremoth fails to corrupt the treemother herself, likely due to her willpower, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to corrupt something thats separated from her direct influence, as the sylvari. Why he wouldn’t be able to corrupt the vines spreading from the fountain in Orr. If anything the reason caladbolg cannot be corrupted would be it is in fact a dead peace of wood containing just a bunch of magic. The question is, is it dead or is it still a working organism like a separated vine from an ivy which can be put in dirt and survive, growing again.
Anyway, her magic cleanses the area of Orr from zaithans corruption, allowing vines to grow/life seeping back into Orr. But these vines are not attached to her, are a organism of their own, so they can be corrupted by Mordremoth again. So its a possibility for him to take advantage of them.

I agree with you that the seeds Ronan found doesn’t have to be corrupted in the first place. I would guess the seeds were uncorrupted and meant to be corrupted while/after growing, so there was no need for Ventari to cleanse it with powerful magic and rituals.
But its still possible that theres a ‘taint’ to the pale tree/caladbolg. In the cutscene you get from sylvari character creation is mentioned that something dark creeps in the dream, growing. Thats very likely to be Mordremoth corruption that already got hold of parts of the dream/the pale tree while she was growing and tapping with her roots deeper into the jungle – weak due to the fact Mordremoth was still sleeping, not able to speak and corrupt the young, curious mind of her with full conciousness, but with a slight empathic connection – which she tries to shield of now as far as possible from her children. But its there and can’t be removed, because she has no power over this kind of corruption.

1. not sure, but I would guess no
2. no idea
3. yes, you can. He mentioned you would want that sometimes with some of the traits.
4. leaving celestial is a weapon swap, going into I’m not sure. Does deathshroud count? When yes this is likely to do, too, but my guess it doesn’t since you have no weapon in celestial.
5. they will likely share the cooldown, would be OP otherwise
6. time will show – we just don’t know with what mechanics they’ll come up in HoT.

I have to agree. I’m completely okay with what the druid become mechanicly, but thematicly and lorewise it seems way off. Druids in GW1 were what we imagined to be druids – people listening and calling to the spirits of the jungle and lend their powers to influence the jungle to its own good, later becoming one of them as an ultimate act to better protect nature. The sun of course plays a huge role in nature (the moon actually just marginal, don’t know why the moon-ish stance is the heavier healing one), but is nothing the jungle/terrestrial forces of nature has control over, neither should the druid. The celestial theme should’ve become a specialization on its own by a more fitting class, not a weird twist in the concept of a druid.
The issue could be fixed by making the celestial mode something along the lines of partly becoming a spirit/meditating to build up a deeper connection to the enviroment, but sadly I don’t see ArenaNet making thematic changes in this stage.