Guild Wars 2

“Then started wondering if maybe vault needed a nerf, considering this large damage is being landed by doing two things only: Dodge rolling – Pushing #5. Even if vault is not OP, it is still broken and that’s the main point of posting this thread. Anything that can deal 15k+ damage in a single strike is broken my friends.”

Just worth mentioning

-Backstab does more damage
-True Shot (DH LB #2), Mighty Blow (Guard Hammer #2), Heartseeker, and Maul all do only roughly 10-25% less damage (still more than capable of hitting 15k. it’s also worth mentioning that ranger has a lot of buffs they could use to hit even higher numbers, and they also have a pet)
-Ignoring the burning application, gunflame does very similar damage, dazes in an aoe, and has 1500 range.
-eviscerate has much higher damage (1,100(3.0) vs 908(2.25). even a level 2 evsicerate does more, at 916(2.5))
-mesmer GS #4 can do comparable or more damage depending on positioning
-even gravedigger does more damage

of course, this isn’t including random traits and buffs, but honestly, if you were to include those, other classes like ranger and warrior would take even more of a lead.

¯\(?)/¯ If hitting a 10k crit is hacking, I wonder what hitting a 10k non-crit is..

Jokes aside, while doing testing on this, I tried out d/p builds too just because I’ve never felt the need to compare vault to it. The generic d/p burst does a decent amount more than a staff vault does, and lands much easier. even heartseeker spam does pretty comparable damage, except spread out into more hits so it’s actually harder to avoid if you don’t happen to have the ability to shut them down.

There’s a reason it’s rarely taken into higher ranked games. And to be fair, it can be a bit gimmicky in low/unranked matches against new players. But you know what is just as gimmicky, or even moreso? P/P thief(comparable damage from ranged), signet lb rangers(very high burst at ranged with decent all around survivability), or even certain condi necro builds(arguably the worst of them, because there are necro gimmicks that do work against semi-better players just due to the way they function). Gimmicks are an issue, but staff thief definitely isn’t the primary one.

tested it against some bots in hotm, and it does affect you as far as i could tell

clerics druid all the way (except like 7 matches on thief in sapphire to get the two profession achievement).

90% of the time i went far at the start and just held a 2v1 for the entire game /s

clerics was already a pretty strong choice when it came to druid in the current meta. we’ll just have to wait and see if that changes when the new meta settles in.

In the long run, I don’t think these amulet changes affects druid or ranger all that much, at a personal level. I’m curious to see how they affect other classes, though.

I’ll trade you a grandmaster trait. you can have empathic bond. Heck, forget the whole transferring to the pet thing, since ele’s don’t have pets, we’ll just have it remove conditions, period!

New diamond skin change is interesting to me. I’m interested to see how it’s actually going to play out in practice, rather than just in the numbers.

to be completely honest, the current meta. It definitely has it’s problems, but it’s the only time I can recall where I can play the builds I want the way I want to without feeling like my build is holding me back.

Shovel Face.4512:

I highly doubt anyone has gotten to diamond by solo Q. It is just thoeorietically impossible. No matter how good you are, the matchmaking system will pair u with crap players. And I’ll make this abundantly clear, NO ONE IS GOOD ENOUGH TO CARRY A BAD TEAM. No one. I don’t care how good you are, when you’re in Ruby, THEY WILL PAIR U WITH CRAP PLAYERS. All the diamond players I know say it is impossible to get out of Ruby solo Q and that they usually had to duo or trio Q. Just throwin this out there.

it’s definitely not impossible. aside from the first tier of ruby and last tier of sapphire, i did the entirity up to t5 of diamond via soloQ. And as other people in this post have shown, other people have also done it soloQ.

You can chalk it up to luck if you want, but I honestly think 5 loss streaks(for example) aren’t entirely luck. I mean, look at phantaram. He progressed to diamond soloQ, and did it in a relatively low amount of games. He streamed most, if not all of it too so you can look at his VoDs if you want

Wondrouswall.7169:

Doubt Druid will be pushed aside in raids. Sure, in those 5-man groups. Standard 10-man will at least have 1. Buffs are too good to pass up, in healing gear or not.

basically this. no matter what, at least 1 druid will have a place in 10-man raids, simply because of how awesome they are at applying buffs that no one else can apply

nice! I’m pretty close myself but i’ve had to take a week-long break for multiple reasons and probably won’t be able to play until a while after christmas hoping to get the few pips i have left when the holidays are almost over! hopefully the queue times aren’t too bad ;P

I see it proc, the problem for me is that the vines don’t actually spawn fast enough. multiple times in matches I’ve seen the vines appear BEHIND the person it should have immobilized, effectively doing nothing.

Valkyriez.6578:

, fighting off node against an Ele who is just there to distract the 4 brainless people on my team who chase him all over the map lol.

as a side note, that is however a very good strategy to carry if the other team is also bad enough to fall for it ;P

I prefer magi’s with zerkers trinkets, personally. it allows your tank to run a very small amount of toughness to hold aggro, increasing their dps as well, and with the primary healing power you should have no trouble keeping them alive (and honestly at this point it feels like the need for a healer with healer gear is less and less useful).

Though honestly, I think the druid’s gear doesn’t matter a remarkable amount, due to the large amount of time spent in CAF providing teambuffs. Zerker’s still seems like the way to go in the long run, to punch out just that “biiit” more dps, however.

about 1.5 million… forgot what class it was.

What’s more surprising to me though is when i got 500k damage on my old cele druid build, mostly 1v1-ing

Divisions should definitely equate to MMR. If they aren’t doing that, what use are they, other than a mechanic to abuse for a cool backpiece?

Meta? No. Viable? Depending on the class, yes, mostly.

or they could just nerf the elite specs to be more in line with standard specs, to prevent this power creep in the first place.

I have soloQ’d through ruby (the first, and most of the second tier was gotten via a 3-4 man group, but the rest solo). It’s insanely frustrating though. The depression you’ll get from getting 1-3 away and then losing 5-7 times in a row is devastating.

While I do admit the league system needs a TON of work, points 1-3 are not always valid. I almost solely soloQ’d to diamond on a custom made druid build, for example (only ~2 tiers of ruby and 1 tier of sapphire was obtained via 3-4 man groups)

Honestly… I don’t think the tanking is the problem (except maybe in the case of mesmer (cough yes still cough)), but that the bunkers aren’t 100% bunker, and most dps aren’t 100% dps. there’s just an insane amount of support and CC going around that unless you’re a glassy class, you’re just not going to feel pressure. Just take a look at warrior/thief. their damage is in a good place, but they don’t have much else going for them, so they’re getting left behind in the dust (and no, i’m not saying you CANT run a thief/warrior effectively.)

some of the elite specs are definitely more powerful (cough chronomancer cough) so if you play ranked you’ll have a hard time. In unranked though, the difference is negligible.

Take it with a grain of salt, but if you look at metabattle, a lot of the “great” builds don’t use elite specs.

This is probably a redundant question, but are you sure you aren’t doing anything wrong? A 5-6 loss streak makes sense. It’s bad matchmaking, but I’ve seen it before. 10 losses in the row leads me (and apparently other people) to think that there’s an objective problem going on here, and the only consistence in between matchups would be the fact that you’re in them. (though honestly, it could just be bad luck as well since you’re getting such close matches)

Perhaps post some post-game statistics? and/or your build? It’d probably help determine if you’re actually doing something wrong.

Addendum; and I don’t mean that at all in an offensive way. we were all new to pvp at one time, and I know I did a lot of stupid things in my first ~500 matches or so.

hit it the day before yesterday, using this build (granted, I did group up with 2-3 others occasionally. but I only got maybe 2 tiers of sapphire at most, doing so)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWnMqAVsgVsCmsCUtgFGBDOqWV7qNjrNQIgpA8tCAlMtKA-TpBFABCcBAY4QAswRAo99HgqMAAPAAA

Though after some testing (cough getting wrecked by diamonds/legendaries cough) I’ve made some drastic changes to it.

You can definitely tell what the strongest classes are by what you see most in ruby and higher, IMO.

I hate to say it, as I’ve been more than supportive over the minor quirks of the system… but frankly, the pip loss/gain system needs a TON of work. In it’s current state, it’s worthless.
I personally have subpar/choppy internet, and I d/c occasionally (3 times in the past 100 games). Personally, I’m fine with losing a pip if I’m the one that D/C’s (though if I reconnect quickly, as I usually do, it’s a bit of a bummer.) But when my team loses pips even if they win 4v5? What is that even trying to prove? Aren’t you supposed to gain pips if you do well? isn’t winning a 4v5 practically the definition of doing extremely well?
Honestly, I’m fine with waiting until next league, since this will only go until january and I’m busy with the holidays around, but I seriously hope they adjust the pip system between leagues.. If not, I’m not going to be concerned with anything past ruby.

P.S. looking at that screenshot, I noticed that there’s a Genos too. As someone that started watching one punch man lately, I love all those references

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FvNAQJAWTnMqAtqg1sCOrAUtgFGBD%2BpWVzqOfugVMgpA8tCAn8sSIB-TxxGABAcBACS5Xb6AUU9nh2fg8HAAUKBJFgfzsA-e

screw clerics, full zerker necro tank is awesome!

I tried playing the rest of my 80’s and for some reason I keep playing my ranger. Is this a sign of addiction? I don’t understand, is my opinion wrong? please advise.

Nieguen.6235:

to tank just guardians in the raid

do you mean the green/red/blue guardians? those do not aggro based on toughness (though they’re a cakewalk so aggro doesn’t really matter)

As me and some groups have tested, Vale guardian aggros to the person with the most toughness 90% of the time. The only time we’ve noticed it consistantly switching is to target a flesh golem (for whatever reason), it turning to place the teleporting AoE’s, and if a person is about 100 toughness off it can get confused.

I’m not 100% sure if gorseval aggros the same way, but tbh you don’t even really need a tank for that fight

simply put, yes, only allowing certain classes/builds into your raid is fine by me. I’m even mostly okay with people getting kicked if they aren’t playing well enough. In the end, it’s a game. and dying 50 times because 3/10 people dont play well enough isn’t fun.

That being said, there’s no need to be a jerk about it (and inb4 “I’m not a jerk about it!” a lot of people are.) and half the time the “elitists” don’t even know what they’re talking about (like when i got kicked from a raid for wearing magis armor/zerker trinkets (and stated that i was able to keep the raid alive with this build) instead of full clerics on my druid.)

The good

-Difficulty is in a good place from what I’ve seen. Vale Guardian is easy enough to pug, giving access to most of the rewards to players who don’t have guild groups, while gorseval is difficult enough that I doubt it will be pug-able for a while. I am worried that sabetha will be too easy though.

-The fights are actually fun. Dungeons have always been a “do it for the reward” activity for me. With the raid, I’ve already killed the vale guardian 5 times simply because I enjoy the fight.

-The desire for a support role. Even though I run zerker trinkets on my druid, it still feels like I’m running a “healer”. And while I love the lack of a hard-trinity, I’m so glad I can finally play a support role in pve without gimping myself and receiving rage from pugs.

The bad
-Timers. they feel like a generic no-thought way to make the encounter hard. Why not instead put more difficult mechanics so that instead of “kill it before the timer” it’s “kill it before someone makes a mistake”. Like, having to kill the spirits before gorseval finishes the world eater and consumes them is a perfect example of something you should do instead of a timer. minor screw-up? the boss gets 10% extra damage. those add up over time until it becomes too much to bear (this will also put more pressure on the tank/healer, which is something I’d like)

-This isn’t necessarily the fault of the raid, but it’s very difficult to find 10 decent players to play with. I’ve had to stay up til 5am some nights for a good group.

-Drops still being RNG. Maybe this is the lack of my mmo knowledge coming out (GW2 is basically the only mmo I’ve played) but I don’t like the idea of spending 5 hours on a boss and getting 2 blues and a green. Maybe with vale guardian tokens will be good enough due to it’s relatively low difficulty, but with gorseval/sabetha I feel that you should be guaranteed 1 of the “rare” drops (minis, unique ascended weapons, or ascended armor/weapon chests). The tokens are a good alternative, but with the cap, getting a full ascended armor set will take months, no matter how hard you try.

For raids, a lot of damage is done very quickly a lot of the time (e.g. for the gorseval breakbar phase) so I find that Cultivated synergy is a bit better simply because it gives you another burst heal while outside of CAF.

I can definitely see Primal echos being decent though, since staff 5 + 3 is a good burst heal in itself as well!

lyriael.4375:

I tend to use more glyphs but it is very situational. Though my trinkets are all bezerker, my armor is currently still cleric, but since I’m not running in Raids anytime soon, toughness instead of vitality is not such a big issue, I think. As far as the traits go I have exactly the same

So thank you, for posting you build. It gives me the feeling I’m not doing it totally wrong.

More glyphs are worth taking at times, e.g. for vale guardian you can replace a spirit with the glyph of tides if you really want to. The only glyph that isn’t really worth taking is the stunbreak one. the only place i could see that being useful would be for gorsevals knockdown, but you’re better off letting people learn to dodge that than try to carry them even harder.

and yeah, toughness only matters in raids where the bosses aggro on toughness, and practically require someone to hold aggro.
And, you’re welcome!

OGDeadHead.8326:

I like the general idea, and I’m pretty sure that in time, the pendulum will swing in favor of more damage and less healing power. It always does, lol!

Personally I go with celestial though!

I think we’ll have to wait and see. the thing about druid is the a majority of their damage done is done via buffs to allies, therefore your damaging stats aren’t nearly as important. And having that extra healing power just means you’re going to be keeping runs more consistant with better heals and not much loss in damage. In time though, I do agree that speedruns won’t take a healing power druid.

Definitely RNG. i got one from killing those oakhearts in queensdale where the old train used to be while helping out a new player.

Prophet.1584:

good build, i’d swap Nature’s Vengeance for IB personally but that’s just me.

You could definitely do that if you want. I’d actually almost recommend it for Gorseval, since placing the spirits is an artform for that boss, compared to VG which is basically just “stick it in the middle!”.

I’m seeing a lot of misinformation and bad ideas being spread around like wildfire, practically everywhere, about how druid should be played effectively… So I thought “hey, I should also spread my own misinformation!” so here you have it.

This build is basically designed for people who aren’t in the top 99th percentile of raiding guilds currently. I mostly pug, and while I have ran a couple times with members of decent guilds, I mostly play with casual players.

Anyways, here goes

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnMqAtqg1sCOrAUtgFGBD+pWVzqOfugVMgpA8tCAn8sSIB-TxxGABAcBACS5Xb6AUU9nh2fg8HAAUKBJFgfzsA-e

I ran the rough numbers on the build and I’m too lazy to post all the calculations in here, so feel free not believing anything I say.

First, I’d like to talk about zealots. put bluntly, my build has an inconsequential DPS loss than if you were to replace the armor with zealots (around 3% base damage, or ~7% when considering crits.) The upside of this is that you get a lot more healing (about 10% better) and you don’t have to heal yourself nearly as much what-with the extra vitality (which is even more important since you are using GoTL which is currently pretty insane)

Now, even if you want to complain about my statistics (which even I will admit is using pretty rough math) you’re going to be spending roughly 36 seconds per minute in CAF because as a druid, your goal is to put out as much GoTL onto as many people as possible (more on that later). that means that you’re getting a minor dps boost for a minor amount of the fight, and losing quite a bit of heals. over-all, I just don’t think it’s worth taking until it goes on farm-tier and you absolutely MUST complete the run 20 seconds faster.

also, clerics is terrible. not only are you sacrificing as much damage as you would be in magis, you’re also making the tank take more toughness, which is more of a dps loss. a majority of the builds for tanks rely on just grabbing enough toughness to grab aggro, since nothing puts out remarkable unavoidable damage (and as a druid, you’ll be doing more than enough to keep them good). 1000 healing power is good enough to keep everyone full health as long as they aren’t doing terrible, and if so that’s their fault, not yours

a few more bullet points before this gets insanely long

-Healing spring is great. it’s an insanely large heal to 5 people
-Replace glyph of empowerment with Glyph of the tides for VG (seekers op) or Glyph of Alignment for any fight that you need more heals for.
-Spirits are still great, bugs are buggy, oh well.
-Entangle is good for like, everything. for VG you use it on the seekers, for gorseval you can save it til the spirits get close to the boss and then feed off the praise as everyone is like “omg you just totally saved our booties”

Uhmm… that’s basically all I have to say about the build. feel free to trash my build and me mum and pet hamster for being awful at the game

As a druid on this build, your goal is essentially to sit in CAF as much as possible (36 seconds a minute, not including alacrity which affects CAF recharge rate, and with this build you’ll be reaching full charge in ~5 seconds.) and spam heals to proc GoTL. It it really THAT simple. (well, maybe not THAT simple, but it’s honestly pretty easy.)

./build over.

as an addendum, I’d like to state that no matter how cynical I may seem, I’m not trying to trash anyone else’s build. Feel free to run whatever you want. In the end, having fun is the most important to me, and should be for you too! This is just for those who find winning to be fun ;P

as a second addendum, I’m posting this after raiding for about 12 hours straight (it’s 8am now) so… apologies if something doesn’t make sense.

minor edit: also, I go by Feyris in game. hence the title. Didn’t think that that wouldn’t make much sense until after I posted this

Fluffball.8307:

FrouFrou.4958:

It actually hurts when people say hurdur druid is not needed for raids. It’s my only toon (well, I gots level 80 necro but it’s not even geared up) so am I supposed to just.. Not do raids at all then?

Fluffball.8307:

And mah baby doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon according to the doctors so I’m tentatively planning on completing this for myself…

Ah, you are running minion master build irl? Gratsu! Soon the forums will be flooded and taken over by Fluffarmy!

Almost every group that has completed the entire wing has used a druid, or you can still run the regular damage rangers. I am just musing on whether after people get good at the encounters whether healing is QoL or would people rather just have more DPS. And I really hope I don’t wind up with that many minions!

the thing about druids is that GoTL is essentially a raid-wide buff. if used properly, a druid should be able to put out enough buffs to essentially be another dps class (e.g. a single class that puts out +15% damage to 8 dps classes is better than having another DPS class, IMO) while also putting out heals that’ll keep dps more reliant.

with that in mind, I’d think a druid will always be worth taking.

I always make sure to swap to longbow when running back after a wipe in the raid. Totally worth 3k gold

As I said above, and as Serraphin said, Clerics has way too much toughness. full Magi’s armor will give you enough healing power to keep everyone alive. IF you really need more healing power, get celestial trinkets(otherwise, zerker). full clerics trinkets alone is way too much toughness. unless you’re tanking, you shouldn’t have over 1200 toughness unbuffed, IMO.

If you’re getting kicked while running a “good enough” build, then either your build isn’t good enough, or your group doesn’t understand the raid.

for the vale guardian in particular, as a DPS class, you only need around 7k DPS. If you can reliably provide that while providing team support, then your build is alright. That’s not the raids fault, that’s the fault of mindless pugs for kicking someone who can carry their weight.

Cookie cutter builds just happen to be reliable builds that can easily provide that damage as long as you have a semblance of knowledge of the game.

Personally, my group accepts any class as long as you fit in our comp (1 healer, 1 tank, 5 dps, 3 condi), you understand the mechanics (main cause of wipes is pugs that don’t understand) and you’re in full zerker/sinister (for dps/condi). That honestly isn’t that hard to make.

Magis armor/weapons is the best choice. it allows you to take zerker trinkets and still put out more than enough heals.

cleric’s is not good because it has +toughness. A decent tank will use as little toughness as possible to get aggro, since so far, nothing does a remarkable amount of unavoidable damage (vale guardian, for example, does around a 3k autoattack, tops.) this allows the tank to put out almost as much dps as another dps class.

I honestly consider magi’s armor/weapons, zerker trinkets to be the best option. you’re not losing much damage or healing, and honestly, the druid isn’t healing themselves much, so the extra tankiness is helpful

get trinkets and weapons, then earn ascended armor by doing the raid.

the first boss, which is the only one you need to beat to use the vendor, doesn’t require ascended. (none of the bosses do in fact).

for reference, I beat VG in exotic armors/weapons and rare trinkets.

addendum: it is worth getting ascended for the sake of getting it though.

butch.8136:

Can someone beat these bosses with a full exotic group, please? Just to prove a point.

I beat vale guardian with exotic armor/weapons and rare trinkets. GG anet.

and yes, you only need to beat vale guardian ONE time to get access to the merchant, and you can easily hit the weekly cap via failures (i hit the weekly cap in 3 days via failures, with maybe a 5 hour a day investment in the raid, tops)

realistically, you should be able to keep at least vale guardian in one spot with a hybrid tank and a healer. (i assume you’re talking about VG)

when we ran it, I ran a hybrid healer/dps druid, and the tank was a hybrid dps/tank reaper. we had no trouble keeping him still, and were able to put out more dps (not that the tank/healer has to dps, but it makes the encounter easier imo)

~35% vale guardian before timer ran out, with a group of pugs i invited at the entrance. mishmash of a bunch of different classes/builds (i think we had at least one of each class) I was running celestial druid myself.

this is turning out to be remarkably easier than i expected (ESPECIALLY since timer running out only buffs his damage by 200%, which isn’t really that big of a deal). i guess that’s a-net for you

have you unlocked other elite specializations? if you do, it gives the mushroom collectable to only the first elite spec, in alphabetical order. and Yggdrasil starting with a Y, naturally means it’s later on the list. it took me 3 mushroom kills until I got the one for Yggdrasil

Tendril Torchers
Fun, but it’s a tad easy. I also wish you could aim the flamethrower more upwards (you can kinda angle it up, but you can’t use #1 to hit stuff directly above you, afaik)

Bugs in the Branches
A bit frustrating with the platforms, I feel i’m constantly just randomly sliding off. otherwise, it’s fun

Flying Circus
It’s enjoyable, but I haven’t unlocked anything past updraft so not much comment on it

Shooting Gallery
It’s nice, but i wish the gun shot a bit more accurately. it feels like when I use the action camera, it shot a little bit off of the crosshair

Salvage Pit
It’s fun, but way too easy.

The Floor Is Lava?
It’s alright, but I wish the pods worked a bit better. It’s also way too difficult to get gold. an extra ~15 seconds would help a lot

On Wings of Gold
Fun, but also pretty easy.

Sanctum Scramble
I enjoyed it, but I wish the skills functioned a bit better. also maybe a bit too difficult, but mostly because of me having to fight with the skills

Fallen Masks
fun, but as with some others, way too hard

A Fungus Among Us
I enjoyed it, but i wish the water mechanic didn’t exist. it feels like a big “screw you, get this mastery”. having the mushrooms as a speed boost by itself is fine though.

The Ley-Line Run
it’s pretty enjoyable

Drone Race
frustrating, but also pretty enjoyable

Beetle Feast
it would be very enjoyable, but the problem is that it’s super easy until the very last room, where it just gets annoying. I also wish you could restart it like all the other adventures (hitting reset doesn’t seem to do anything)

Haywire Punch-o-Matic Battle
haven’t played it yet, but from what i’ve heard, it’s way too difficult

Scrap Rifle Field Test
Haven’t played this one either.

I’m not really a fan of the X/10 system, so I just summarized my thoughts on each. I also replay all of them every day for the bonus XP, so I don’t really have a “would do it again” rating.

overall, I really enjoy adventures. I sort of wish they’d make more/turn certain base tyria events/jp’s into adventures.

6, though 95%+ of my time is spent on my main. lately though I’ve been playing a decent amount of mesmer and necro though (want to unlock their elite specs :P but I always get sidetracked)

I’d love new hairs I love the look of my current character, but after 1+ years of the same style, changing it up would be nice

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQJATWnEqAtCi1sCuqActgFDBDurOWLrP5unVOjJAsuaAlMtzA-TRyDABMcEAMZ/hKOEAZq+DAPAAuUCulyP/0FYxFAAA-e

it’s probably not going to be anywhere near meta, but this is what i’ve been running in open world recently. I’ve had literally no trouble not dying, and keeping my pet alive is relatively easy. along with that, the pet and you both put out good enough damage that it doesn’t take ages to kill something (you can easily get 10k rapid fires with this still with RaO)

I only fear either the damage or the heals won’t be enough for raids. we’ll have to wait and see.

small edit: while i said for open world, this is also really good for fractals/dungeons. it provides really good team support (IMO) and still outputs decent damage (you might want to take nature magic over beastmastery in dungeons/fractals though)

staff skills

solar beam damage nerfed by 10%, healing coefficient increased to 0.1

astral wisp overhauled. instead of circling, light pulses out of the enemy 5 times, dealing 100(0.5) x5, and heals 100(0.1) x5 in a 240 radius

vine surge overhauled. instead of immobilizing, the vines push enemies back. damage removed, targets increased to 5, impacts nerfed to 5 (maybe 4)

sublime conversion cooldown increased to 40s, duration increased to 10s. the projectiles now heal 50% of the damage they would have dealt, instead of a static number.

Astral form

astral power now generates astral force based on the amount of healing or damage you do, not the number of heals/damages you apply.

10,000 hp worth of heals will fully fill the bar
25,000 hp worth of damage fully fills the bar

cosmic ray 1 replaced with a damaging skill, deals 100(0.5) damage and applies 1 second of weakness per hit

seed of life now cleanses 3 conditions and applies 5 seconds of regeneration. cooldown increased to 4 seconds

Lunar impact now does 300(0.5) damage. cooldown increased to 7 seconds

Rejuvenating tides healing nerfed to 500, healing coefficient increased to 1.0. after casting, leaves a water field for 5 seconds that pulses 2s of regeneration every second. cooldown increased to 10 seconds

Natural convergence pulse damage increased to 250, final damage increased to 1000. cooldown increased to 30s

pets

Either an AI overhaul, or an overhaul to their attacks so they can hit moving targets more effectively

wyvern basic attacks changed to more easily hit moving targets

There’s quite a few changes I’d like for base ranger but I’m a bit too tired to go over EVERYTHING, so I just commented mostly on druid

I do agree that healing should be rewarding, but with druid in particular, i’ve had no problems getting tags. staff #1 pierces, astral form #5 is an AoE, and if you run longbow as your other weapon, it’s also one of our best weapons for tagging

Healing should definitely be rewarding though. I’m not sure specifically how I’d like them to do it, however.

I’m not much on long posts, so this may end up short

so, basically, a lot of people (not going to say a majority or anything, I don’t know the numbers) don’t seem 100% satisfied with the current form of astral generation. That got me thinking of what I thought druid might have back when I first heard of it. With that in mind, here’s a few suggestions (perhaps more-so food-for-thought than a suggestion) of changes to astral force/astral form.

Firstly, I think a large part of why astral form is tied behind staff is because it deals lots of small numbers very quickly, in the form of heals and damage. I think it would open up more diversity, while not making a specific build OP, if astral force generated based on the AMOUNT of healing/damage you did, not just the amount of times you deal damage/heal.
For that to work, I think we’d need to get rid of the percentage of astral form, and replace it with a static number (e.g. when fully charged, you have “1000 astral power”). then, instead of damage filling 1% of the astral force bar per hit, say, 10% of all damage, and 20% of all healing is converted into astral power.
I think this would open up more diversity, by allowing you to run something like greatsword, and you can still generate astral force at a decent rate, as long as you keep putting out good damage.

This is more 2 suggestions in one, but I think it might be neat for astral force to function like death shroud, giving us a second healthbar (albeit definitely a lot smaller than deathshroud). This would allow more counterplay in PvP by focusing the druid while they’re in astral form, forcing them out of it and nullifying their heals.

Along with that, I also think it could be neat to have astral form not naturally decay, but have an “upkeep” cost on the skills. for example, the #4 skill could burn through ~30% of the astral bar, where-as the #1 skill only uses 5% of the astral form bar. I’m honestly not sure what practicality this has… I just think it could be fun!

I have no clue how viable these suggestions could be, or if they’ve been suggested before. Consider this more of just ideas to get the ball rolling on how astral form could be improved (because currently, it’s good in specific builds, but I think we could easily open up more diversity without it being OP. especially if astral form scaled even better with healing power.)