I guess it’s no secret that many of us are dissatisfied with our Druids. I feel Druid is too isolated from the rest of the class, which was inevitable since until now Rangers had very little party support or healing at all. Much of Druid’s design budget is spent on a bunch of spells that just make your health higher in different ways. Staff has a few damage abilities but none of them are great. The little damage offered by Druid is also sort of all over the place, with Staff 2 being sort of a damage over time spell that is affected by… power, but then there’s also a gylph that places a bunch of conditions on your opponent. I don’t think any of it scales especially well, and if they did there wouldn’t really be a point in building that way anyway because Rangers already have so many ways to do damage.
I think the introduction of a “pure healer” to the game is flawed, as I’m sure many of you do as well. I don’t read the forums much but my guess is that this has been discussed ad nausium.
It’s the only trait line added in the expansion that seems to only be of use in a single part of the game (namely raids). The Druid trait line does not support non-healing builds especially well, so using it as a supplement to other playstyles doesn’t feel great.
There aren’t really trait lines in the game that are so focused on turning your character into a single thing. Druid is unique because the act of using that line locks you into a single playstyle (where healing is at the forefront of everything you do). A Guardian or Elementalist can support while also being something of a threat in other ways, but Druids and by extension Rangers lack the tools to make that sort of playstyle work. It’s a balance issue, sure (our healing builds being so one-dimensional compared to other classes with pre-existing support tools) but more importantly it feels unfair and not fun. Playing a celestial Elementalist feels better enough at dealing damage, staying alive, and synergizing with groups (particularly in WvW or PvP) that the loss in healing power doesn’t really feel like that big of a deal.
So the subject of my post comes back: Druids need damage, or at least the option to build and deal meaningful damage. I don’t know how that should happen, but it really ought to.