Guild Wars 2

Feedback time! I have to be honest, when the Druid was first announced to be a healing spec I was not thrilled at all. But I’m a Ranger main and felt like I had to give the Druid a chance and man has it given me a pleasant surprise. I just got back after playing Druid in PvP for hours and having a blast. My thoughts -

Staff:
Solar Beam – I really like this skill so far! The only thing I would suggest for it is to increase the base damage just a smidge.

Astral Wisp – This skill is hard to land in PvP because the orb is so slow moving. And once it does land it doesn’t feel very rewarding, in fact I rarely notice it. My suggestion would be to make it damage enemies around it when it circles the targeted enemy as well as heal allies and to slightly increase the travel speed. I don’t think the damage should be much, maybe 150 base damage. This would give the staff a little bit of AoE and help with its “tagging” issues.

Ancestral Grace – Generally a pretty great skill but it does have its issues. If you try to go shorter than its full range you become trapped as a ball of light unable to do anything while the whole skill duration plays out. This has gotten me killed countless times in PvP where I misclick with it and get burst down while there’s nothing I can do about. This skill definitely needs to stop once you’ve reached the place you casted it OR needs some sort of evade frame while you are the ball of light. This skill would also be drastically improved if some damage was put along with the healing when you get to the target location. It feels odd when you pop up in your enemy’s face and nothing really happens.

Vine Surge – Landing this is incredibly hard and needs a much better reward if you do. I would suggest increasing the immobilize to 2 or 2 1/2 seconds because if it lands it should be very punishing to whoever wasn’t paying attention to the very obvious tell.

Sublime Conversion – I think this one is in a pretty good place, I only recommend updating the tooltip to say that it is a water combo field.

Celestial Form:
Cosmic Ray – This skill really needs some tuning because it is one of the main things that makes Celestial Form feel clunky. If I’m running and trying to blast myself with it it almost always hits behind me even if I try to cast it in front of myself. This is also the case for allies, I’ve tried chasing down my teammates with this skill and just absolutely cannot hit them when they’re moving. Also, Cosmic Ray should have some damage added to it, not much but enough to make it feel more useful. I’m thinking somewhere around the 100 to 150 base damage range. It especially just feels weird when this giant pillar of blue light comes crashing down and nothing happens to your enemies.

Seed of Life – I like this skill right where it is although I would suggest adding some damage when the seed pops. It needs more damage than the Cosmic Ray, probably around the 200 to 250 range base damage. Low damage but the Celestial Form really needs any damage it can get to feel more effective.

Lunar Impact – Another skill that I think doesn’t need any changes. I know that some people say this skill needs to be nerfed and I can kind of see that. If I were to nerf it I’d be okay with the daze duration going down to 2 seconds. There is one glaring problem though: the way it interacts with the #4 skill.

Tidal Surge – This is an incredibly powerful and useful skill in Celestial Form but it really needs some touching up to make it actually viable. In PvP I found myself often panicking when my health got low and switching to Celestial Form to get it back up. This should automatically be the first skill you use in this situation but sadly it got me killed quite often. That’s because the aftercast is way too long and after that initial healing burst I’m trapped while casting it. Another major problem is how it works with skill #3, a blast finisher. These 2 skills should have perfect synergy with each other, make a water field and then immediately blast it. But the aftercast is so long on Tidal Surge that by the time I’m released from it so I can use skill #3 its way too late.

Natural Convergence – As much as I love this skill, it’s another troublemaker in PvP. A lot of people are complaining about the root which I agree is annoying but could prove to be too OP if removed. I don’t think it should have an invuln. frame either while you’re rooted but maybe something to help with damage mitigation like protection while casting it? Another thing is that I feel like it should be much more punishing for the enemies that don’t turn and run in the opposite direction or try to interrupt you when they see you casting the skill. Compared to Entangle it only gives a half a second longer immobilize after a very long, rooted cast time where with Entangle I can move and the cast is incredibly short. Natural Convergence is incredibly risky to use and the payoff should be worth that risk. I suggest increasing the immobilize time to 2 or 3 seconds (seriously if you didn’t get out of the way of that EXTREMELY obvious and slow tell it’s your own fault and you have to pay the consequences).

Glyphs:
Glyphs themselves are pretty cool new utility skills that I can see being used and having them change in Celestial Form is all the more reason to consider putting some in your utility slots. However the range on the glyphs is lacking and should be increased. I don’t think that should even be up for debate. 300 range is pretty bad and it forced the Druid to be in melee range which doesn’t really make sense when the Druid is likely going to be using a staff which is a long range weapon. The range should be increased to at the very least 360.

Glyph of Rejuvenation – Simply put: this heal skill absolutely does not heal enough to be worth taking over any of the other heals. Increase its effectiveness and then it could become an interesting and useful heal that benefits you and others the way a support spec should.

Glyph of Alignment – This glyph isn’t too bad. I can see it in dungeons and raids and that’s about it. The inverse in Celestial Form is nice but it just seems bland. In fact this whole glyph feels a little bland like it needs something else.

Glyph of Equality – My favorite glyph! It’s super useful in both regular and Celestial Form and I wouldn’t change anything other than its range.

Glyph of the Tides – Yet another useful glyph in both regular and Celestial Form. This is another one I wouldn’t change but the range increase would improve it.

Glyph of Empowerment – This glyph is probably the most useful in dungeons, raids, and world bosses. It is also a skill that I am very conflicted on. On one hand I think the regular version of it is great and will see use, yet on the other hand the Celestial version of it is awful. Why do I care about making everyone heal better? It is very unlikely that anyone who is not a Ventari Revenant or a Druid is giving out healing. I think the Celestial version of this glyph needs to be seriously considered for reworking, maybe make it something like reduce damage (direct and condition) to you and your allies by 15%.

Glyph of Unity – At the moment I think this glyph must be a little bugged. Sometimes I’m standing right on top of an enemy, use the skill, and nothing happens. In general this glyph just seems a bit wonky and unreliable to use, for example I’ve had moments of standing in a group of enemies and popping this glyph only to have half of them tethered to me. And sometimes it’s not even the closest to me! I’ll have one person right on top of me un-tethered but a person on the edge of the 300 range tethered. This glyph is in serious need of a range increase (which might also help the tethering issues?) and some way to keep enemies tethered. Right now even if I tethered someone to me they only have to take a couple of steps away to break it, therefore I think there needs to be some sort of punishment for breaking it. My idea was a reverse of Necromancer’s Tainted Shackles where breaking the tether would actually give a little burst of healing to the Druid and allies around the Druid.

Traits:
Minors-

Celestial Being – Bump up the Astral Force percentages, they feel a little low right now.

Live Vicariously – This should be healing your pet too! Anything to help boost pet’s lackluster survivability.

Natural Mender – I think trait is fine as it is but I saw others above mention switching it with Natural Stride and I have to second that! Natural Stride is a very useful trait but it honestly feels like something that defines the flavor of the Druid more than something you need to specifically trait for whereas Natural Mender seems more like I should pick for specific builds. I say switch it and give it a little buff to be more appealing to take.

Adepts-
Druidic Clarity – It just makes sense to be cleansed when switching to your healing state. Wouldn’t change this trait.

Cultivated Synergy – At the moment it just seems a bit weak like it’s missing something extra. Maybe it should also apply a boon to yourself, your pet, and allies?

Primal Echoes – Another good trait that is incredibly useful for PvP lockdown builds. Wouldn’t change much on it. And I also wouldn’t nerf it until its obviously something problematic. In fact I would even consider making the daze 1 1/2 seconds.

Masters-
Celestial Shadow – A very cool trait that creates flavor for specific builds. I haven’t really tried it out yet but the synergy it must have with running a trapper build in WvW with Trapper runes makes me super excited to give a go! Wouldn’t change this one.

Verdant Etching – This trait is in a pretty good spot I think. Probably doesn’t need to be changed much.

Natural Stride – I mentioned before that this is a great trait that could be a minor.

Grandmasters-
Grace of the Land – This is a nice grandmaster, wouldn’t change it.

Lingering Light – Of the grandmasters this is probably the weakest. However! If damage is added to the orbiting light like I mentioned above suddenly this trait becomes way more interesting and useful. As it stands though I’m not tempted to take it over the other 2 grandmasters.

Ancient Seeds – Oh ho yes this trait. I like this trait. I like it a lot. In fact I think I’m in love with this trait. I would not change anything about it.

Pets:
I don’t have much to say about pets so far because I’m mostly speaking from a PvP standpoint and uh well they aren’t available in PvP right now. Honestly that kind of scares me, I think it’s super important that we test the new pets in PvP now before HoT goes live. Why? Because I can see people after launch screaming “NERF THEM!” as a kneejerk reaction and the developers responding just as quickly as they did with the We Heal as One change. And maybe they are kind of OP? Who knows? We haven’t really been able to test it. The Wyverns make me a little nervous, however, with their knockback. Er, yikes. Rangers already get in a lot of trouble for knockbacks and then having one on a pet with no control of when it uses it? That could definitely get ugly in the future. But at the same time I don’t want them to not have a CC skill. I’m not sure how to solve this one and make everyone happy, maybe change it to a knockdown? Other than that I haven’t played with the new pets enough to give any in-depth feedback about them.

Bugs:
Quick Draw doesn’t work with the staff! Needs to be fixed pronto.

Sometimes I can fill the Astral Force Bar by running forward and spamming staff #1. That just doesn’t sound quite right but hey I’m not complaining if it doesn’t get fixed.