Thanks for taking the time to read our feedback, Irenio.
I like the Druid in terms of offering something different to the Ranger class. It’s bold, fresh, and has focus. It’s support and control with an emphasis as heals. The Druid does have its drawbacks and flaws. There is a lack of synergy with the core class that could be expanded on with a few tweaks, but overall, it is very close (in my opinion) to reaching that point.
Celestial Avatar Form has drawbacks in the way it has been designed that does not offer enough reward for remaining in it for its entire duration (20-seconds). I recognize that your aim was to have the Druid be heavily focused on healing, however, I feel that adding damage and changing the way some spells function while in this form could increase the appeal to more players and create more diversity with different styles of play.
Cosmic Ray – Adding damage to this while extending the radius to 180 would vastly improve it. I cannot suggest how much damage should be added, but I propose that it should be more than Staff and less than Longbow so remaining in Celestial Avatar Form is worthwhile.
Seed of Life – Another skill I suggest adding damage to. Have the damage be a bit more burst, and to compensate, increase the cooldown to about 3-seconds so it is similar to the Elementalist “Shatterstone” on Scepter.
Lunar Impact – This skill has strong synergy with Moment of Clarity, and in practice, it works well with coordination and is weak on its own merits. That said, I would also suggest adding damage to this and increasing the cooldown to compensate. Possibly, around 8-seconds.
Rejuvenating Tides – This skill locks you into a channel for a portable Water Field. I highly suggest changing the way this skill is activated and have the cast be ½-second cast rather than a complete channel.
This way, Druids are not locked into just being a portable Water Field. We would be able to freely augment ourselves by performing Finishers of all types or casting other skills to aid our allies and ourselves.
Natural Convergence – The only thing I suggest is to be able to use this skill while moving. The effects are potent but the execution is a hindrance.
The way how Druids use the Staff is unique and serves a great deal of utility. There are many that want to see the damage increased, which I too, agree with. However, I also feel that there does not need to be much of one, as balancing out the entire aspects of the Druid reduces the need for such buffs in an extensive manner on the Staff (reference Celestial Avatar Form Feedback).
Solar Beam – I would suggest increasing the damage on the auto attack. The degree in which it is increased is up to you via tests and tweaks. Increase accordingly depending on how much damage (if any) is added to Celestial Avatar Form skills.
Astral Wisp – The velocity in which the Wisp travels is rather slow. I suggest increasing the velocity anywhere between 50% to 100% so it can reach its target in a more prompt manner. I also suggest that the Wisp pulse the same amount of damage each second once active. By allowing it to pulse its damage, it further reduces having to buff the damage elsewhere on Staff.
Ancestral Grace – This is one of the few skill (in my opinion) that is spot-on. I would not change a thing.
Vine Surge – Could we possibly have the number of targets increased to 5? 3 seems just right but I feel as though an increase of targets would make it perfect.
Sublime Conversion – Another Staff skill that is an absolute of great design. Creative, unique, and functional.
Interesting how Glyphs were approached differently on the Druid. Most of them (to me) resemble a cross between the utility of Warrior/Guardian shouts and the offensive nature of the Reaper shouts, but with half the range.
However, I will also note that they, too, feel close to being perfect. With a slight modification here and there on a few of them, they would have more of their own identity and act more like Glyphs than Shouts.
Glyph of Rejuvenation – I rather like this one, both the normal and the inverse versions. However, I feel as though it would benefit from the base cooldown being reduced to 20-seconds so it can be competitive with “We Heal as One!”
Glyph of Alignment – The base condition durations are a bit low for now, but almost to the right spot. Increase the durations from 3-seconds to 5-seconds and that aspect should be fine. I would also like to see both versions of this Glyph become ground-targeted, so you can aid allies from nearby or afar.
Glyph of Equality – I would like to see the normal version of this Glyph have a self stun break. This way, we have a reliable stun breaker for ourselves without having to drop in (and possibly right back out of) Celestial Form to use the inverse, while at the same time not completely wasting the inverse version if we are the only one that requires the stun break.
Equality should be the stun break Glyph, so there is consistency rather than spreading out the stun break onto a normal version of another Glyph. Reduces the confusion of people asking why Equality’s inverse has a group stun break and not the regular and so forth. Kills two birds with one stone.
Glyph of Tides – I absolutely love this Glyph! Both the normal and inverse versions. To further augment this, I would like to see both of these become ground-targeted and Blast Finishers.
Tides seems perfect as a Blast Finisher. It has the animation and the impact due to its knockback and vortex pull nature. As for altering Tides so both version are ground-targeted, this would increase its utility a bit further than just positioning yourself, but also finding ample opportunities to position foes before engaging combat.
Glyph of Empowerment – The duration for the beta was increased from 5-seconds to 6-seconds since the reveal at TwitchCon. This is greatly appreciated.
Glyph of Unity – The tethering range is rather short. As an Elite, could it be increased to 600 so it can be a bit easier to manage?
There is an inherent lack of meaningful synergy in the Druid traitline, not only with itself, but with the core Ranger. It’s a lot of healing when healing, which is the sum of it.
Minor Traits
Celestial Being – The Astral Force has been set to favor healing over doing damage to build it up. If this was the intended purpose, than I disagree on this approach as the Astral Force accumulation is far too low when dealing damage with minor healing and the accumulation is far too high when focused on healing with minor damage.
I hope this is tweaked. I propose a reduction on the Astral Force on Heal down to 2%, increase Astral Force on Damage up to 1%, and add a third variable of 3% Astra Force on Condition Cleanse. This way, there is much more flexibility with other play-styles and synergy with other traits and utilities such as Healing Spring, Wilderness Knowledge, Verdant Etchings, and associated utilities/traits.
Live Vicariously – This should also heal the pet to promote its survivability, an issue you and all Rangers are well aware of.
Natural Mender – This trait should be swapped with Natural Stride as it is very geared towards active healing, which some may or may not utilize to the fullest when selecting the Druid line. Having it as an option for dedicated healers would situate it in a good place as a Master trait.
Adept Traits
Cultivated Synergy – This trait feels like a Rune bonus. The idea is there, but the synergy is not strong at all. It’s just more heals on top of healing. I would opt for changing it to heal allies around you and your pet when you cleanse conditions on either allies or yourself.
This will give it a stronger synergy with Celestial Being in terms of building up Astral Force at a faster rate, and with Verdant Etchings plus the use of Glyphs since activating them will spawn the blossom that will cleanse conditions. To compensate, lower the amount of healing done and place a 1-second internal cooldown to moderate it.
Druidic Clarity – This trait sticks out to me since the Druid is all about supporting allies. This trait is very selfish. I propose adding some group-friendly function to this, such as healing nearby allies for a small amount when entering Celestial Form.
Primal Echoes – I feel this could use a bit of experimentation. There have been weapon traits in the past that have tried to take advantage of having an active cooldown reduction based on performance but was ineffective in practice. With how the Staff is designed, I feel as though it would benefit greatly by having the weapon skills reduced by a % for every heal done to yourself or an ally.
For those that plan to fully utilize Staff, this could be a tremendous advantage during team battles (and Raids) where a Druid can access skills faster than a standard 20% cooldown reduction would allow because they are actively healing allies. This would build more diversity for Staff-oriented Druids so they could drop Skirmishing without feeling as though they would need Quickdraw to access Staff skills faster.
Master Traits
Celestial Shadow – Splitting up this skill would expand its utility. Have the stealth upon entering Celestial Avatar Form so you can hide yourself and allies while healing them in the shadows, then grant Super Speed upon exiting for faster re-positioning or retreat. Do that and it would be perfect.
Natural Stride – Standard movement trait that also reduces movement-impending conditions. Most have already stated that this should be a Grandmaster Minor and swapped with Natural Mender. I agree with that sentiment.
Verdant Etching – Nothing to complain about. It’s straight-forward and effective. With some other proposed changes, it will be able to have some strong synergy.
Grandmaster Traits
Ancient Seeds – Entangled as a trait. Many thanks for this one!
Grace of the Land – One of the few traits that makes remaining in Celestial Form rewarding. I like this trait a lot.
Lingering Light – This is the weakest trait of the bunch. What I propose is have the Wisp effect moved to Natural Mending (assuming it is swapped with Natural Stride) to give it more functionality.
I also would like to propose changing Lingering Light so Astral Force drains slower, extending the duration from 20-seconds to 30-seconds. Mind you, this suggestion is weak on its own without making changes to Celestial Form, so it is rewarding while remaining in it (see Celestial Avatar Form Feedback).
The new pets have inherited issues of the old ones. Depending on the pet, these issues range from a lack of range, long cast times, significant after-cast times, or weak skill sets.
Tiger – This is one of two pets in the new batch that is perfect. I guess this is due to following the same template as other Felines, however, it has a bonus of having a short cooldown of 10-seconds on its F2 command. I would like to see the Jungle Stalker F2 command modified in the same way: As a pounce instead of a roar.
Smokescale – The second pet of the new batch done perfectly. Sturdy amount of toughness, a fair amount of vitality, great power coefficients with moderate precision,
and a skill set that is entirely useful for the pet in terms of how it deals its damage. The F2 command is a nice touch to add more survivability and group utility.
Bristleback – Just to get this out of the way, the vitality during the Beta does not reflect its actual health pool. The current health pool is slightly underneath the Ursine (Bear) family while the vitality stat list is the lowest of any family to date.
I urge that the Bristleback retain this high health pool as it is immensely beneficial to this cute, clumsy critter’s means of survival. That said, the Bristtleback could use a buff to its F2 command.
Currently, it applies 5-seconds of bleeding on the next 5 attacks on a 30-second cooldown, which is far too low. I propose increasing the duration by 100% so it applies 10-second bleeds to make the cooldown worthwhile.
Wyverns – Each of the Wyverns’ F2 commands are top-notch. However, their base attacks suffer immensely due to long cast times and an additional after-cast in which they reposition their entire body before doing another attack.
This needs to be addressed to have them even compete with Drakes as a cleaving pet. I suggest reducing the cast time of the Wing Swipe (auto attack) down from 2-seconds to 1-second. This alone would improve its DPS significantly, even with the after-cast present.
Another suggestion would be to extend the range of the Tail Slash from 130 to 225, equal to Tail Swipe on Drakes. Also, reduce the cast slightly so it can connect more reliably from 1½-second down to 1¼-second. It’s a minor adjustment that will pay off in spades.
These are small tweaks that would greatly improve these pets. The shine of the Wyverns are already fading for some Rangers because of slow, unreliable auto attacks. If these issues can be addressed, it would promote a healthier competition among pet families when a Ranger is selecting the right pet for the right situation.
Edited for grammar.
Will update once Path of Fire releases.
(edited by Wondrouswall.7169)