Guild Wars 2

Concerning your biology and astronomy questions Daniel, unless it’s expressly stated as different from our world you have to assume it’s the same as ours. That’s how fantasy works.

No writer is going to go out of their way to list all the ways their European Fantasy setting is similar to our world. That would be a near infinite list of facts and would take forever to explain every similarity. It’s expected that the reader assume things are the same unless outright stated not to be.

We are never told that people poop out of their kitten, but it’s reasonable to assume they do.

This community can be irrational. The simple fact the boons are coming from something with a health bar that moves autonomously (even if they can only follow) is enough for them to draw ire. Even if they are functionally weaker than say, warrior banners or a herald’s utilities.

They hate anything related to AI being able to function on the same level as effects coming from the player character. I don’t know why, but they do. So any AI in the game needs to have a lot of active play involved to compensate.

Bleeds do less damage but are easier to stack and sustain a stack of, making them valuable as a source of sustained pressure for condition focused builds.

Case and point, there are sigils that proc bleeds that can be put on any weapon to let them keep up a constant supply of bleed stacks on the target. There aren’t any sigils that inflict constant burning on the target.

Bleeds are for sustain while burns are for burst. Some builds might use these conditions differently, but that’s generally how it is.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Druid is basically made like a monk now, if we forget about pets, trap, and offhand weapon. It heals more then anything else, but deals less damage then anything else.

Even the GW1 Monk could be built to be an offensive caster dealing holy damage to enemies. The option was there, just as it should be there for the druid.

Monks were just forced into a healing role because no other profession came close to the same level of healing the monk could put out. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t spec into Smiting and go into PVP and start nuking people with beams of light.

There is no good reason to force druids into only being capable of healing allies. Right now druid can be used to enhance an offensive player’s self sustain, condition management, mobility, or control, which is why you’d take druid on an offensive build. No one is asking for druid to provide damage, only that it serve as a functional sustain line for those that want to run an offensive build without specing into Wilderness Survival.

Natural Mender doesn’t really help those who took the line for self sustain, so it’s not really helpful to the build. A wasted trait. Minor traits should be useful by the largest number of builds possible because they aren’t optional like everything else about your build.

In Tyria magic is a natural part of the world, thus the study of magic would be considered a science in and of itself. This is the view that asura take, and they are easily the most scientifically advanced society on Tyria.

Alchemy is chemistry. The fact some alchemists might use magical energies or materials with magic innate to it to (Like the fire breath of a drake, which is a normal animal by Tyrian standards) get more magical results is just using the resources available in the world of Tyria.

The only society that utilize technology without magic is the three Charr Legions. This isn’t because they view the advancement of magical knowledge as not a part of science as a whole but because they have a distrust of magic and actively choose to avoid using magical energy as a fuel source for their machines the way asura do.

I don’t think anyone in Tyria would view the pursuit of knowledge concerning the arcane as non-scientific. Perhaps a different field of science but still science.

Not a fan of the idea of removing spirit actives. The very second spirits become a purely passive boon bot that’s actually effective there will be another Anti-AI witch hunt that will end in spirits being cripplingly nerfed.

The actives need to be more rewarding to use and need to be ground targetable so we can choose where the actives go off to promote active play.

Alternatively you could remove the actives and replace them with the ability to teleport the immobile spirits around, thus making the spirit playstyle revolve around constantly moving your spirits out of danger while trying to fight.

But they need some level of active play. They cannot be place and forget buff bots or the community will explode with unbridled rage.

StickerHappy.8052:

I hope this not 80% of the work done to druids.

There’s more right?

or is it, just 5 more changes on the 23rd?

Guys? gals?

Irenio specifically said these are only the changes that are set in stone and will absolutely happen. More changes are to come that are still being ironed out.

Tasao, the druid traits are definitely not 100% support. The druid trait lines can be broken down into Self Sustain (Druidic Clarity, Live Vicariously, Celestial Shadow, Verdant Etching), Control (Primal Echoes, Ancient Seeds), and Heal Support (Cultivated Synergy, Natural Mender, Lingering Light, Grace of the Land). With Natural Stride as a very strong mobility trait.

And now Grace of the Land is actually a raw group DPS boost through healing and Lingering Light offers more defensive support by letting those you heal apply blinds.

For offensive rangers the druid line can be used as a sustain line, which you need in PVP regardless. Doing so gives you perma out of combat swiftness or access to stealth every 10 seconds, good condition management, and good options to pin a target down via turning your dazes into immobilizes. This is in addition to burst healing that can keep both yourself and allies alive when you need it.

If all you see when looking at druid is healing you’re not looking very closely.

Solid changes.

Grace of Land is now a very desirable trait for PVE, likely mandatory for any druid build, and Lingering Light is actually really strong and can potentially compete with Ancient Seeds for some PVP builds. Ancestral Grace may be the strongest non-teleport movement skill in the game now.

I like the Celestial Avatar changes. The heal loss for base healing isn’t so severe that it will make entering the form a waste of time on damage builds and the healing scaling will make a heal focused druid easily the strongest burst healer in the game as was intended.

The cool down on Celestial Avatar will also make sure it functions as a burst healer and not a toggle-able form like it was before. The astral force generation for damage was also very much needed so you aren’t forced to use the staff unless you want to.

Good changes so far. Can’t wait to see what other changes are coming.

I actually like that you need a target to use Sic ‘Em. If it just revealed any invisible enemy in the area there’d be no real skill in it’s use. You’d just use it to react to stealth after it happens, which takes a lot less effort than anticipating when the thief is about to enter stealth and activating it at a critical moment.

That being said it needs to not break after using F2. That’s silly and clearly a programming issue. In another thread that was discussing how to make shouts better there was a suggestion that Sic ‘Em resets the pet’s attack cycle the way Guard does so that the pet would always lead with their heaviest hitting move. It would make Sic ’Em a lot more deadly.

While I would enjoy having a solar themed damage/offensive support option I doubt it’s going to happen. There just isn’t enough time.

If we were to get one though, they could make it like a Revenant legend and let us choose which of the two forms we want to be able to enter outside of combat. If we have an offensive build we’d go Sun and if we want pure healing support we’d go Moon with the current form.

Hilariously Over Powered Eradicator.

That is what I would call it.

I’d be interested in learning what exactly goes into becoming a lich. The highest tier feats of magic for necromancy come from those who have become liches, and the skill Lich Form in GW2 implies that becoming a lich grants greater power than your average necromancer.

That being said I do feel all the magical disciplines are in a similar tier of power with none being outright more powerful than the others in potential. Necromancers can become liches to become more powerful and create persistent undead armies which the other magic users don’t seem to have an equivalent of, but they aren’t necessarily the only ones capable of a similar feat.

It’s worth noting Gaheron Baelfire’s god form is one of the most impressive displays of elemental magic we’ve seen in GW2. Gaining a massive aura of fire and metal and conjuring boulders of lava isn’t exactly a small feat. We know the Flame Legion can bind armies of fire imps and flame elementals to their will to create armies which is my personal explanation for how they are able to contend with the other Legions despite being outnumbered. If we hadn’t killed Gaheron before his ascension there’s a very real chance he could have become the charr equivalent of Palawa Joko. Some sort of fiery elemental “lich” with immense power.

Isgarren, the wizard who owns the floating castle in Kessex Hills, can maintain an army of elementals to protect the town of Garenhoff, which also supports the idea that elementalists can use their magic to create armies and effect the world on a societal level. Isgarren doesn’t seem to have ambitions beyond living in his castle, but then we know so little about him.

I’d also rank engineers on the same scale as the casters purely because of what Scarlet was able to do. As much as I dislike aspects of her story (mostly how she managed to manipulate forces that should have killed her on sight much less made a deal with her) she WAS able to use her engineering to not only arm an army (Aetherblades) but BUILD an army (Steam creatures and clockwork soldiers). Engineers, like the spellcasters, just need time and resources to amass the power needed to be a dire threat to entire nations. The main limiting point for engineers is that the resources they need aren’t as easily acquired as magical energy (Though 2,000 years ago when magic was much weaker because of the Bloodstone this might be completely reversed).

On my sylvari ranger:

Jungle Spider: Greagoir
Marsh Drake: Keallach
Reef Drake: Meave
Jellyfish: Cabhan

On my Charr ranger:
Salamander Drake: Sootmouth
River Drake: Zapjaw
Frost Drake: Coldsnap
Marsh Drake: Bugbreath
Reef Drake: Loudmouth

Purple is always a good color choice. Purple IS the color of evil in Tyria.

If Modremoth won that would actually be pretty interesting. The capitals would be overrun and become new raid instances with only Lion’s Arch surviving. Then we sit back as the dragons begin to wage war on one another with us lurking in the background trying to find a way to take the dragons out while they are busy with each other.

Doesn’t seem likely. Honestly five new pets is plenty. I’m pretty excited to roll in with a pair of wyverns.

Daharahj.1325:

Vitali.4719:

And yes, “Just because it’s not showndoesn’t mean it doesnt happen.”, as Dsslive said.

It’s a fictional world, if they don’t show us when it happens or don’t mention it at all, we have no reason to believe it does.

We don’t explicitly see people having sex or pooping either, but it’s reasonable to assume it happens all the same. There are some basic facets of the human condition you can assume is going on off-screen even if it isn’t shown outright.

Unless the lore outright states no one in Tyria ever commits suicide then we have to assume it’s something that can and does happen. Especially when we have Malchor having already done it in lore.

Rym.1469:

Oh boy, that Glint looks more and more powerful from one blogpost to another. Scarlet 2.0.

Right. A prophetic 3,000 year old dragon is powerful. Who would’a thought?

Seriously, would people have preferred if Glint just went to sleep and did nothing for the last 250 years? She’s had an IMMENSE amount of time to plan her betrayal. Thousands of years of manipulating the lesser races and plotting out how she can get the upper hand. This is completely different from Scarlet doing what she did with only 20ish years of study and a couple years of planning under her belt.

Not to mention that in the end Glint still failed to defeat Kraalkatorrik and presumably consume him to become the new Elder Dragon. All because Logan got love sick.

Then I guess you’ve attained a level of skill where losing control of your character every second or so doesn’t open up brief, yet consistent, phase where your opponents can time their own attacks for guaranteed damage, and you’re able to see what your opponent’s next move is and time everything perfectly.

For those of us without the gift of prophecy though, the ability to dodge and use skills to break the leap animation on demand would go a long way to making this weapon usable.

And would also not negatively effect your ability to use the weapon in any way aside from taking away bragging rights.

Um. These new characters are tied to both Glint and the Forgotten. They might be new but that is hardly distancing themselves from old lore.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

There isn’t a problem with the sword. Working as intended. Take the step to master this weapon as is. Whether there is or isn’t a change to the way this works you will be better for it.

My keyboard won’t, though. Is it really too much to ask to be able to use a weapon without mashing the 1 key constantly?

Fellows like you need to stop resisting quality of life changes just because you think you’re a better player for being able to compensate for a glaring design flaw in how the game is coded. This problem has been persistent for three years because of it.

If you were a potential enemy, specifically a MAGIC EATING DRAGON enemy, what would you consider a more appealing target? Some old ruins with no life in it or a golden city pulsating with active magic and inhabited by beings composed of living magical energy?

DarcShriek.5829:

But they have enough energy to live forever. Why would they need to conserve? They don’t leak naturally if they’re immortal. A need to conserve would imply mortality. This contradicts the effectively immortal description.

Because they are preparing to house a magic eating dragon and will need something to feed it. And while they are immortal the energy needed to maintain the city has to come from somewhere.

It is just easier to go dormant until the dragon arrives than waste energy fighting off possible attackers when it isn’t necessary.

I don’t understand. Are you saying the franchise isn’t good unless it’s loaded with suicides?

Swizzle.7982:

Still doesn’t explain how a city in the maguuma was kept hidden, and not through one game but two, from the white mantle and shining blade, and the asura (if it was hidden underground, which doesn’t seem likely from the pictures).

It also doesn’t explain why glint would use humans, when her custodians at that time would have been dwarves. Or why the master of peace has been flying around for the last few years with her legacy instead of dropping it off at the city actually designed to protect it.

The blog also makes it sound like the Exalted were surprised that Mordremoth happened to have woken up near them, surely glint would have known that Mordremoth was there having been one of the beings that worked to put him back to sleep.

None of this makes any sense lore wise, other than name dropping glint and the forgotten it has nothing to do with any lore that has been established thus far, and instead you have to find ways to weasel it in.

Already pointed out the hidden city point in another thread.

Dwarves were only going to be around for a limited time and it’s entirely possible Glint knew this. Why would she use dwarves knowing they would eventually turn to stone and go underground when Primordus began to rise?

As for why the Master of Peace didn’t deliver the egg immediately the blogpost makes it rather clear he wasn’t suppose to. It specifically says that the Exalted were dormant until the egg began to stir. Then the Master of Peace was to deliver it. Makes sense to me. While the egg is dormant keep it on a highly mobile magical airship high above the sky and out of the reach of dragons, then once it’s ready to hatch move it to the highly magical city where the dragon baby can feed and be nurtured by the Exalted.

The blog is also rather clear that the Exalted are surprised that Mordremoth woke up as soon as he did. He wasn’t suppose to wake up yet. Scarlet woke him up early by tapping into the ley line under Lion’s Arch. For all we know it could’ve been another hundred years before Modremoth was actually suppose to wake up, and by then Glint’s egg could have hatched, consumed all that tasty magic the Exalted had been storing for it, and possibly even been ready to fight Modremoth and eat him depending on how long dragons take to mature.

I’m not even trying to weasel it in. It just all makes perfect sense naturally to anyone who read the blog and are familiar with past lore.

Swizzle.7982:

Not as much of a “wtf” as there having been a city in the maguuma that no one has seen this entire time. Besides how do you know what the remaining Mursaat could have done in 250 years? Scarlet made an entire army in a few weeks/months. You wouldn’t need huge numbers either, even a few Mursaat could probably wreck kitten, the last Eidolon I saw was a shield and the Seers aren’t anywhere to be seen.

Do you know how big a planet is compared to a city? Or even a sub-continent? Shoot, even a state/providence/territory.

It is entirely possible we just never got close enough to the city to see it. It’s a dense jungle that we didn’t see from the air. Looking at the image of the city from a sky view we saw in the trailer it actually looks like it’s surrounded by cliffs.

Just because we were in the general area of the city doesn’t mean it’s impossible for us to not have seen it. Especially when you add in that it’s a magic city populated by magic people who are actively trying to be hidden.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Somewhat true, but you have to remember that they will have defensive traits and skills that can help them survive. For example, the Protective Ward trait may be rather popular on Druids, as other traits in the Nature Magic line can come in handy. Plus, since you will almost assuredly be running Wilderness Survival anyway, the Bark Skin minor trait does a lot to help you avoid an opening burst.

The main reason to do 1200 Power, 900 Precision, 900 Healing Power, though? Because that’s what Zealot’s gear is. If it was a 4 stat set, they would need to add a different name.

Most people would want to run druid in place of Wilderness Survival as it provides decent condition clearing potential. Especially if the glyphs get some buffs to make them competitive with survival skills. Natural Magic also isn’t always ideal to run because it doesn’t have very good traits aside from Protective Ward.

Then Protective Ward has an internal cooldown and can be triggered by a stray auto attack. It’s very, very unlikely a druid will have that trait up in team fights where the druid is both most wanted and most at risk of getting blown away.

Granted this wouldn’t be an issue if players could just tweak the amulet stats to make them a bit more flexible.

Simplicity.7208:

This is something I’ve never understood….We’re talking about a race that can literally phase into and out of the mists at will. How do you know there’s not billions of Mursaat just thriving in the mists somewhere right now? Have you personally explored every inch of the infinite mists? Sure, all the ones on Tyria were jerks, but maybe that’s because when Glint told her prophecy of the Mursaat’s defeat, almost all of them decided to flee, and a few decided to stay behind and fight the prophecy, thus the only ones we encountered in GW1 were the ones dedicated to stay and be jerks?

Afaik, nowhere in lore does it say there’s only one Mursaat left.

Also, I would rather have had them been Mursaat….

Glint specifically uses the word demise when she tells you about her prophecy. It isn’t exactly the demise of the Mursaat if they still have billions of other Mursaat hiding in the Mists.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Just let it be 1200 Power, 900 Precision and Healing Power. Nothing more is needed.

Without the vitality druids won’t survive the initial burst long enough to even use that healing power. 15K base HP and no toughness means you will be dead before you can react.

I find it hard to imagine the Exalted would use the standard Tyrian mailing system to send letters of great importance.

I’d rather it be a new race with new lore than if it had been a city inhabited by the Mursaat, which would have been blatantly lore breaking.

The whole point of the Flameseeker Prophecies was that it was about the doom of the Mursaat. Their species is nearly extinct with only Lazarus the Dire still potentially being alive. If the Mursaat were not only still alive but thriving it’d make a lot of what we did in GW1 meaningless.

That isn’t to say I don’t want to meet Lazarus the Dire one day and have him return as a major antagonist. There just shouldn’t be an entire city with a thriving Mursaat population.

Jeff.4680:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You don’t have to always suck up to whatever Arena Net does without any criticism, you know?

You should probably look at people’s post history before insulting them. Konig has a huge post on this very forum complaining about lore inconsistencies between Modremoth and the Sylvari and is very vocal about his dislike for Scarlet.

I agree. More amulets are always a good idea, and an offensive healer amulet currently doesn’t really exist.

The V.8759:

Try to turn off auto attack and keep controll over your finger sword fixed

Too bad doing that destroyed my 1 key. Sword fixed but keyboard breaks. No thanks.

Anet needs to just fix the skill itself instead of forcing players to work around their sloppy programming.

Druids do use stuff, yes. Lots of stuff.

New lore states the Bloodstone was created by the Seers to put the Elder Dragons to sleep long before the gods arrived on Tyria. The gods merely used the Bloodstone to release it’s magic back into the world, then split it into the bloodstones to limit magic again.

I also never said Abaddon knew about the dragons. Only that his actions made it much, much easier for the dragons to rise. Whether he intended it that way or not is unknown.

If Sic ’Em also reset the pet rotation it would be a far stronger skill as well. On demand use of Tail Swipe with the damage multiplier means a drake could be pushing out 6-9K damage. It would also make it possible to set up with Remorseless and other boosts making the landing of a pet burst far more reliable.

It also makes sense that telling your pet to chase down their target would cause the pet to lead with their strongest hit.

There was a theory from GW1 that warriors may have performed superhuman feats of strength and endurance by subconsciously tapping into the magical ability inherent in Tyria. With more recent lore confirming that even toddlers can tap into magical forces this seems probable to me.

In the case of shouts the shouter would be subconsciously tapping into that magical energy to increase their presence on the battlefield.

A Warrior shouts “FEAR ME!” and he radiates an aura of dread around him that makes lesser men buckle in fear temporarily.

A warrior shouts “SHAKE IT OFF!” and his mere presence gives lesser men the strength to fight on as the warrior radiates restorative energies that give the troops a second wind.

The same would be applied to banners. The warrior places the banner into the ground and his strength radiates from it, inspiring and enhancing those that look upon it with the warrior’s energy.

Come on people, Heimskarl just provided the actual math behind the change and showed that it would only serve the close the DPS gap between Clerics and Apothecary druids so that BOTH gear sets benefit roughly the same from using the staff’s auto attack.

Saying no to this change is basically just telling the people who want to run a conditon based healing build that they can’t just because you don’t like the idea of condition users being viable in a healing role.

You’re saying no to build diversity.

@Aomine

That was my favorite move in Pokemon. I actually taught it to my butterfree so it could put rock types to sleep and then one shot them with solar beam. YOU THINK YOU CAN ROCK TRHOW MY BUTTERFLY? Think again!

Interesting. So this build basically sacrifices a second weapon set in exchange for constant Primal Echoes+Geomancy+Hydromancy procs to stack bleeds and immobilize. Plus bleeding and poison from the pet. Plus stealth every 20 seconds.

I’d be concerned about condition burst though. Your only condition cleansing is from using your glyphs and take a while to go off. I’m not sure if this build has enough poison application for Poison Master to be worth it.

If you switched to Empathic Bond you could take Celestial Shadow or Natural Stride. I’d probably go with Natural Stride since this is a roaming build. If you go Natural Stride you’d probably want to switch to survival utilities rather than glyphs and use Wilderness Knowledge for your condition cleansing. That would also give you two stun breaks, quickness for rapid burn applications with the auto, and Entangle for a much needed condition burst attack. As well as Troll’s Unguent for even more astral force generation.

There are some quests involving druids in the Brisband Wildlands. Beyond that and some quests in GW1 there is very, very little known about the Maguuma Druids.

Interesting theory. I have a slightly less conspiratorial one.

Unbound Spirits was removed because it was impossible to balance spirits with it around. Think about it. Spirits were baseline immobile, and that is the state in which they were originally balanced. Spirits Unbound makes the immobile spirits mobile, which completely changes how they are used.

So you have a situation where if you balance spirits around being immobile they are overpowered when made mobile (Such as when spirit ranger was the flavor of the month OP build) and if you balance spirits around being mobile they become completely useless without the trait.

I’m sure it isn’t a coincidence that when they removed Spirits Unbound they also pushed 70% proc chance to be baseline so that spirits could be useful untraited.

But now they have the issue where spirits are good enough untraited and the spirit trait isn’t strong enough to convince people to take it. With the recent buff to this trait we’ll see if they’ve found that sweet spot beteen usable untraited spirits and balanced traited spirits.

Personally I feel they still need a bigger passive radius. Spirit of Nature especially as it’s crazy small radius just isn’t practical now that it can’t move.

Adrian Guardian.9480:

No I don’t think it should.Adding burning to the autoattackwould make it a pure condi weapon, locking it out from power builds. It already kind of works in condi builds, I think staff should just get minor additional condi damage (like a single bleed on vine surge) and have most of its damage through power dmg.

No, it would be a hybrid weapon. On power builds the condi damage it puts out would by negligible so it relies on power damage, and on condi builds the power damage would be trivial so it would rely on condi damage.

To be a pure condi weapon it would need condition applications on more skills and would need a skill that allows for a condi burst. Staff doesn’t have either just like it doesn’t have any power burst potential.

We just want some small, sustainable condition applications so that when you switch to staff on a condi healer build you don’t lose all DPS for 10 seconds.

Lévis.5489:

Solar beam is already doing a better job at condition stacking than shortbow. (1,200 range, piercing without trait, no need to flank to cause bleeding, quick pulsations etc) Giving it burning would be overpowered.

You shouldn’t point to an under-performing weapon as the bar with which we should measure other potential condition applying weapons. Shortbow is weak and needs improvements, so staff being better at condition application with this change wouldn’t necessarily make it overpowered.

In fact the logic you provided is exactly the reason shortbow is weak. Anet kept nerfing it in an attempt to make us equip the longbow. In the end we didn’t start using longbow until it was buffed appropriately.

Return shortbow’s 1,200 range and increase it’s attack speed to where it was before and maybe it’d be up to snuff with other weapons. But that is an entirely different discussion to be had.

It seems like the people arguing against conditions on staff don’t understand how this game is played.

Condition damage is the best stat for a healing build to rely on for damage. Power damage uses up all three stats while condition damage only needs one. It is far easier to put out strong healing without making too large of a damage sacrifice by using conditions.

And you will never be able to play a full stop healer in this game. The healer that is taken to raids or even SPVP games will always be the healer that puts out the best heals while sacrificing the least damage.

And the fact we’re talking about the auto attack of staff means that it will be getting used to inflict damage while healing allies anyway. You want to be able to use Solar Beam without sacrificing too much damage. If Solar Beam doesn’t do at least a little damage then your teammates won’t feel the damage loss is worth the heals and will replace you with with an elementalist who can put out good damage numbers while also providing good heals.

Adding burning to staff auto would create good synergy with Ancient Seeds bleed stacks, Sharpened Edges, and Sun Spirit to give the weapon somewhat decent DPS while providing those heals, and would allow you to run axe/torch as your second so you can double cast Bonfire with Quick Draw when you’re in a phase that doesn’t require your sustain healing.

It would be far more viable in all game modes than if Solar Beam simply did next to no power damage in exchange for heals because you had to give up ferocity or precision for healing power.

Razor.9872:

If you are playing the Ranger profession for damage, you should not spec into Druid. That’s like saying you’re trying to get warmer, so you take your clothes off.

True, Druid will be the only elite specialization avaliable to Rangers at the start, but we will get more down the road.

I don’t think you quite grasp what I was trying to say.

I’m not saying druid should be a super powerful burst damage spec. I’m saying that if you took the druid traitline to add sustain or benefit from the incredibly strong control and self support options (Ancient Seeds, Daze on staff swap, stealth after leaving celestial avatar, Glyph of Tides and Glyph of Equality, staff for the amazing mobility and decent non-projectile sustain damage) that you should always find Celestial Avatar a valuable addition to your build.

No one should ever become weaker for entering the form just because they aren’t packing a ton of healing power.

If the base healing is lowered too much then entering Celestial Avatar will be a liability. You have no defensive skills aside from healing, which won’t be strong enough to keep you alive without healing power, and no damage to keep people off you aside from skill 5 which roots you.

This means that the power druid build would only enter Celestial Avatar form to cure conditions and then leave it as soon as possible to get stealth, wasting the actual form just to proc traits. It would be like the current iteration of Guard, only there to proc boons and not needed for it’s actual functionality.

In the interest of build diversity a mechanic that is non-optional for the trait line needs to be valuable for a wide array of builds, not just for builds invested in healing power.

Better than Revenant who only has one underwater weapon and I THINK can’t use Ventari under water.

Anet didn’t seem to remember that have an underwater combat system this time around. Disappointing given it was a major selling point of the game.

It’s also worth noting that adding conditions to staff would provide more synergy with Ancient Seeds as the staff trait causes daze which in turn causes Ancient Seeds to proc and apply bleeds to the target.

Adding burning to Solar Beam would be a great addition as I’ve said a few times now.

This is especially useful now that healing power will be stronger with druid. It is far easier to make a condi/support hybrid build than power as condition damage only needs a single stat to be optimal as opposed to three.

Burn on Solar Beam and bleed stacks on Vine Surge would be just enough to make staff synergize well with a settler build and allow the staff to make use of the condi damage on the celestial amulet.

Also any way to make Solar Beam and Sun Spirit a strong combination is a good idea in my book. I wanna make a solar powered burn druid.