Guild Wars 2

UnitedChaos.8364:

I don’t think anyone understands.

3. I’m asking for a Direction arrow similar to Vine Surge.

I understand exactly!
Personally I would however still prefer Ancestral Grace like functionality more than directional arrows. I think… lol!

Imho, the whole mechanics with spirits are flawed. How many players do you think honestly use the active of their spirit? Don’t most just place them for their boons? A stationary, small radius active skill sucks so bad it’s not even funny.

Rework spirits completely, they truly feels like a leftover from beta – an idea they never got around to finish and figure out exactly what they wanted spirits to be.

I think some ranger hater @ Anet secretly changes bits of codes to make our class weaker…

I belong to the crowd that in general don’t like the directional arrows and mouse pointer targeting in combat due to many reasons (the struggle to find the mouse pointer in chaotic situations being one of them).

I find torch 4 much easier to use than axe 4, crippling throw much easier to use than vine surge.

On the other hand, I find Ancestral Grace easy to use, so well… I would like to try it out to see if I would like it. If they would make it like Ancestral Grace but in two steps, that would probably get my vote.

Dadnir.5038:

What is the meaning of a chance to proc something when there is already an ICD?

The chance to proc needs to be removed for all spirits, and balanced from there. It’s a very stupid mechanic in this game.

Don’t underestimate the power of drakes when going for a remorseless/opening strike build. Their tailswipe attack, pre-boosted with attack of opportunity from hilt bash hits incredibly hard if you manage to land their attack – help them with that by cc your opponent.

Wondrouswall.7169:

After 4 years, the mindset of pets having their effectiveness further reduced if the player were to be able to have full control over their skills still lingers.

The player base and, above all, the profession design and balancing is really something…

Haha yeah!

I think the best thing Anet could ever do to this game is close down the pvp section of the forum, since that’s where most (all) the crying comes from that keeps this game from reaching its full potential.

Yeah we can’t be allowed to control pet abilities, since that would bring another river of tears. Amazing that we are still allowed to control ONE ability. Should probably get nerfed as well.

I’ve not heard much about our moas since they got there auto attack range increased. They’re are not the go to pet in pvp, so no wonder. Still, would be interesting to hear peoples opinions about them now – did the extended reach help them land their attacks, or is it as bad as it’s always been?

Most of these requests been made over and over again since beta. Unfortunately, Anet doesn’t want to give us these QOL fixes, “for reasons unknown” (+1 awarded to the first person to tell me from which movie that quote came from).

Dadnir.5038:

I find it amazing that Anet still keep skill/traits that have both ICD and chance to trigger. Should we expect that something that have 75% chance to trigger on a 10 second ICD have the value of something that have 100% to trigger on a 12.5 second CD?

Can’t help but laugh at these kind of things… Logically they should put one of the restriction, both is ridiculous.

Indeed. Question is though, will the ICD trigger even when the effect fails to trigger?

They could give back the extra bounce, keep the damage as it is now (on axe auto that is), and the weapon would still not feel op, and I bet noone would even complain about it if they were to face it in pvp/wvw.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

OGDeadHead.8326:

So, can we conclude then that the game old “don’t bring more toughness than the ‘tank’” isn’t valid anymore (for aggro reasons that is, since mobs in this game doesn’t care for whoever thinks of themselves as ‘the tank’)?

That was never 100% valid in this game. Bosses, especially new ones, have always used an AI to decide on the target. It could be any of the following:

• First to damage or most recent to damage
• Lowest health
• Highest toughness.
• Nearest target or farthest target.
• Doing the most damage.

And quite possibly a mix or none of the above as well?

I agree, yet you often hear “don’t bring more toughness than the ‘tank’” every now and then. I think this ‘myth’ is busted.
Whether it’s optimal to run with high toughness if you’re not ‘tanking’ (lol) is another question completly, but imho it’s not a argument for breaking aggro from the tank, since the mechanics in this game simply doesn’t work that way.

I think I’ve yet to see mobs stand still and only hammer away on the wanna-be tank in this game…

LinseyMurdock.4165:

Dark Effectz.8205:

Hey, just a quick thought and a little bit off topic, what about all the level 80 food and potion buffs. Might be easy to just add them to the material deposit so it’s easy to make alot of them just to deposit for other characters to use.

Definitely not. There are way too many of them and I don’t think Material Storage is an appropriate place to store that stuff.

Allow us to give useless food away to the starving children of Tyria, in exchange for karma (food that noone wants to buy, and all you can do with it is destroy it).

So, can we conclude then that the game old “don’t bring more toughness than the ‘tank’” isn’t valid anymore (for aggro reasons that is, since mobs in this game doesn’t care for whoever thinks of themselves as ‘the tank’)?

Crit me Harder.8310:

I think druid atm with menders amulet played at a good level has way to much sustain followed with really good dmg. its like being a tank healer and dps all at once. i think a good way to fix this would be to nerf bristle back and smoke scale but give the option to play a more dps based build and still keep the good burst without butchering it. it just seems like druid is over loaded.

This post right here says it all. Druids just got nerfed hard in the last patch, a couple of days pass, and here we go again, calling for even more nerfs.

The never ending story of bad players calling for nerfs of other classes. Perhaps the best idea would be to close down these forums for good.

Justine.6351:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Justine.6351:

Druids did this to themselves.

Lol! Yeah right! Please elaborate that exact statement, I’m eagerly awaiting your response!

No AF decay ooc,
50% savings on CA exit
regen contributes to AFG

druids begged for this crying that the only way to AFG reliably was to build around it. And what happened when those 3 things got patched in? People built specifically around anything that would AFG effectively making the only gate on CA a 10sec CD.

I did address this already in a recent post reviewing how we got from HoT release till today,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ty-Druids-who-been-here-since-HoT/first#post6364596

I like how your name is on one of those threads doing what you seem to do best on my posts, talking down on me.

I don’t talk down on you, I’ve supported ideas you laid out as well, like for example taunt on guard (now we got it on protect me, but whatever). I also supported your ideas about reworking DC into a more group support oriented trait just the other day, remember?
Speaking of DC, my suggestion to that trait were to change it to a condi clear that removes one condition each second spent in CA instead of all conditions at once. Combine that with your idea of a more group oriented trait would not only remove the spammable nature of how CA used to work previously with DC and CS, but would also encourage the support nature of druids.

As for my original qoute here from your post, when you say druids did this to themselves, it sounds like druid players were cheating or something, when all we did were using the mechanics given to us. So, players shouldn’t have used these abilities to their max, and maybe then Anet wouldn’t have nerfed us, is that what you’re saying?

*

I’m NOT on a mission to jump on every post you make and downtalk it just for the sake of it. I will however post when I don’t agree with what you’re saying, and I’ll also post when I do agree with good ideas.

Justine.6351:

Druids did this to themselves.

Lol! Yeah right! Please elaborate that exact statement, I’m eagerly awaiting your response!

Performance when in crowded places, like wvw zergs for example, are pretty much server limited. There’s only so much you can do to your own system before you hit a brick wall that you can’t influence any further.

blitzkrieg, +1

Pretty much spot on. Thing is, rangers been nerfed harder throughout this games history than any other class, and it continues down the same path. When it comes to rangers, it’s not some small adjustments in the patches, they always bring the hammer and the axe and more or less slaughter us.

Wtf, stop necroing old threads

They nerfed it for the sake of 1vs1 balance apparently. I hate the cd nerf.

AnariiUK.7409:

Positioning the bristleback close to the boss ensures it can hit all of its “rain of spikes” projectiles so boosts it a tiny bit more.

I think this is the reason. Rain of spikes can do some serious damage if the BB is positioned more or less inside the boss.

Rain of spikes oneshotting heavy golem (with Opening Strike and Sic’em):

Mr Greggles.5908:

The numbers you give are actually slightly off, I’ll correct you on them all, given the adjustments Anet made to the original equations (you can read the specifics yourself).
http://tinyurl.com/j3m6md6

Given the equations from the Wiki:
(these will change in time, so I won’t post links)

Cosmic Ray | 650 + 0.4*HP -> 325 + 0.608*HP
Seed of Life | 500 + 0.5*HP -> 400 + 0.665*HP
Lunar Impact | 2452 + 1.1*HP -> 1618.32 + 1.793*HP
Rejuvenating Tides | 810 + 0.35*HP -> 648 + 0.5005*HP

Equating these to each other gives the break points (you can check the math yourself if you wish):

Cosmic Ray | Healing Power = 1562.50
Seed of Life | Healing Power = 606.06
Lunar Impact | Healing Power = 1203.00
Rejuvenating Tides | Healing Power = 1076.41

These are the real break point values of the CA form skills. What this means is, if you have more Healing Power than these values above (eg. >1562.50 HP for Cosmic Ray or >606.06 HP for Seed of Life), those skills on an individual basis will do more healing than they did before the changes.

Doesn’t seem right. Please check my values from ingame that I posted some days ago. Especially, look at Seed of Life (number 2):

OGDeadHead.8326:

Updated with old and new values after patch:

CA healing values @ 676 healing power (unbuffed). New values in bold.

1. 920 – 783 (heals for 85% of previous value)
2. 838 – 810 (heals for 97% of previous value)
3. 3196 – 2837 (heals for 88% of previous value)
4: 1047 – 988 (heals for 94% of previous value)

Should clarify that the % of previous value are only at this particular level of healing power.

Justine.6351:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Justine.6351:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Noone seems to remember that the cd isnt a set 15 seconds like many ppl claims. CA has a dynamic cd with 15 seconds in a best case scenario. Since the traits and the elite form is balanced with that in mind, they should get rid of the need to actually build astral force. Make it a set cooldown and be done with it – then the whole thing will be so much easier to balance.

Lmao, guy…
I suggested that 4 days ago and you called it “trash pure and simple”.

You suggested a whole lot more than that, so yeah, still trash (like decay out of combat for example).

So not pure trash, you just thought some stuff was bad so it must all be. Ya okies…

Ok then, let’s see what you actually wrote:

Astral Force/Generation:
-No longer charges with dmg/healing tics
-(spvp/wvw)Generates at 6 2/3% per second (effectively 15sec cd) when in combat
-(pve) Generates at 10% per second (effectively 10sec cd) when in combat
-Using Celestial Avatar Form causes Astral Force to decay at 10% per second
-Resets to 0% on exiting
-Resets to 0% OOC

First of all, the whole package combined here, compared to the state of CA pre-patch – bad.

*

Since they now went ahead and nerfed CA, let’s break it down:

-No longer charges with dmg/healing tics
-(spvp/wvw)Generates at 6 2/3% per second (effectively 15sec cd) when in combat

Depending on situation could be both a buff and a nerf. It would be a nerf on all accounts considering you wanted the druids to be locked out of CA for 5 more seconds. On the other hand you would gain AF no matter what you do as long as you remain in combat, so in that sense it would be a buff.

*

(pve) Generates at 10% per second (effectively 10sec cd) when in combat

Better or at the very least equal to current state

*

Using Celestial Avatar Form causes Astral Force to decay at 10% per second

A nerf, since you cut 5 seconds from the form. What’s the reason for this?

*

Resets to 0% on exiting and Resets to 0% OOC

Major nerf. Entering combat in pvp/wvw would mean 15 seconds without access to CA form and two of the traits bound to the form every single time there would’ve been a time you went out of combat. Not really sure about your playstyle, but if you are capable to actually be in combat the whole pvp match through, ok…
This was the one thing I opposed to the most.

*

When you write a list like that, I thought you meant for us to take the whole ‘package’, and not cherry-picking specific bullet points.

*

I suggested a flat 15 second cd on CA, with no AF decay out of combat, and balance the form from there, mostly because players seem to think that CA actually have a flat cd, when in fact it has a dynamic AND and a set cooldown.
The idea that druids could access full condi clear, stun break and stealth every 10 seconds no matter what, which some ppl seem to think, is (was) simply false.

blitzkrieg.2451:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Justine.6351:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Noone seems to remember that the cd isnt a set 15 seconds like many ppl claims. CA has a dynamic cd with 15 seconds in a best case scenario. Since the traits and the elite form is balanced with that in mind, they should get rid of the need to actually build astral force. Make it a set cooldown and be done with it – then the whole thing will be so much easier to balance.

Lmao, guy…
I suggested that 4 days ago and you called it “trash pure and simple”.

You suggested a whole lot more than that, so yeah, still trash (like decay out of combat for example).

I’m sure Justine is pretty bad at the ranger class in general with no true insight on high level play (except maybe PvE). No need to really give much thought into what he/she says.

I think not.

Doesn’t mean (s)he has the final solution to every issue though.

Justine.6351:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Noone seems to remember that the cd isnt a set 15 seconds like many ppl claims. CA has a dynamic cd with 15 seconds in a best case scenario. Since the traits and the elite form is balanced with that in mind, they should get rid of the need to actually build astral force. Make it a set cooldown and be done with it – then the whole thing will be so much easier to balance.

Lmao, guy…
I suggested that 4 days ago and you called it “trash pure and simple”.

You suggested a whole lot more than that, so yeah, still trash (like decay out of combat for example).

Noone seems to remember that the cd isnt a set 15 seconds like many ppl claims. CA has a dynamic cd with 15 seconds in a best case scenario. Since the traits and the elite form is balanced with that in mind, they should get rid of the need to actually build astral force. Make it a set cooldown and be done with it – then the whole thing will be so much easier to balance.

Gotejjeken.1267:

8 × 2 = 16

Not mathematically possible to use it twice in one CAF now.

You cast it when you enter CA, 8 seconds cd follows – you’re now at ~9 seconds, then you cast again?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Well, Lunar Impact has been officially reduced to being a single-shot use. 1-second extra cooldown has it now so you can use it 1 time per CAF, 2 times if you Quick Draw, and 3 if you Quick Draw and have alacrity.

You should be able to use it at least twice? CA lasts 15 seconds if you use full duration. Before you could cast it 3 times, now it’s down to 2 times (not counting quick draw).

Durzlla.6295:

Wondrouswall.7169:

Just tested it. Yes, it makes Pet traits unblockable, applies to Clarion Bond and applies it to the newly swapped Pet.

Best. Change. Ever.

Hotfix incoming.

The nerf to CA recharge is maybe the biggest nerf I’ve seen yet in this game, since it affects so many things. In one go they managed to:

- Increase cd of Druid Clarity by 50% (still gated by the CA mechanic, so the 15 seconds cd is a best case scenario, may be a much longer cd than that)

- Increase cd of Celestial Shadow by 50% (still gated by the CA mechanic, so the 15 seconds cd is a best case scenario, may be a much longer cd than that)

- Increase the cd of our elite form by 50% (still gated by the CA mechanic, so the 15 seconds cd is a best case scenario, may be a much longer cd than that)

To top it of all of our healing skills in CA has been nerfed across the board, even with horrendous high amounts of healing power.

Updated with old and new values after patch:

CA healing values @ 676 healing power (unbuffed). New values in bold.

1. 920 – 783 (heals for 85% of previous value)
2. 838 – 810 (heals for 97% of previous value)
3. 3196 – 2837 (heals for 88% of previous value)
4: 1047 – 988 (heals for 94% of previous value)

Anyone found the break-even spot (if there is one)?

In conclusion – unless we build for healing power, our entire elite form, CA, will become almost useless for what it’s supposed to do. Now there’s your build diversity right there, Anet style.

We’ll see in a couple of hours I guess.

Writing this down here for reference post-patch:

CA healing values @ 676 healing power (unbuffed) as of october 17, 2016:

1. 920
2. 838
3. 3196
4: 1047

Justine.6351:

How I would re-balance/standardize Celestial Avatar Form and its related traits.

Astral Force/Generation:
-No longer charges with dmg/healing tics
-(spvp/wvw)Generates at 6 2/3% per second (effectively 15sec cd) when in combat
-(pve) Generates at 10% per second (effectively 10sec cd) when in combat
-Using Celestial Avatar Form causes Astral Force to decay at 10% per second
-Resets to 0% on exiting
-Resets to 0% OOC

Nerfs across the board, and severe nerfs at that. Shorter duration. Longer cd in pvp, looses all AF on exiting the form and OOC, meaning CA will NEVER be available until at least 15 seconds of combat has passed. 15 seconds of combat in pvp is a looong time…

These suggestions are trash pure and simple, imho .

*

Celestial Avatar Form Skill changes:
-Cosmic Ray strikes location immediately on use and is now an instant cast with an appropriate after cast. Range increased to 1500. Radius increased to 180.
-Lunar Impact reworked to a 600 range teleport to target location dazing yourself and dazing and blinding foes in a 360 radius. 10sec recharge.
-Rejuvenating Tides now also applies regeneration.
-Natural Convergence now applies roots instead of black hole and is also a stun break.

Most of these sounded good, but of course you had to add that “dazing yourself” crap to Lunar Impact. Also, the addition of being able to teleport to target location isn’t worth changing this to only be able to cast this skill once every 15 seconds (pvp) – that’s a huge, huge nerf (I don’t count with Quick Draw, you don’t balance things around the possible use of that trait).

*

Related Traits:
-Swap Celestial Shadow and Lingering Light traits
-Lingering Light rework/revert, directly healing an ally puts an astral wisp around them. 15sec cd per ally. Astral Wisp now causes burning to enemies it passes through.
-Druidic Clarity now removes 3 conditions on entering and exiting celestial avatar form from self, pet and 4 nearby allies.
-Verdant Etching now also causes Seed of Life to remove an additional condition.

I’m not sure what swapping CS and LL traits around would accomplish, but ok.

The rework to LL, does that mean that the wisps now ONLY cause burning, and not healing, or do you mean for them to burn as well?

Druid Clarity sounds like a very nice buff to me, and gives the trait far more utility than the complete, selfish condi wipe it is currently, so yes please.
Verdant Etching almost back to what it was, that’s another ‘yes please’ from me. Actually, bring it back completely to how it used to work.

Obtena.7952:

HoT being a power creep was their strategy to make them money? Wow, there is some overtime conspiracy theory going on there … I won’t bother to ask you for how you arrived at that conclusion.

Oh really? You havent been around long with this company have you?

Gotejjeken.1267

At 2500+ condition damage traps hurt…

If they are allowed to tick their condi damage, sure…

Swagger.1459:

Regardless of what numbers they change the Druid will still be an awful team healer outside of pve stuff.

This is true.

We have nice numbers on paper, but the mechanics behind most CA skills are plagued by worthless design decisions, making especially #1 and #2 incredibly frustrating to use.

We could have had a skill that would heal for one million and bring the dead back to life, but if there’s only 1% chance you could actually land this skill, it would still be utterly useless.

If we read what Gaile actually writes:

“Base values for the Celestial Avatar heals will be reduced, while the healing power contribution will be enhanced significantly”

So let’s say that post patch, anyone with a healing power of let’s say 1000, will heal for the same amount they do currently, and base CA healing is nerfed by 50%, then her statement is true.

CA heals will be nerfed, and healing power contribution “will be enhanced significantly”, meaning that for anyone that already ran a high amount of healing power will notice NO difference, but anyone with less than 1000 healing power will heal for far less than what they can do today.

So, all in all, this will most likely be a MAJOR nerf across the board except for the people that already uses loads of healing power, for them, they will be at the same level. I don’t think the outgoing healing will be increased at all to be honest.

I’ve asked for the break even points in regards to healing power, I don’t expect to get that question answered, so I’ll try to write down my own numbers and compare them when the patch has been released, and I urge you all to do the same.

Good idea, so +1

@ CETheLucid – I hope you’re right.

Kam.4092:

They said long ago in the beginning, that every nerf would bring a buff. It depends if they buff us in a good way.

Exactly. Anet however tend to nerf hard, and then buff something that noone ever uses anyway, even after a minor “buff”.

Nerf example:
Nerf base healing in CA by 25%

Buff example:
Polar bear skill “Icy Roar” has gotten its chill duration increased by 33%. Sounds like massive buff right? In reality – up to 4 seconds from previous 3 seconds on a totally lackluster skill on a useless pet.

So, one thing goes into the nerf basket, and one thing in the buff basket, and all should be happy!

This is typical Anet balancing at its finest.

I’d like to ask again – at what level of healing power do druids break even compared to current levels?
You should be able to answer that simple question imho, unless it’s a major nerf across the board and you don’t want to say that.

Azukas.1426:

What’s prolly going to happen is a baseline nerf so severe that the healing power buff will heal for less than prepatch

Quite possible.

I’m willing to bet that at say 500-600 healing power, we will heal for far less than what is the case today, and that you need somewhere in the range of 900-1000 to break even post patch. Above that we might see a minor increase.

As for the healing, it all depends on how much healing power you will need to have compared to today, to actually heal for the same amount.

Gaile Gray.6029:

One of the most notable changes being made is to the healing values of the Druid as a primary healer. Base values for the Celestial Avatar heals will be reduced, while the healing power contribution will be enhanced significantly. The reasoning for these changes is that while we are excited about the Druid being an incredibly strong healer, we would also like to see that role as one of many choices in your attribute build.

At what level of healing power do you break even compared to current state? I think that’s a most valid question.

Cobrakon.3108:

No one wants a 3 second burst fight

Most thieves and twitch kidz begs to differ with that statement…

Please note that building for might is mostly only useful when running solo. In most group settings, your group should normally max out might easily anyway.

You could also use sigil of strength to get even more stacks (copy to your pet through NM traitline, then copy back with WHaO), and +boon duration helps with this.

CETheLucid.3964:

DPS. The ranged pets (Devourers, Spiders, Bristleback) tended to be able to hit moving targets more reliably.

For mobile targets I agree with you. Also, in pve, there’s hardly any down time in regards to dps since ranged pets can start to attack sooner. But, this is mostly only of interest vs distant trash mobs. As soon as you go against a veteran or higher, birds or felines are way better.

http://guildwarshub.com/ranger-pet-dps-comparison/#Test_Golems

Anyway, back on topic then!