Guild Wars 2

Hammer with Stances – Heavy Hard Control (Bunny Thumper?)
Little twist on hammer, its a mid range weapon

The hammer has like an ‘earth’ theme, so attacks have rock/earth related animations and effects. It’s a power weapon focusing on hard control

Auto Attack creates a crippling rock shard (same animation as Ele Dagger Earth Auto) up to 800 range that cripples for 1s per hit (hammer animation on auto is like the ranger hitting the ground and it creates the rock spike at the target’s location)

Attack 2 Makes the ranger launch/hit a huge boulder at the foe, 900 range. Applies vulnerability

Attack 3 is a gap closer, ground targeted move that launches the ranger to the target location and knocks down up to 3 targets in a 200 radius AoE for 1s – 700 Range

Attack 4 Makes the ranger perform a powerful ground smash at his feet and it creates a stone wall in front of him – destroys projectiles and knocks down targets if they were hit when the stone wall appeared

Attack 5 2-chain skill – First Chain is a ground smash that AoE stuns on a 200 radius and 2nd chain is an AoE launch on a 250 Radius

I’ll post this suggestion again for visiblity -

- Tweak the durations a little bit
- Remove the Might Stack limit
- Change the stability stack limit from 1 to 2 (there was no stability limit when the boon copy effect was added, stealth nerf on that one)

Suggested Durations:

• Quickness – From 2 to 4s
• Protection – From 2 to 4s
• Resistance – From 2 to 4s
• Fury – From 3 to 8s
• Stability – From 3 to 6s And make it 2 stacks max instead of 1
• Swiftness – From 3 to 8s
• Vigor – From 3 to 8s
• Aegis – From 5s to 8s
• Regeneration – from 5 to 8s
• Retaliation – 5s is perfect
• Might – From 10s to 8s but remove the stack limit

With such durations, it doesn’t feel unbalanced, and you at least feel some effect. With the current durations, you barely see any change in survivability or offense.

Shiren.9532:

Pets aren’t healed by the healing glyph.

Staff skill four can be cast targeting behind you while running (feature?).

Yeah I really hope Vine Surge is intended as its a good way to escape; Immob enemies behind you and Ancestral Grace forward.

Hazka.6503:

Sandzibar.5134:

Quick draw is also triggered by moving to CA form, but none of the CA skills benefit from the cooldown reduction proc mechanic.

Triggering quick draw when activating CA should be intended, it works like that with anything that changes your weapon skills, including picking up environmental weapons or going into water.

It does work as intended, only intended effect of that trait (next weapon skill’s CD is decreased by 66%) does not work

Pretty old, but can’t remember if it was since release or not.

The beam effect should look like Spirit of Light’s effect in EotM but as a straight, continuous beam. Also start narrow but gets wider with every pulse. See Attachment

Main hand and Off Hand whip, focused on CC. yes, MORE CC. (Daze, Stun, Pull, Immob)

Mid Range with the auto being a cleave.

Physical Skills Category. Touch Ranger. Omnom

Javelins and Mantras
Mid to Long Range, power weapon

Yeah I feel like they restarted from near-scratch only recently, I remember seeing some data-mined details of ‘Glyphs’ and ‘Aspects’, we still have the glyphs but no aspects. Anyway, lots of tweaks and balances incoming

Solar Beam Graphical Effect

Make it look just like the ‘Spirit of Light’ effect in EotM, but as a straight continuous BEAM. A Pulsing beam that becomes larger with every pulse, and orbiting particles around the beam (see attachment, but picture it as a straight, continuous beam!)

• Rezzing = Stability
• Staff Auto = Stability
• Also an ‘on-demand’ stability whenver you use your heal skill

Also: The Stability effect is NOT dependant on Celestial Avatar Form, its whenever you heal

Engineers get a pulsing Might and Stab from WIELDING a weapon, I think we could get a on heal stability mechanic.

Cannot gain stab more than once every 3s. Been posting this in other threads because I truly believe this idea can work ahaha

I was thinking like juggernaut, but gain stab when you heal

Some damage component to 1-3 and some effects

Maybe change it so underwater the CAF skills trigger ON the player (but tweak the radius a bit)

• Cosmic Ray
• Lunar Impact
• Seed of Life
  All pop on the player, with tweaks to their radius (and activation times)

Glyphs are not ground targetted so they’ll work fine underwater

Irenio is my spirit animal.

I mean sure there’s a lot of balance and tweaks but I’m overall pretty happy with what we got.

And just like most ranger skill effects/animations, I freakin’ love the Druid’s Skill Animations and Effects! And sound effects too ahaha (Minus the AUTO ATTACK ahaha)

But the CAF and its skills are super nice and the plant-based attacks are sexy as heck

But Glyphs don’t work nor CAF as of yet. Also, they forgot to add Tigers to the Amphibian group.

And with all the ground-targetting skills, I too wonder how it’ll work.

Traits!

Druidic Clarity

• Resistance (5s) – When exiting CAF. So the trait would grant an effect upon entering and exiting.

Cultivated Synergy

• Keep the current heal effect, but also add the effect that if your pet has lower health than you, whenever you use a healing skill, the pet is healed for 25% more, but if you have lower health than the pet, you are healed for 10% more. I always had trouble with high vit pets as the heal would be minimal. This could fix it!

Primal Echoes

• Stun if behind the target. Daze front, stun behind. They mentionned they wanted the Druid to focus on positioning. Still applies when exiting CAF with staff equipped.

Celestial Shadow

• Blind (3s) – Either upon entering CAF or Exiting it Very thief-ish… Don’t tell anyone.

Verdant Etching

• 5% Astral Force on Glyph Use – Adds more synergy to the specialisation’s mechanics and its unique skills.

Natural Mender

• Change it to Powerful Mender – Keep the outgoing healing increase, but also add a damage increase of 1% whenever you heal another ally. Keep the max stacks of 10 and the duration to 6s – This would add some punch to the staff auto attack as its almost a permanent healing, and the staff AA is a bit underpowered. The only downside to this effect would be that its pretty much limited to the use of the staff.

Grace of the Land

• Stability 3s – Oh yeah. Whenever you heal, you gain stability. – Much like the engineer’s ‘Juggernaut’, this skill would grant you a pulsing stability (2 stacks) of 3s every 3s when you heal.Cannot apply more than once every 3s.
  The staff would be optimized for this one, but If you REZZ PLAYERS. It would proc. So basically, you would be non-CC-able while rezzing. Would proc on Healing Skills too for some nice stability on demand.
• To balance this potentially AWESOME effect, lower the incoming condition damage reduction to like… 25%?

Hidden Anguish 50s CD

• Incoming disables are transferred to your pet instead.
• You are stealthed for 2s

mistsim.2748:

celestial shadow superspeed doesn’t seem to work while stomping.

Superspeed =/= Quickness

Superspeed is the movement speed, Quickness is action/skills speed

infantrydiv.1620:

I think it would be cool if Solar Beam was a unique auto-attack with a charging mechanic where after some amount of hits it flipped into a new stronger attack.

Ohh, like a unique chain-skill

• 1st chain is the current 3 pulse phase
• 2nd is a slightly stronger 3 pulse phase (more heal, more dmg)
• 3rd is a shot that burns anything in the beam and a small AoE radius and maybe blind any foes that cross the beam while facing you.

Would take about 3-4 seconds to get to the 3rd phase

^ What Heimskarl said.

If they deem burning too powerful on a continuous pulsing skill, they could always add conditions/criterias;

• Target must be Dazed or
• Target must be within 600 range or
• Target must be under the effect of a boon or anything really

Druid Staff Weapon Skills

Detailed Post Here
Tooltip

The staff is not too bad. Not the best, not good, but not TOO bad. Again, I understand its focused on healing, but the offensive component is really lackluster.

Solar Beam

• Slightly Increase base damage
• Burning 1s on the third pulse. Has to be a low base duration as its a pretty fast pulse. Maybe make the burn AoE? Small radius, 3 targets. Or perhaps, burn when the target is within 600 units?

Astral Wisp

• Vulnerability 6s – And I’m not talking about the foe its attached to, but actually any other foes the astral wisp passes through. Of course, can only apply a stack of vuln to the same target every 2s.
• Make it a 100% Projectile Finisher? Not the orbiting phase, but the attack phase

Ancestral Grace

• Daze 0.75s – AoE daze on reaching the target – in PvP situations it could temporarily cancel a stomp while you rush to a downed ally. Has to be short as with Moment of Clarity trait it’s doubled.
• Superspeed (3s) to the PET. The staff lacks skill that grants an effect to the pet, as every other main hand/two handed ranger weapon has 1 pet effect. Giving the pet Superspeed fits with this skill, as you’d either use this skill to run away, or charge into battle. With superspeed, the pet could follow with ease.

Vine Surge

• Remove the condition cleansing – As utility its good, but kinda weird to think vines would help you remove chill/cripple/immob.
• Immobilize 1.5s – just half a second longer (also, make the graphical effect last 0.5 longer. So sexy.)
• Crippled 4s – its really a movement impeding skill
• Vigor (6s) – Grant vigor to allies it touches. Still gives them some movement-related utility.

Sublime Conversion

• Duration: 6s – VERY situational skill, make it last a wee bit longer wouldn’t hurt. Yeah it would heal. But yeah, I’ve mainly used it to use the waterfield, very rarely for the projectile conversion effect.
• Convert 1 ally condition to a boon – Conversion
• Convert 1 enemy boon to a condition – CONVERSION – Again it fits with the theme of conversions, gives the ranger/druid ONE boon strip/hate skill, and gives support to allies by converting something bad to something good.
• Don’t forget to add ‘Combo Field: Water’ to the description, and add the Combo Field AoE/Outline graphical effect to it!

Also,

• What if the staff would bring a new dynamic to PvP/WvW, namely Group Seperation? Auto Attack would make an AoE Burn based on the target, Astral Wisp would debuff enemies surrounding target, Ancestral Grace would be a small AoE daze, etc. Maybe glyphs could have some buffs related to the amount of enemies surrounding the player; a 3% damage (on damaging glyphs) per enemies around, or a 5% duration on effects/conditions on glyphs based on enemies around
• What if the staff had better synergy with Daze? Burn Daze Foes on auto attack? Blind Dazed Foes?

Also I REALLY love the druid skill animations. Staff skills, Glyphs, CAF Skills… All but the auto attack ahaha. Some more work needed, and also, maybe change the auto attack sound effect? All other sound effects (again, CAF skills, other staff skills, and glyphs) are super duper

Celestial Form Weapon Skills

Detailed Post Here
Tooltips

I know the CAF is focused on healing but having so little damage is still a bit weird. I don’t want TOO MUCH damage but maybe some focus on effects/non-damaging conditions instead.

Cosmic Ray

• Base 80 damage sharing the same radius as the healing radius
• Vulnerability (2s) – 1 stack Sounds short but remember it affects an AoE and can be spammed.

Seed of Life

• Base 100 damage on the seed burst
• Weakness (2s) on the burst aswell. Synergizes with my next suggestion -

Lunar Impact

• Base 300 damage
• Stun 1.5s – Weakened foes are stunned instead of being dazed.
• Lower daze duration to 2.5s – 6s of daze is a LOT with Moment of Clarity trait

Rejuvenating Tides

• Vigor 2s – 2s of vigor per pulse, for a potential max of 10s vigor

Natural Convergence

• Blind (4s) – at the final pulse/final damage.
• Combo Field: Dark – Make it a Dark Field. Adds some blinds with projectiles and some lifesteal. Black hole.

Also,

• What if the Astral Force was not depleted when exiting the form?
• What if a small cooldown is applied to the F5/Transform skill?
• What if there’s no base depletion nor timer but every CAF skill uses a % of the Astral Force?
• What if you could gain some astral force when taking damage ? Astral force would be generated by: (minor) Dealing Damage, (minor) Getting Hit, (major) Healing self/pet/allies

infantrydiv.1620:

It would have been very cool if the Druid form had had Solar/Lunar forms to choose from where Solar did damage and Lunar was healing. Maybe too much of a WoW copy of Boomkin, but still :P

Yeah some players suggested a weapon swap available when in Celestial Form, 1st Mode Support/Heal and 2nd Mode more Offensive oriented. The theme you suggeste could work real well.

Was gonna suggest solar would be heavy on burns and blinds… But guardian is all about burns and blinds ahaha

punahou.3986:

make healing power also the damage modifier for druid attacks.

You are looking for Instinctive Reaction

Edit: Okay never mind I get what you’re saying, and that would be awesome!

But on the same topic, Instinctive Reaction needs a major boost… No one runs pure healing, so 7% power from healing power is really bad… And unless you have any additional healing power, it’s an attribute that starts at 0, so… It’s PRETTY bad. I’d make it at least base 10% but 15% would be best… With 1000 healing power that’s a mere 150+ Power

Some idea I’ve heard in-game was to include the weapon swap while in Celestial Avatar Form, to have 2 ‘modes’ -

Defensive and Offensive

• Defensive
  Would be the current Avatar Form we have, super heal super cleanse super low offensive capabilities

• Offensive
  Would become a more damage oriented mode where the skills would deal some base damage and add an effect (conditions? Vuln/Weak/Blind/Daze/Stun etc)

• Juvenile Tigers are not amphibian despite being part of the feline family (and tigers are excellent and avid swimmers in real life )

Extensive Glyph Skills Suggestions and Balance
In short:

General

• Radius up to 400 from 300

Of Rejuvenation

• Non-Celestial: Bonus healing to self per allies healed, 7% per allies (potential total bonus of 35%)
• Celestial: Bonus healing to allies by 7% per allies.

Of Alignment

• Non-Celestial: 4s to the base conditions (from 3s) and adds 1 stack of vlun to enemies per targets hit (8s)
• Celestial: Cleanses a base 1 condition and an additional condition per allies around.

Of the Tide Becomes Blast Finisher (both forms) – Ranger lacks some on demand out of combat blast finishers

• Non-Celestial: Deal some AoE damage on use
• Celestial: Heals a little bit (AoE)

Of Empowerment

• Non-Celestial: +15% Outoing Damage for 7s
• Celestial: -15% Incoming Damage for 7s

Of Unity

• Non-Celestial Add a pulsing damage effect per second – PVE creatures attack slowly so it adds something.
• Celestial Add pulsing healing to tethered allies – so there’s still an effect if you dont actively heal.

Of Equality

• Non-Celestial is a self stun-breaker
• Celestial adds team stability and keeps team stun break, but no stun break to self

Okay the Celestial Form of the glyphs. I reaaaally love the ‘reverse’ theme, so it still applies to my suggestions

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__R_E_J_U_V_E_N_A_T_I_O_N (Celestial)
Heal yourself and allies around you. The healing potency on allies is increased by 7% per allies around you.

• Self-Helaing: 1400
• Allied Healing: 4750
• Bonus per Ally: 7%
• Number of Allies: 5
• Radius: 400
  Much like the non-celestial glyph suggestion, add a bonus per target. But since this reverse celestial form deals higher heal to allies, apply the bonus to that value. Radius +100

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__A_L_I_G_N_M_E_N_T (Celestial)
Heal and remove conditions from nearby allies. Remove 1 additional condition per ally nearby.

• Healing: 2500
• Conditions Removed: 1
• Conditions Removed per Ally: 1
• Number of Allies: 5
• Radius: 400
  So my non celestial suggestion mentionned +1 stack of vuln per target to every target. The reverse is -1 condition per ally for every ally. +100 radius

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__E_Q_U_A_L_I_T_Y (Celestial)
Break stun for nearby allies and grant stability.

• Number of Allies: 5
• Radius: 400
• Stability (5s): 2 Stacks
• Breaks Stun
  So, remove the condition cleansing from this one, but add some team stability, 2 stacks, 5 seconds. The break stun effect applies to allies, but not yourself (its part of the non-celestial version of this skill)

C_L_Y_P_H__O_F__T_H_E__T_I_D_E_S (Celestial)
Pull enemies towards you.

• Healing: 400
• Pull: 350
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 300
• Combo Finisher: Blast
  Much like its non-celestial counterpart, make it a blast finisher, but also make it a heal skill to allies. +50 pull distance.

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__E_M_P_O_W_E_R_M_E_N_T (Celestial)
Decrease incoming damage to nearby allies

• Healing: 150
• *Glyph of Empowerment (7s): -15% Incoming Damage
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 400
  Reverse of the non-celestial form. Instead of dealing with healing efficiency, make it an even more defensive skill by reducing incoming damage to allies. Duration of 7s, also a small burst heal on trigger.

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__U_N_I_T_Y (Celestial)
Tether yourself to nearby allies and heal them every second. Give additional healing to tethered allies whenever you are healed.

• Healing per second: 250
• Healing: 320
• Number of Allies: 5
• Duration: 7s
• Radius: 400
  Much like its non-celestial counterpart, apply a base pulsing effect. Heal all tethered allies per second for a base 220 health, and extra healing whenever you are healed. +1 second duration, +100 radius.

Oh and totally forgot:

• Glyphs do not work underwater*
• Celestial Avatar Form does not work underwater*

Some feedback and suggestions about druid glyph skills, both celestial and non-celestial. Other feedback threads focused on their titular subjects:
Celestial Avatar Form – Mechanics and Skills Feedback
Druid Staff Skills
Druid Mechanics and Traits (coming soon)
Druid Glyphs – Celestial and Non-Celestial

Slightly underwhelming, interesting concept, having them ‘flip’, but could use some effects.

G_L_Y_P_H___O_F___R_E_J_U_V_E_N_A_T_I_O_N (non-celestial)
Heal yourself and allies around you. The healing potency on yourself is increased by 7% per allies around you.

• Self-Healing: 4750
• Allied Healing: 1400
• Bonus per Targets: 7%
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 400
  So this skill had a rather low healing value, so my suggestion is to give bonus healing per allies around you by 7% per allies, to a potential bonus of 35%. Also added a bit more radius, from 300 to 400.

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__A_L_I_G_N_M_E_N_T (non-celestial)
Damage and apply conditions to nearby foes. Apply 1 stack of vulnerability per foes around you.

• Damage: 400
• Crippled (4s)
• Weakness (4s)
• Number of targets: 5
• *Vulnerability (8s)
• Radius: 400
  Radius upped from 300 to 400 and added vulnerability to targets, 1 stack per target, base duration of 8s.

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__E_Q_U_A_L_I_T_Y (non-celestial)
Daze nearby foes and break stun on yourself.

• Damage: 400
• Daze: 2s
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 400
• Breaks Stun
  Again more radius, and made it stun breaker to yourself. The celestial form will keep its ally stun break effect and something else. Adding stunbreak to this skill can create interesting dynamic in combat; you get daze, POOF you’re not dazed anymore but the foe is in return. (Darn Hammer Warriors)

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__T_H_E__T_I_D_E_S (non-celestial)
Push nearby foes away from you with a powerful tidal blast.

• Damage: 400
• Knockback: 320
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 400
• Combo Finisher: Blast
  More radius, slightly more knockback, but becomes a blast finisher! Some argue the ranger lacks some on-demand blast finishers, well, that could give it a boost. Sublime conversion >> Ancestral Grace >> Glyph of the Tides (as blast finisher) = Omnomnom

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__E_M_P_O_W_E_R_M_E_N_T (non-celestial)
Increase outgoing damage of nearby allies.

• Damage: 150
• Glyph of Empowerment (7s): 15% damage
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 400
  So this one sounds cool but when you do the maths, its very small damage boost. Make it last a bit longer, but up the value from 10% to 15%. Also make sure to read about the celestial form of this glyph.

G_L_Y_P_H__O_F__U_N_I_T_Y (non-celestial)
Tether yourself to nearby foes and deal damage every second. Deal additional damage whenever you are struck.

• Damage every second: 220
• Damage if Struck: 150
• Number of Targets: 5
• Duration: 7s
• Radius: 400
  This one sounded so cool in the stream, and it is, but in PVE environment, foes don’t attack that often. And in PvP, they just stop attacking. My suggestion is to give a base damage per second to tethered foes, and of course keep the damage when struck effect. Also, make it 1s longer. Because.

Read on for the Celestial Counterpart!

Thank you for keeping us updated!

I’ll keep updating this one based on other posts
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BUGS AND POSSIBLY UNINTENDED BEHAVIOURS/EFFECTS

A_S_T_R_A_L____F_O_R_C_E

• Using Solar Beam near/on your pet will charge astral force (and proc Natural Mender minor trait) no matter if you’re in combat or not and if the pet is fully healed or not.
• Troll Unguent will charge a huge chunk of Astral Force (about 80%) and some other ranger healing skills will do the same, despite having full health on you and pet.
• Dealing damage with anything other than staff will not charge astral force
• Possibly Unintended Behaviour – Astral Force persists through zones, logging off and such, but will be resetted when downed and defeated – Life Force for necros is typically drained when logging out, changing maps or getting defeated.
• Sigil of Water’s effect does not generate Astral Force
• Sigil of Renewal’s effect does not generate Astral Force
• Water Field Blast Healing does not generate Astral Force

S_T_A_F_F____S_K_I_L_L_S

General

• Anomaly – Unlike other ranger two-handed or main hand weapons, the staff has no skill that applies an effect on the pet. For example, Winter’s Bite makes next pet grant weakness, sword auto 3 grants might to pet, Longbow 3 grants swiftness to pet, etc

Ancestral Grace

• When using ancestral grace on slopes you can gain falling damage while reaching the target destination
• Sometimes the player stops walking when reaching target destination despite holding forward key
• Doesn’t reach the full 1200 range, more like 1000 units
• Sometimes there’s mention of ‘no line of sight’ even on seemingly flat surfaces
• Possibly Unintended Behaviour – Can be cast while falling, which can give access to some interesting areas (can be cast while falling after stowing gliders for example)
• Possibly Unintended Behaviour – Can be cast when there are no valid paths (for example, across gaps)
• Possibly Unintended Behaviour – When using shorter ranges, the ancestral grace form doesn’t end as you reach the target but keeps going for the full duration of the skill. Messes with the blast finisher use!

Vine Surge

• Performing a skill cancelling action JUST as the Vine Surge channeling is complete/is about to shoot the vines will put the skill on full cooldown but won’t shoot the vines
• Possibly Unintended Behaviour – You can cast the skill behind you while still facing forward. I hope it’s intended as it’s a pretty solid skill to escape

Sublime Conversion

• The disappearing animation is a bit clunky and is not in sync with the sound effect
• There is no mention in the description of the skill that it acts as a Water Combo Field
• There is no combo field graphical aura/outline

N_E_W____P_E_T_S

General

• The new pets’ stats don’t seem to be proportionate to the damage they actually deal and the toughness/vitality they have

Juvenile Tiger

• Despite being part of the feline family (and in actuality, real life tigers are excellent swimmers) they are not in the amphibian category.

Juvenile Bristleback

• Everybody likes this one, but popping the Signet of the Wild’s Active Skill will grant super duper excessive proportions on the bristleback (it’s not a but. It’s intended. Keep it as it is. Please.)
• Spike Barrage follows terrain (and falls off edges) instead of acting like a projectile.

Juvenile Smokescale

• The smokescale deals EXCESSIVE damage when using his common family skill ‘Smoke Assault’

Juvenile Fire Wyvern

• The pet’s model will sometimes appear at random places when using his unique skill ‘Consuming Flame’. Additionally, his name plate won’t reflect his animation’s positioning
• Consuming Flames’ graphical effect (scorched earth graphics) covers the AoE auras/outlines of other skills, making them impossible to see.
• Issuing an attack command or shouts as it begins to create the scorched earth effect would cancel the skill but the fire animation and scorched earth animation would continue.

Juvenile Electric Wyvern

• Lightning Assault’s tooltip doesn’t mention it being a lightning field.

O_T_H_E_R_S

• Quick Draw does not apply to the Staff Skills
• Quick Draw is triggered by entering CAF but no CAF Skills are effected by the CD reduction
• Natural Mender minor trait will proc/stack when using Solar Beam near/on your pet, and will also proc/stack when using healing skills
• The Natural Mender buff tooltip is labeled as Natural Healing
• Natural Stride takes a few seconds to ‘load’ after getting equipped (possibly intended)
• The UI graphical effect when transforming to the Celestial Avatar Form covers the weapon skills when it’s playing, maybe move it BEHIND the weapon skill icons so they’re visible at all times
• Lingering Light trait will trigger when using any healing skills on fully healed targets (including self and pet)
• Healing Power scales horribly
• Glyphs do not work underwater
• Celestial Avatar Form does not work underwater
• Signet of the Wild cancels Celestial Avatar Form
• Finishing/Cancelling the CAF transform as soon as you transform will still keep you in the CAF model/animation and you’ll still have the CAF effect icon (but you obviously won’t have access to CAF skills nor glyphs.)
• Glyph of Rejuvenation does not heal the pet in all his forms.
• Lunar Blast doesn’t apply its blast finisher effect

Unknown Effects

* Does Natural Healing affect the pet’s healing effect from Cultivated Synergy ?
* Does Natural Healing pet passive healing generate Astral Force? Does it activate Live Vicariously?
* Does Signet of the Wild (passive) generate Astral Force? Does it activate Live Vicariously ?
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Druid’s Staff Skills. The following links are more focused on their titular subjects:

Celestial Avatar Form – Mechanics and Skills Feedback
Druid Staff Skills
Druid Mechanics and Traits (coming soon)
Druid Glyphs – Celestial and Non-Celestial (coming soon)

So the staff has nice utility, nice effects, and I know it’s focus on support, but the damage component is a bit underwhelming. Here’s my pitch:

S_O_L_A_R___B_E_A_M
Fire a concentrated beam of light, damaging the target foe and healing allies inside of the beam. The third pulse burns an area atound your target.

• Damage: 250
• Healing: 75
• Number of Targets: 3
• Pulses: 3
• Range: 1200
• Burning (1s): 144 Damage
• Radius: 240
  The autoattack is interesting, but lacks a bit of punch. The third pulse would deal a small AoE burn, very short duration, but enough to annoy up to 3 enemies. It’s also thematically fitting with the power of the sun.
  An alternate suggestion would be to deal a 0.5 burning per pulse to any foes within 500 range

A_S_T_R_A_L___W_I_S_P
Send a wisp to attack your foe. While attached it will circle the foe, healing allies it passes through and applying vulnerability to foes it passes through. Can only apply a stack of vulnerability to the same foe every 2s.

• Damage: 320
• Healing: 325
• Duration: 5s
• Radius 130
• Range 1200
• Vulnerability (6s): 1% incoming damage
  This one is unique in the fact that it doesn’t apply vulnerability to the TARGET himself, but to ENEMIES around the target. That could incite enemy players to separate from the targetted person. Can only apply a stack to the same target every 2s.

A_N_C_E_S_T_R_A_L___G_R_A_C_E
Become a wisp of natural energy traversing to the target location. When you reach the target, heal nearby allies and daze surrounding foes. Your pet gains superspeed.

• Healing: 1500
• Number of Targets: 5
• Daze: 0.75s
• Superspeed (3s): Movement speed is greatly increased
• Radius: 240
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Range: 1200
  So first, it adds a super short daze to enemies; could totally be used to rush to a downed ally and cancel a stomp in WvW/PvP situations. If deemed too ‘powerful’, a short ‘blind’ could also give some support.
  Second, it adds an effect to the pet, something that lacks on staff skills, some superspeed – If Astral Wisp is used to rush to a target or out of danger, superspeed to the pet would aid in getting the pet out or in much faster while in combat.

V_I_N_E___S_U_R_G_E
Send forth vines that immobilize enemies and cripples them while granting vigor to allies.

• Damage: 250
• Immobilize (1.5s)
• Crippled (4s)
• Number of Impacts: 7
• Number of Targets: 3
• Vigor (6s)
• Range: 1200
  So this one was weird, I mean the effect was nice, but not so fitting with vines cleansing movement conditions. My suggestion is to grant a but of vigor for some support in movement, and also add some cripple to foes. Also, the base immob is slightly longer (by 0.5), I’d suggest changing the duration of the vines themselves by 0.5s. Also, PLEASE keep it so you can shoot them behind the player, it’s an excellent ‘escape’ skill.

S_U_B_L_I_M_E___C_O_N_V_E_R_S_I_O_N
Summon an energy barrier that causes enemy projectiles to heal upon impact. Allies that cross the barrier have one condition converted to a boon and enemies that cross have one boon converted to a condition. Can only trigger once per target.

• Ally conditions converted to boons: 1
• Enemy Boons converted to Conditions: 1
• Healing: 170
• Duration: 6s
• Range: 900
• Combo Field: Water
  This one. So the druid really lacks some boon source, and the ranger has no access to boon rip. It could add those functionalities, I mean it FITS with the theme of conversion! Also as it currently is, SC is way too situational for a weapon skill. The water field is perfect, but for the cooldown it holds, another effect is needed. Also slightly up the duration, it’s a bit short (and small too really!) The conversion can only occur once per target so crossing numerous times won’t do anything.

That’s it for the staff suggestions. It’s okay for heals, a bit low on other forms of support and lackluster in damage. A few tweaks could make it even more interesting!

Also, change the animation of the autoattack!

Make it a wider beam that grows bigger for every pulse, and that changes colours from white to yellow to orange-ish. Also add some sparks/stars that rotate around and along the beam, moving forward.

Make it grow larger with every pulse, and change colours from white to yellow to yellow-orangish.

Make it like a simple beam, but with like stars/sparks rotating around it and moving forward

Hello hello, BWE3 now over, here’s my take on the Druid. The following links are more focused on their titular subjects:

Celestial Avatar Form – Mechanics and Skills Feedback
Druid Staff Skills
Druid Mechanic and Traits (coming soon)
Druid Glyphs – Celestial and Non-Celestial (coming soon)

So the Celestial Avatar Form is a healing powerhouse, but not so much for damage. I mean, there’s almost NO damaging components. if not for the damage itself, there are too few ‘offensive’ effects. I understand it’s focused on allies and support, but I believe some effects can offer some form of support. Let’s see the Celestial Avatar Form weapon skills first -

C_O_S_M_I_C____R_A_Y
Call down energy onto the targeted area to heal allies. Damage and apply vulnerability to foes.

• Damage: 80
• Vulnerability (2s): 1% Incoming Damage
• Healing: 810
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 140
• Range: 1200
  So for this one we add a small damaging component, but also a short lived Vulnerability effect. It applies to a small AoE so can stack to many foes, and is highly spammable, so we don’t wanna do too much. Up the radius just slightly

S_E_E_D___O_F___L_I_FE
Summon a seed that heals and cleanses nearby allies of conditions while weakening foes when it blossoms.

• Damage: 100
• Weakness (2s): -50% Endurance, 50% chance to fumble
• Healing 500
• Conditions Removed: 2
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 200
• Range: 1200
  Another small damage component, but also adds weakness for a short duration. The weakness itself grants synergy with the next weapon skill’s proposed change:

L_U_N_A_R___I_M_P_A_C_T
Call down a massive lunar beam to heal allies and daze foes. Weakened foes are stunned instead

• Damage: 300
• Healing: 2900
• Daze: 2.5s
• Stun: 1.5s*
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 360
• Range: 1200
• Combo Finisher: Blast
  So as mentionned in the previous skill, theres some synergy with Seed of Life, as now instead of just dazing, it stuns weakened foes. There’s also a small damaging component added, and for balancing purposes, the base daze duration is lowered to 2.5s, as with Moment of Clarity trait it can go up to 5s of daze (and 3s of stun).

R_E_J_U_V_E_N_A_T_I_N_G____T_I_D_E_S
Gather vigorous tidal force to rapidly heal nearby allies and grant them vigor.

• Healing: 970
• Number of Targets: 5
• Pulses: 5
• Vigor (2s): Faster Endurance Regeneration
• Radius: 250
• Combo Field: Water
  So this one was in a good place, simply added some vigor for some support. Note that the 2s Vigor is per PULSE, so a potential total of 10s of vigor.

N_A_T_U_R_A_L___C_O_N_V_E_R_G_E_N_C_E
Channel your celestial powers, pulsing cripple and slow. Once the channel ends, any foes within its radius will be trapped by a black hole, immobilizing and blinding them.

• Pulse Damage: 200
• Final Damage: 500
• Crippled (1s): -50% Movement Speed
• Slow (1s): Skills and Actions are slower
• Immobilize (4s): Unable to move
• *Blind (4s): Next outgoing attack misses
• Number of Targets: 5
• Pulses 3
• Radius 360
• Combo Field: Dark
  This one was in a good place too, added a bit more pulsing and final damage, added blind on end and becomes a Dark Combo Field

Okay now that the weapon skills themselves have been discussed, I’d like to make an additionnal suggestion on Celestial Avatar Form:

• Grant the player +150 Vitality, +200 Toughness, +250 Healing Power
• Grant the pet + 150 Power, + 200 Precision, + 250 Condition Damage
  The reasoning behind this is that the player is focused on HEALING and SURVIVING so the pet becomes even more focused on DAMAGING.

Natural Mender becomes Powerful Mender
______________________________
Increase outgoing healing and outgoing damage whenever you heal another ally.

Powerful Mender (6s): 2% outgoing healing effectiveness, 1% outgoing damage
Maximum Stacks: 10
______________________________

This adds great synergy with the staff auto attack because it also lacks some punch, so the more you use the auto attack, the more powerful it becomes.

I’m still writing my super extensive Druid Feedback post, but one change I’ll suggest is change ‘Natural Mender’ to something called ‘Powerful Mender’,

Basically it keeps the 2% outgoing Heal Power, but also grants 1% Bonus Damage, so you can get a total of 10% bonus damage as it stacks 10 times.

Great synergy with Staff as the staff auto just keeps healing baby! Also Staff lacks a bit of punch in its auto attack so it’s a nice boost, and its a minor trait so you have it as soon as you go Druid

Edit: Merged, details below already

( With my previous suggestion, all shouts get boon copy effect, Change ‘Guard’ base CD to like 20s )

What if

ALL ranger shouts had the ‘Copy Boons’ effect with its current base duration? Or at least 50% higher base duration

Was thinking about it when thinking about fortifying bond

It could be the only tweak needed to all the other shouts, and with the PRETTY low Base Duration, it wouldn’t be TOO powerful,

I mean untraited, the durations are

• 20s – WHaO
• 15s – Guard
• 60s – Protect Me!
• 85s – Search and Rescue!
• 40s – Sic ’Em!
• 60s – SotP

Also, the boon copy would occur AFTER the Shout is cast, so for

• ‘Guard’ – the ranger would get the Protection Boon when it is cast
• ‘SotP’ – The Ranger would get double Fury/Stab/Swift duration on cast

Would add something different and something new to the ranger, make shouts slightly more useful. IF there’s also 1 or 2 added boons per shout, it could be very beneficial to the ranger (Resist on Protect me, Fury on Sic ’Em, Stability/Aegis on Search and Rescue)

Discuss

Previous suggestion also applies to the Glyph Trait that spawns Seeds of Life on Glyph Use. Obviously.

Holy Macaroni… No Boons… At All…

Seed of Life
Change it to

Seed of Gimme Some Boons at least please
Summon a seed that heals Allies and converts 2 conditions into boons when it Blossoms

…Ranger has a pretty hard time with conditoin management… And no boons from a HEALING/SUPPORT specialisation is painful!

Do the Druid apply any boon at all?
Reading the wiki, and I can’t see anything

Druid is mega heal/support but zero boon

Wonder how it’ll play,

I really feel WHaO will need toe flat duration buffed for that effect… No boons at all if I’m not mistaken!

Little Observation:

All Ranger Main-hand and Dual Handed Weapons have at least one skill that also applies an affect/skill to the pet

Except Staff as Druid. Is it by design or was it forgotten?

Opening strike is limited to the Marksmanship line though, and that would be CRAZY vulnerability -

Oh, pet applies vuln per hit for the next 10s / next 5 attacks?

’Sic ’Em

Although now that I think of it just before typing it makes me think its pretty much Quickening Zephyr…

• 10s Quickness
• 10s SuperSpeed
• 8s Reveal (change from the old 6s)

…Yeah. Pet-Centric Quickening Zephyr with Reveal.

Alt Suggestions:

• Next 5 Pet hits apply Torment?
• Pet gains Fury?
• Next 5 Pet hits heals the pet?

I almost feel like we should focus on one shout at a time ahahaha

Some what ifs – I’d like feedback

Search and Rescue

• Stealths the pet for 6-8s? _(Kinda redundant with ‘Guard!’ but could be a good way to safely let the pet head to downed ally)
• Applies Taunt towards the PLAYER (so the pet can safely get to destination undisturbed, dangerous for player but nice interrupt/diversion/stomp cancelling)
• Makes the pet knockdown enemies on its way to downed ally? (See: Trampler Centaurs/Stempeding Minotaurs)

Makes me notice; All professions have 1 revive-related skill, except the Revenant! Edit: And thief woops

Also I’d like to re-suggest a concept I sent a while ago, a concept that would totally benefit from the WHaO boon copy-

Signet of Renewal
Not only does the pet pull all conditions to self, but it converts them to Boons.
And just to clarify, it converts the conditions to boons on the pet only (as it’s the one getting all the condis)

This skill is a LOT like ‘Protect Me!’ as it pretty much kills the pet. Pulls ALL conditoins from NEARBY ALLIES?
Man, Burning now Stacks, Poison now Stacks, Bleeds has super high cap…. It definitely kills the pet.

I understand a workaround is to pop it and then switch pets, but still, its too situational.

By converting condis to boons, and using WHaO, it’ll have a similar effect as Guardian’s ‘Save yourselves!’ but it’ll have to go through 2 skills instead of one.

infantrydiv.1620:

Both WHaO and RaO are in a good place (with or without the WHaO buff, it’s still an excellent heal that’s good vs burst damage).

Guard needs a different functionality. Protect Me in this meta of things like burn guards and burst comps is just a big red sign saying “Kill my pet and kill me 5 seconds after”. If arenanet wants to focus on Shouts now, please first look at Guard and Protect Me.

Shouts should be pet/ranger oriented, so RaO is a perfect example of that. It powers up both the pet and Ranger.

“Guard” in my opinion should just be entirely reworked: It’s totally outdated and the functionality is minimal. Just give us a new skill.

Protect Me: There are lots of options for this skill now. What I would opt for is both Ranger and pet gain Protection and Resistance. Pet could also have a short taunt added to it.

The ‘kill my pet first then kill me’ idea made me think, Retaliation could be interesting somewhere in there. If the pet is taking the damage but also has retaliation, its a nice counter-play to the foe