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Druid - Proposed Competitive Changes - Defining What Is Wrong With Druid


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@"kappa.2036" I had originally read your thread here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/102537/anet-pls-bring-back-druid-and-make-it-a-good-support-this-time and went to make a quick response, but it turned into this, and I felt it needed to be its own thread. Been awhile since I've written one anyway. Here we go.

Few things everyone needs to understand before making Druid suggestions:

  1. The problem with CA Kit not being viable as a competitive team support goes much deeper than just the attribute tied numbers & effects that the skills pump out. The CA Kit is not and never was viable as a support role, because unlike FB or Tempest, when a Druid goes into CA Kit it has to drop all offensive pressure. And offensive pressure is worth a lot more defense than most people recognize.
  2. The heal output on the CA Kit is April Fools joke low. As a new player you'd log into this game and try to heal team mates in CA Kit while wearing Mender/Monk in a competitive mode, and have to ask yourself "Is this a joke or a bug or something?" It's not even worth spamming those heals on team mates or yourself, because the heal output from CA Kit over the course of like 10 to 20 seconds, is seriously like 1/20th of the standard DPS being pumped out by your opponents in a 1v1 or a team fight. The healing is actually not only useless, but it actually hurts you to use any of those skills outside of CA #3 blast finish. 1) When you drop offensive pressure to use those heals, people go deep on you with DPS bursts because they know you can't offense back, making that time spent healing a waste of time not DPSing back. 2) When you try to drop numbers on your team's head like "+600 heal per CA Kit #1 spam or #4 pulse" you could have been out of CA Kit dealing 3x the damage output to your enemy with an Axe #5 or something.
  3. The CA Kit skills completely lack the aspects they need to function in a competitive environment. A FB as example, is spitting out an amalgam of different effects that when combined, allow it to stay in combat while supporting. Such as Aegis upon Aegis with Stability and constantly reapplied regens & prots mixed with some CC mixed with short & much more convenient to use direct heal bursts. A Druid on the other hand, due to the nature of how CA Kit turns you into a complete support kit with bad skills, requires you to disengage to even be able to use those skills at all. A Druid who stays in CA Kit any longer than 2s while attempting to heal team mates, is essentially putting a big red target above its head in a team fight and saying "Hey I'm in CA Kit. Come burst me down." Tempests and FBs don't have this problem. They can still counter play with various utility while still supporting. The Druid if it is focused while in CA Kit, has to leave CA Kit immediately and then go on that CD before he can team support at all again. It just isn't mechanically functional for a competitive mode. So due to these mechanical problems with how CA Kit works, the only thing it's ever been good for is selfish survival. <- It is mainly this problem I am pointing out here, that has prevented Druid from being a viable Team Support. If the CA Kit had instead opened up and temporarily replace pet skills rather than the weapon skills as example, Druid would have been a viable team support that could have kept up in team fight brawling, in the same way that FB or Tempest does. But we are almost 9 years deep into settled design so I wouldn't expect any big changes to the foundational mechanics of how CA Kit functions. It is what it is. To make it viable again, we need to focus on the next point here ->
  4. The ridiculous amount of unnecessary nerfing that Druid has accrued over the past 8 seasons or so. Even though over a year ago Druid was already considered E Tier in the meta, Arenanet wouldn't leave it alone. They just kept tossing nerf after nerf after nerf. I won't even go into the arguable nerfs, I'm going to stick to focus on the really unnecessary nerfs that they gave Druid for absolutely no reason at all, other than to bury the class competitively: 1) -20% attributes to pets. 2) Removing the evade frame from Ancestral Grace Staff #3. 3) Removing the stun break from Druidic Clarity. 4) During the recent big nerf patch, Druid received disproportionate heal nerfing to the CA Kit. It was hit harder AGAIN than the -33% that everyone else received. All of this nerfing is just too much. The only thing CA Kit does now, is it is a full condi clear stealth disengage, and a quick #3 light heal with a blast finisher on it. The other skills are actually 100% complete useless garbage.
  5. Now the biggest thing that people need to understand, is that the Druid needs Druidic Clarity/Celestial Shadow to stay the way that it is now, and to not have those lose anymore of their effects. The Druid, due to all of the above aforementioned points, NEEDS that full condi clear/stealth super speed disengage. Without these effects still in play, it will literally be impossible for the Druid to even be able to utilize its CA Kit, no matter how much buffing is granted to the skills inside of it. So before any of you start throwing around class overhaul suggestions, including changes to DC/CA, you better know the class inside and out. And you have better seriously consider the idea of "Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it" otherwise we may end up with a buffed CA Kit that looks awesome that still sucks that's unusable.

So in my opinion, as a person who still avidly plays Druid, here is what I think Druid enthusiasts should be focusing on:

  1. Accept that CA Kit works the way that it does, mechanically. I don't know, it's possible that Arenanet may actually want to do some huge mechanical overhaul but I doubt it at this point. I think that tossing reasonable requests for small alterations such as: "Lower the CD" or "Lower CA degeneration rate" or "increase CA gain" is more reasonable right now, rather than massive overhaul suggestions, and believe me I have plenty of those myself.
  2. Stop focusing on the dream of making Glyphs awesome and usable because it isn't going to happen. The mechanical design behind Glyph usage is fundamentally flawed right down to the foundations of their idea to implement them into GW2, for the very reasons I've already mentioned. They rely on the idea of swapping in and out of an offensive mode and a defensive mode, and it doesn't work next to how other classes work in GW2. They could be made to be viable in PvE but they will never be viable in PvP without being buffed to an unbelievably disproportionate level of power to make up for the bad mechanics, and in that case everyone would complain about it, and it would put Druid right back on the chopping block again for nerfs, which is where it doesn't need to be.
  3. Accept that Druid is never going to be as good of a competitive support as a FB or Tempest. It's time to get real here guys. Druid is mechanically not designed well for this, no matter how much you buff the CA Kit. It's never going to be a rolly polly team fight sustain god in the same way that some of these other classes are. You would need to break down not only every core fundamental of how Druid works and what it offers and completely overhaul it, but also how Core Ranger works & what it provides, and overhaul it. Ranger/Druid and everything about it, was designed to be a great 1v1 artist or 1v2 kite or during some metas a 1v2 bunker. And it achieves this through all of the selfish sustain that it has, through Core Ranger and Druid both. So if we want Druid to be a viable team support, stop setting your standards upwards towards the pipe dream of FB like mechanics, because it isn't going to happen. At the best, we're looking at requesting & receiving some CA buffs so that the kit is actually worth using as some kind of a half-support assist. At the best we're looking at receiving some buffs that would front load enough importance for a Druid to actually consider burning his CA Kit CD for a partner or a team fight to save him, rather than saving those skills for himself. And those buffs need to matter for this to be a reasonable choice to take during combat.
  4. Understand that Arenanet has been trying to avoid the resurrection of Druid Bunkers or even Bunkers in general. So while giving suggestions for CA Kit buffs, consider the above point 3) and consider this point here in 4) that if we want some of these suggestions to be heard, these suggestions need to be aimed at buffs that grant significant bolstering to team support but not so much bolstering to self sustain. If everyone just keeps shouting: "Double the heal output!" that stuff is going to get thrown out the window.

So with all of this in mind, let me lay down what I feel is a reasonable Druid buff request:

  1. CA Kit charge gain needs to be increased. Right now it is so slow, that it pigeonholes the Druid into being absolutely required to take build aspects such as the command trait that grants regens, or wilderness for rugged growth, or dolyak rune for small ticks towards CA charge, otherwise CA Kit gains too slowly to be realistic to use. This subsequently pigeonholes the Druid into being forced to NOT TAKE trait lines that offer damage output. This is the reason why Druid has no damage output. Increase the CA Kit charge gain by even 15% between heals received and damage dealt, and Druid builds that run Marks or Skirm or Nature could be viable again.
  2. CA Kit #1 Cosmic Ray should spam a 1s Protection to team mates on every cast, in addition to 1s of one other boon that is randomly selected from a list of all the boons, similar to chaos effects on Mesmer. This would not be overpowered 1v1 on side nodes, because the buffing is unreliable and the heal output is still low. However in team fights, this would grant significant bolstering and be worth the time to stop and use. It would even be good in WvW. CA Kit #2 Seed Of Life needs to remove 4 condis from five targets. Turn it's CD up higher to like 6s. CA Kit #3 Lunar Impact can stay exactly the way that it is now. CA Kit #4 Rejuvenating Tides straight up needs its heal coefficient doubled. This skill is so useless right now that it may as well have a big red X across it so that it is disabled. Furthermore, Rejuvenating Tides is an enormous waste of time to use and is in no way practical competitively due to the overly large animation locked channel time for such a negligent heal factor and nearly unusable water field that is wasted due to its placement in skill cycling. Rejuvenating Tides once cast, should be a pulsing field that follows the Druid that doesn't require a channel for its duration, similar to a Gyro. This way the Druid could actually combo other skills and the water field while using it. CA Kit #5 Natural Convergence - the final pulse should be a blast finisher and deal a 1s knockdown to 5 targets within radius, in addition to its preexisting effects.

^ If buffs like this were to happen, it would justify the -20% pet attributes, removal of Staff #3 evade, and the removal of stun break from Druid Clarity.

But how is this in line with what I originally said about buffing team support while not buffing Druid personal sustain? Well:

  1. The buff to CA Kit gain will actually encourage Druids to run more DPS and less sustain. This suggested buff will enable more DPS less sustain setups, but it will not enable more and more and more sustain. What would happen here, is due to the long CA cool down, the Druid is limited in CA use regardless of the build ran. If Druids ran more DPS, they are sacrificing either Wilderness or Beastmastery to do this. So even though the 15% gain may allow them to more realistically access CA Kit more reliably, they are dropping the powerful sustain lines to be able to run a bit of DPS.
  2. CA Kit #1 Cosmic Ray suggestion would be a viable support spam for team fights but would still be a terrible option to spam in a 1v1. The heal is still very low and it would never under any circumstance be a good idea to burn your CA charge on some prot spam + a random 1s boon spams while you're getting lobbed around by a Holosmith or something, that has triple or more the damage output as your #1 heal spam. And burning all that CA charge is a bad idea 1v1 because you need to preserve it as much as possible for more frequent of DC/CS. In other words, this skill would be encouraged to spam on team fights, not in 1v1s on side nodes.
  3. CA Kit #2 Seeds Of Life suggestion would be great in team fights but again, this is not a great option to stand and wait to spam in a 1v1 for the same reason I keep explaining, you don't sit in CA Kit in a 1v1 because you become a punching a bag and it's a waste of CA preservation for more quickly utilizing the DC full 13 condi clear and CS stealth disengage. This suggestion bolsters team fight support presence, does very little for the Druid's personal sustain I a 1v1 on a side node. Anyone who actually plays Druid will understand what I mean by this. For these CA skills to be useful to stand and spam in a 1v1, they'd need nearly quadruple the base heal outputs.
  4. CA Kit #4 Rejuvenating Tides suggestion is something that should have been designed that way to begin with. Now this skill change would actually add a bit of viable side node sustain if it could be cast and passively maintained like a Gyro, even when the CA Kit shut off. I won't try to avoid that fact, but it wouldn't be much due to the ridiculously low healing that this skill pumps out. What's important here is that in a team fight, that small amount of healing and water field combo'd with other small heals, starts to become a viable amount of healing when we're talking 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 team mates on a node together. But the important change that it needs to be able to do that, is that the channel needs to be removed and this skill needs to function like a Gyro well effect. This change in general would also just be quality of life as Anet likes to call it, as it opens up multiple doors to skill combo play.
  5. CA Kit #5 Natural Convergence suggestion is long overdue. This skill sucks bad in its current state and is nothing but a liability to even try to use. If this skill had another blast finisher for that Rejuvenating Tides water field, and a knockdown to boot, it would be worth staying in CA Kit long enough to try and land during a team fight. But in a 1v1 on a side node, this would be an easy telegraph to avoid or interrupt and once again, Druid player are not going to sit in CA Kit and try to utilize something like this in focused 1v1 when opponents dodge or interrupt the combo 95 out of a 100 times attempted.
  6. And even considering all these buffs, the Druid would still be a far far easier target to be killed with focus than FB or Tempest in their current states, because when a Druid opts to burn that CA cool down for team support rather than saving it for the selfish sustain with full condi clear stealth disengage, it puts itself at great risk of becoming prone to enemy focus.

So ultimately, these changes proposed would greatly effect the team support capability of Druid, while granting very little additional personal sustain. They would open up DPS options for Druid and actually encourage straying away from full bunker play. What these buffs are really adding to Druid is more flexible play dynamic, not so much raw power. And Druid deserve that much. Changes like this would even be good for global changes in pve and wvw because the buffs don't even overlap on the roles of other classes. There is no quickness here, no alacrity as example, and very little additional boon splash to stack on what other classes are outputting.

This is the best request that I can think of while keeping it reasonable, without asking for a class overhaul of such a magnitude that we may as well be discussing an entirely new specialization design in a new expansion.

~ There you have it. Now I don't need to say anything about Druid again for like the next 6 months or something. I'm sure it will come up again, as always.

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I won't say that the druid mechanism was a fail but... Wait! I'll say it, the druid mechanism was a fail!Honnestly, the celestial avatar was poorly implemented and it's heavy focus on healing was what killed the thing. I didn't read the whole thing but more or less you want to make do with the thing and I feel it's to hopeless to be worth keeping. Even Elementalist's water staff AA heal for more than CA#1 and frostbow#1 heal for twice as much. The only value of CA is grace of the land.

From my point of view ANet just added a "transformation" on top of the ranger's kit and ended up nerfing everything to worthlessness. If it were me:

  • I'd remove the avatar and the energy.
  • I'd remove regular pet from being selected.
  • I'd add 6 druid specific pets (which would basicaly be the ranger's spirit in their mobile form)
  • I'd grant these pet a standard melee AA and whatever come to mind as second skill (let's say a gap closer since it's the main issue of the pets).
  • F2 would be the aura permanently active unless you put it on CD. Active skill being the active skill of the ranger's spirit.
  • I'd give glyphs a standard effect with an additionnal effect based on the spirit you use. (water spirit: heal theme, frost spirit: chill theme, tempest spirit: vuln theme... etc.)

NB.: now, I know that I suggest a whole new specialization but that would honnestly be way better and balanced than druid can be with any number tweak.

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@HeadCrowned.6834 said:No offense dude, but try making your point in shorter posts. It would make your message more clear as well as more attractive to read.

I'm pretty sure Arenanet as well as other forum users, are getting tired of seeing & reading half-thought single sentence statement threads with no real pitch, no body for debate, and no explanation behind any intended resolve.

Some things cannot be explained or properly presented for debate in a nutshell statement.

What I've written here is actually a complete statement. I could care less what short attention span forum users think of it, but rather what Arenanet devs think of it, when they sit down and read an actual full pitch with complete explanation.

The way you posted that though, as if this weren't model productive forum feedback, is sort of appalling really.

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I appreciated your post, although i disagree on few points. First, it's not true that druid can't be viable without Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow. Yes, right now those traits are almost mandatory. A lot of us always played druid with those 2 traits on a side-node bunker build FOR YEARS. But i'll tell you this. I've tried a lot of traits/utilities combination and my current teamfight-orientated support build don't use neither of those traits. Of course you need a team builded around it. Also, your suggestions to make druid more DPS orientated will end up by gaining another sidenoder with some sustain. We actually need more AoE defensive AND offensive support options and a Pet alternative mechanic that can interact with the rest of CA kit. Overall nice analysis tho.

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@kappa.2036 said:I appreciated your post, although i disagree on few points. First, it's not true that druid can't be viable without Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow. Yes, right now those traits are almost mandatory. A lot of us always played druid with those 2 traits on a side-node bunker build FOR YEARS. But i'll tell you this. I've tried a lot of traits/utilities combination and my current teamfight-orientated support build don't use neither of those traits. Of course you need a team builded around it. Also, your suggestions to make druid more DPS orientated will end up by gaining another sidenoder with some sustain. We actually need more AoE defensive AND offensive support options and a Pet alternative mechanic that can interact with the rest of CA kit. Overall nice analysis tho.

^ That's the kind of feedback everyone wants to see. An actual response about the topic material posted.

thank you thank you.

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Read the whole thing, and I gotta give props, this is well explained and well thought out. I would love to see Druid see play as more than a gimmick. I myself fell into the trap of trying to heal my allies with the CA kit, only to be sorely disappointed. You pump out better team healing by pressing WH 5 on cooldown on 4-5 people than you can ever hope to achieve by camping CA, but you have to take nature magic to achieve this, which means your pressure is non existent.

I find it wierd that the blast and water field in CA are incapable of being used together. Changing rejuvenating tides to a well would open up a lot of opportunities. Alternatively, if they want to keep the channel, buff the healing considerably and make the water field linger after the channel completes and let it continue to pulse heals. It's such a high commitment to use, it should have an appropriate reward.

One suggestion that I'd add is that Staff 1 could get a bit of its damage back. I can understand that it is a support weapon, so it shouldn't hit too hard, but it should be capable of putting out enough pressure that landing consecutive full channels is capable of actually moving someone's health bar.

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This is actually really good. The idea that Druid cannot fully support in team fights unless CA replaces pets and allows access to weapon skills is spot on ?. However I’d like to point out that is basically literally what we already got with soulbeast, or at least imo, as it is basically just a merge. So I doubt anet will make that change, also it would either be so busted or destroy the option of side noding becuz you cannot side node without pets, and if you want proof try playing bunker soul beast with 1 pet and realize how underperforming it is rn, and if it’s just busted you will be on the chopping block for even more nerfs to many things “over nerfed” as the OP put it.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

  1. The problem with CA Kit not being viable as a competitive team support goes much deeper than just the attribute tied numbers & effects that the skills pump out. The CA Kit is not and never was viable as a support role, because unlike FB or Tempest, when a Druid goes into CA Kit it has to drop all offensive pressure.

You mean, like, a Tome? Or an Overload?

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@Ragnar.4257 said:

  1. The problem with CA Kit not being viable as a competitive team support goes much deeper than just the attribute tied numbers & effects that the skills pump out. The CA Kit is not and never was viable as a support role, because unlike FB or Tempest, when a Druid goes into CA Kit it has to drop all offensive pressure.

You mean, like, a Tome? Or an Overload?

No

IF you ever tried to play a Druid support vs. playing a FB or Tempest support, you would immediately identify exactly what I mean.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

  1. The problem with CA Kit not being viable as a competitive team support goes much deeper than just the attribute tied numbers & effects that the skills pump out. The CA Kit is not and never was viable as a support role, because unlike FB or Tempest, when a Druid goes into CA Kit it has to drop all offensive pressure.

You mean, like, a Tome? Or an Overload?

No

IF you ever tried to play a Druid support vs. playing a FB or Tempest support, you would immediately identify exactly what I mean.

So, to clarify, when FB goes into ToR, or when Tempest goes water overload, you're saying that they don't have to stop offensive pressure.

Okay, whatever you say.

I don't even disagree that Druid needs help, I just like calling people out on nonsense statements.

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I think you guys are all playing Druid wrong.Druid should be played mainly for its roots immobilises spam + daze/stuns that is very useful to lock and focus targets for the kill.

You can take a leaf out of this top GvG video recently where they even started to use druids in their comp.rangers in WvW GvG comps! Unheard of in the past.They utilise the Druid roots to immob and separate targets for focus kills.

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@EremiteAngel.9765 WvW is completely different than SPvP with its PvE gear options and food/utility buffs. I have a great build myself for WvW, but boy does it function differently than how Druid works in SPvP.

And on a side note, could you please stop looking for reasons to showcase WvW videos in my SPvP balance discussion threads.

@Ragnar.4257 Druid has been out for a very long time now. If you haven't experienced what I'm talking about, the difference between FB/Tempest momentum shifts between Offensive/Defensive cycles vs. Druid shifts in Offensive/Defensive cycles and how frequent or non frequent the shifting is, I'm not going to enter a discussion with you about it.

There is a reason why Druids have to cut & run while they use the CA Kit rather than stay in the middle of the team fight you know.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@EremiteAngel.9765 WvW is completely different than SPvP with its PvE gear options and food/utility buffs. I have a great build myself for WvW, but boy does it function differently than how Druid works in SPvP.

And on a side note, could you please stop looking for reasons to showcase WvW videos in my SPvP balance discussion threads.

@"Ragnar.4257" Druid has been out for a very long time now. If you haven't experienced what I'm talking about, the difference between FB/Tempest momentum shifts between Offensive/Defensive cycles vs. Druid shifts in Offensive/Defensive cycles and how frequent or non frequent the shifting is, I'm not going to enter a discussion with you about it.

There is a reason why Druids have to cut & run while they use the CA Kit rather than stay in the middle of the team fight you know.

Okay, but that isn't what I picked you up on. You're moving the goalposts.

"unlike FB or Tempest, when a Druid goes into CA Kit it has to drop all offensive pressure."

not

"druids have to cut & run while they use the CA kit"

Agreed that FB and Tempest have better tools for staying in the middle of a fight while doing their stuff. But that's not the same as giving up offensive pressure.

An FB in ToR, or an Ele in water-Overload, is not doing any offensive pressure.

I used to main Ranger during Core and Druid during HoT, I'm not totally unfamiliar with how they work, despite my blue avatar condemning me to being "clearly biased".

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@Ragnar.4257 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@EremiteAngel.9765 WvW is completely different than SPvP with its PvE gear options and food/utility buffs. I have a great build myself for WvW, but boy does it function differently than how Druid works in SPvP.

And on a side note, could you please stop looking for reasons to showcase WvW videos in my SPvP balance discussion threads.

@Ragnar.4257 Druid has been out for a very long time now. If you haven't experienced what I'm talking about, the difference between FB/Tempest momentum shifts between Offensive/Defensive cycles vs. Druid shifts in Offensive/Defensive cycles and how frequent or non frequent the shifting is, I'm not going to enter a discussion with you about it.

There is a reason why Druids have to cut & run while they use the CA Kit rather than stay in the middle of the team fight you know.

Okay, but that isn't what I picked you up on. You're moving the goalposts.

"unlike FB or Tempest, when a Druid goes into CA Kit it has to drop all offensive pressure."

not

"druids have to cut & run while they use the CA kit"

Agreed that FB and Tempest have better tools for staying in the middle of a fight while doing their stuff. But that's not the same as giving up offensive pressure.

But it is though. You have to bail on the node and leave as a Druid every time you use CA Kit or the healing won't be enough to sustain the time allotted for the usage, because the CA Kit has no actual damage mitigation tools like Aegis or Projectile Bubbles or No-Crits while in Earth, only very small direct heals. The Druid has to completely relieve it's offense pressure in node play, not only if it wants to survive but also if it just wants clean usage of the CA Kit at all.

And yea, FB has an offensive mantra that can spam AoE burn damage while its tomes are opened, as well as other effects that come off the tomes or other utilities such as Retaliation or big CCs. It also has DPS effects that linger and work after the tomes are activated, such as focus #4 and #5, as well as all symbols or even spirit weapons. The Tempest isn't much different with the amalgam of random condition spam it has and effects that linger after they are cast, while it cycles through defenses. The FB and the Tempest can also confidently stay on and hold a node while they do this.

So not only does the Druid have to figuratively "drop offensive pressure" in terms of its team's push on a node to be able to use CA Kit, but it also literally has to "drop offensive pressure" in terms of its ability to deal any damage output at all. And the speed in the intervals of change between offense/defense usage between Druid and FB/Tempest is large. Again, the best way I can explain this is how: A Druid when using CA Kit has to drop damage pressure against someone, effectively turn and run away, and wait for the biggest reset to complete that it can achieve. But the FB/Tempest as we all know, are constantly pumping out damage in a 1v1 or team fight as they are simultaneously supporting everyone around them. The biggest problem here for the Druid cycle is that the lack of offensive pressure during the Druid's reset phase, allows the opponent to also reset phase. <- You don't get to benefit such a safety net luxury while vs. FBs or Eles on node, but you do vs. Druid. We all know that surviving against a Druid is much easier, and this is the reason why.

I don't know what else to say to clear it up for you bud. The fact that I had to explain this to you, shows that you were trying to argue with me from a "reading the stats on paper" point of view and not a point of view coming from experience as playing the different support roles. But rest assured I am not lying to you. What I've explained to you here is truthfully how this all pans out during actual play between these 3 different classes.

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To some extent, Condi trapper druid is capable of outputting offensive pressure while camping in CA. I've had a few 2v2 matches where I used this as a mindgame, hopping into CA in order to bait a target swap. This works best when both opponents are melee because you can use this opportunity to land an entagle, then land your traps. Finish off with a CA 5 for some additional damage and immob at the end as the final icing on the cake. Unfortunately, this strat is pure gimmick, and it does not apply to support or power druid.

Firebrand does not drop all pressure when entering ToC. Ignoring the fact Daring Challenge is a taunt, which is useful in its own right, Firebrand is capable of using instant cast mantras while utilizing it's tome skills. It can also do so while putting symbols on point.

Most importantly, ToC empowers the firebrand's team with powerful boons that enable them to keep up offensive pressure where they would otherwise have to play defensively. Yes, the firebrand themselves are outputting less pressure, but his team just became a lot more threatening.

Similarly, if we put Support Condi Tempest aside for the sake of argument, a support tempest is in a similar boat. Overload Water is everything CA wishes it could be, single handedly capable of swinging a teamfight in the ele's favor. It has a generous radius, much larger than Druid's CA kit, outputs more healing than a Druid landing every one of their CA skills, pumps out Frost Aura, stab and swiftness to ensure that you can kite if needed and land the entire cast, AoE regen, and if that were not enough, it doubles as a stunbreak and procs healing ripple.

Much like ToC, this skill allows the Ele's team to keep up offensive momentum in a scenario where they would otherwise have to disengage or play defensively.

Lets compare CA to see how it stacks up.

The healing output of CA is too low and comes out much too slowly for the druid to safely land these while staying on point. Additonally, the radius of these skills is so low, that you'll often find yourself hitting one other person at most with with a fraction of one of your channels. Because of these shortcomings, a Druid is forced to kite away in order to gain value out of his CA kit. This all but guarantees that his teammates will not be receiving much, if any benefit from CA skills.

In other words, the way CA is used is purely selfish in nature. What little team utility it is able to provide is not capable of enabling the Druid's team to output more offensive pressure. Its uses are defensive only.

I know this is not the exact point being argued, but it's worth looking at how these classes work in the context of a team fight. FB and Ele allow their team to maintain offensive momentum while a Druid does not.

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@"HeadCrowned.6834"

  1. "Literally every post you make is a huge text wall." - You're welcome.
  2. "You think a long post with everything unnecesarily thoroughly explained makes it better" - Depends on what audience you're appealing to.
  3. "If you cant make a point in a shorter text than your point loses its value" - Yup, you make it as short as you can and only as long as it needs to be.
  4. "The buffs you describe can be good but not overpowered, which is sweet." - Ty
  5. "You claim that druid wont be as good of a support as tempest or guardian anyway, then why bother?" - The goal of the suggestion was to grant Druid more of a "Support Assist" kind of role. The Druid will always be more mechanically oriented for side node 1v1 kind of play. I imagined that these buffs would grant the Druid the ability to sort of + a team fight during rotations not with DPS but rather a quick burst of team support. So imagine during a rotation that you had just successfully defended your home node and the person who tried to push it had fell to mid from you. Now you want to wiggle your way to the far node and decap it while your team is fighting mid. On your way there, you notice your team is at risk of losing the team fight, let's say your team has 1 down. You can swing into the mid node, activate CA and toss a round a water field blast healing to your team, a few important boons and stability, and even a quick AoE CC with Natural Convergence to try and seal the deal for your team to catch that revive and get back on their feet. And then of course when you turn CA off, it stealth's all nearby allies to also assist in the recover, then you peel off with your greater Druid mobility to head to far. So the difference here between FB/Tempest and Druid, is that the FB/Tempest are obviously much slower in rotation but better at staying in the fight and tossing much more frequent support, whereas the Druid's support is more sparse and bursty when it happens, and Druid can't contribute much AoE DPS to contend with the type of DPS being pumped out by FBs/Tempets/Necros ect ect. Right now the Druid's CA Kit support qualities are so ridiculously ineffective that it isn't worth burning the CD to stop in a team fight and do that during a serious match because it's too risky when you don't preserve CA for that personal sustain. You and I both know that extremely light team support assist is possible on Druid, but only when the opportunity conveniently presents itself to happen, which isn't often. And the level of support provided from Druid is equal to or even less than something like a Holosmith or Herald or even a Necromancer, and it's twice as risky to perform for half the quality of what is produced vs. what other classes can contribute in a team fight. My buff suggestions would not make the Druid a statistically dominant on node presence like FB or Tempest that is meant to brawl on node and win in the middle of great numbers, but rather a mobile team support +. It stops and contributes a burst of support and maybe a round of a DPS cycle, and then would want to go back to its role as a 1v1 duelist. The idea here is to turn CA Kit usage for the team from a high risk low reward, to a mid risk, mid reward. The idea of a mobile support + would add a new archetype into the dynamic that we haven't really seen yet. <- But yeah that's why we should bother.
  6. "About Glyphs" - I have tried hard to make Glyph builds that perform equally to or better than non Glyph builds, but it just doesn't seem to ever work. The mechanics behind them are poorly designed for competitive modes and the traits tied to them are terrible. The traits tied to Glyphs also require players to NOT select DC and CS, which is suicidal with the way things are patched right now. If Glyphs were to be useful or viable at all, there would need to be some very serious overhauling to the Glyph effects directly and the traits tied to them. This is a rabbit hole that I don't care to go down "no offense", it's just that I gave up on Glyphs a very long time ago. Though I would love to hear good Glyph suggestions from players who have actually given it a lot of thought.
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I've often wondered how druid would perform if it's glyph roles were inverted on the utility skills (not heal or elite).

The below strikes me as well better battlefield flow. And it wouldn't even really change much in other modes given how little glyphs are used.

Damage and apply debilitating conditions while you are trying to support, or Heal when you are trying to apply offensive pressure.Daze to give you more space for supporting, or break stun for allies when you get CC locked so you can get into CA.Deal damage via tether whilst in CA to create cost for focusing you while trying to recover., or Heal tether while applying offensive pressure for good synergy with another support.Push enemies away while in CA to give space, or Pull enemies towards you when you can deal damage.

It just feels like all the CA glyphs are about doing what CA already does 'more', but you're busy trying to survive and get what few CA skills off you can. Ranger usually has to prop its survivability up via utilities, and especially in CA where you lose access to mobility and weapon evades taking glyphs to just do what CA already does is an utter waste.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524

With all due respect, I don’t want major changes to profession to be done based off of a pvp game mode that was canned by ESL.

This game has abysmal support roles and designs. Heal support builds, skills and overall mechanics for support roles need to be reworked with movement based combat and fluidity in mind... Not more of the same junky aiming of small circles and moving around tablets in hopes to help moving teammates from dying. And this is what Druid needs, and it’s not more of the same old cruddy skill designs...

@Swagger.1459 said:The team finally decided to read some of Swagger’s threads, and upon filtering out a bunch of the verbose whining, we found some really incredible ideas to use! So, armed with this great feedback, our near future update aims to improve Druid Staff skills so they will be in a good spot for any game mode! But that’s not all!!! This update will also focus on improving healing Druid gameplay patterns and mechanics (just like we recently improved gameplay patterns and mechanics for the Deadeye)!

AMAZING STAFF IMPROVEMENTS!

Staff 1- Added 1 burning condition to the 3rd attack tick. The low damage and low healing make adding conditions to this skill ok.

Staff 2- Added a few burning conditions and increased radius to 300. All effects hit 5 enemies and allies within the radius. The current 130 radius was not enough to support allies, so the increased radius will help. This change will also be a useful for helping to contribute to breaking up the tight zergs in wvw.

Staff 3- Added a short duration burning condition trail and burning condition aoe burst around the user at the end of the skill movement.

Staff 4- Made this a circular patch, like all those other aoe patches, and added bleeding. The current cone design was awful to use during movement based combat, so the aoe design allows this skill to be useful. This will also make the skill useful for zerg breaking and sieging structures in wvw.

Staff 5- Made this skill an aoe dome. The previous small rectangle design was kind of useless, so this change will allow players to support their team better during mass combat situations.

USEFUL CELESTIAL AVATAR!

This form is now designed to be dependable! It will no longer be clunky to heal with, or overly easy to interrupt and shut down! Celestial Avatar will now be a sturdier form that is also front line support capable in WvW!

CA Form- Provides natural stability to the Druid and pulses stability to 5 allies within a 360 radius. We know that players get tossed around like rag dolls in wvw zerg play, so this will be a much needed improvement.

AF Mechanics- CA is now a stance that is maintained until downed, killed or manually exited. Once downed, killed or exited, you have to build up Astral Force again to activate and reenter CA form.

CA 1- This skill now functions like the old Guardian staff 1. Wide 600 range “astral” cone attack (effects are now like attacks from those bloodstone fen spirits at the Justicar) that hit 5 enemies and heals up to 5 allies within the effect. Does NOT heal the caster, only allies. This will be great for kill credit too!

CA 2- Removed the reticle aiming function and made it a point blank aoe that pops a seed instantly. 360 radius. 5 targets PLUS the caster.

CA 3- Removed the reticle aiming function and made it a point blank aoe with the same 360 radius. 5 Allies healing MINUS the caster. 5 enemy target daze.

CA 4- 360 radius. 5 Allies healed PLUS the caster.

CA 5- Removed the root so players are not sitting ducks! Added a 5 player, MINUS the Druid, healing component that coincides with the pulses and final damage. Same 360 radius.

AWESOME NEW TRAIT!

Lingering Light has been reworked! It is now called “All weapons generate Astral Force”. Selecting this trait allows the Druid to equally generate Astral Force while wielding ANY weapon! Enjoy!

SEEDS OF LIFE

These now pop instantly and have their radius increased to 360. 5 targets as normal.

ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR ANY SKEPTICS

The team took a ton of various gameplay factors into account before we planned on these changes. We know that trying to heal moving teammates with ground target skills wasn’t really fun, or effective, and more akin to herding cats. We know the staff needed some major love. We know that gating heals so harshly created scenarios where you couldn't heal your team when needed. We know that every ranger spec wasn't needed, and in some cases kicked from organized wvw squads, and we were sad about that for you all. We know that facing off against an 80 player zerg had some complications due to all the knock backs, interrupts... and especially the major incoming AoE damage spam… As cited by our very awesome, and communicative, @Ben Phongluangtham.1065

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:We considered the nerfs for passives in WvW. But in the end we were really concerned that the reduced defenses would make large group fights a lot less fun. There are just too many AOEs being flung around.

I'd welcome more discussion though.

The mega AoE damage spam video for reference...

And we also wanted to get back to our envisioned design roots for the Druid, as mentioned by none other than the amazing dev, and father of the Druid, @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048"

“Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.”

“Upcoming content will have stuff that you can’t just dodge to survive.”

“Berserk meta is going away”

...Enjoy your now fun, functional and fantastic new Druid! And sorry it took so long, but we were in extremely deep meditation about this subject and really wanted to make sure that our ranger players had the best Druiding experience ever! Thank you for your patience and support! We love you ppls! A lot!

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Since an overactive mod decided to remove my post, ill post it again.

The suggestions in OP overall make no sense if thats what it stays with. Yes its an improvement, but it wont make druid that much better. Druid can already come into a teamfight and burst heal its allies with glyph in CA and leave the fight. Then, as you say, it has to back off again to a side node. There it loses basically every duel in higher level pvp because it does no damage nor has enough resustain to hold a node for a longer period of time. The core of the problem lies there, not with its potential teamfight support (which would already be buffed significantly by just upgrading healing coefficients - a more realistic buff).

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@HeadCrowned.6834 said:Since an overactive mod decided to remove my post, ill post it again.

The suggestions in OP overall make no sense if thats what it stays with. Yes its an improvement, but it wont make druid that much better. Druid can already come into a teamfight and burst heal its allies with glyph in CA and leave the fight. Then, as you say, it has to back off again to a side node. There it loses basically every duel in higher level pvp because it does no damage nor has enough resustain to hold a node for a longer period of time. The core of the problem lies there, not with its potential teamfight support (which would already be buffed significantly by just upgrading healing coefficients - a more realistic buff).

I don't disagree with heal coefficient buffing.

My suggestions were different because it would seem that Arenanet is very against Druid heal output, considering that Celestial Avatar heal skills have been hit harder with nerfs over the years much much more than anything else.

The suggestions I made would provide an increase in personal sustain though. Mostly due to the CA4 suggestion to remove the channel and make it a well effect, along with CA5 suggestion to add a 2nd blast finisher to the kit.

The idea here was to suggest things that Arenanet might actually consider.

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i feel like they nerfed CA cuz the drood traits were too strong. make CA 10 sec again is the # 1 thing they gotta do. some other suggest: add some debilitating condis to CA and maybe a few boons, possibly more condi clear, drood staff 3 nerf was dumb and unnecessary, glyphs are imo fine problem is rang utility bar has to be mostly stun breaks.

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