The main problem of the druid sustain/support and how to balance it.

First of all, i want to say that this post i mainly about pvp and wvw, but i will touch some things regarding pve aswell.I think that druid is in a really good spot in pvp right now. Recent buffs to WS traitline made the spec even more durable, and the new GotL is a really great buff to our might stacking uptime. After the CA/Shouts nerfs, WS became almost mandatory so right now the class have more sustain than before and, with the recent might stacking buffs and the new pets, the damage is the same or even higher than our old Beastmastery/Nature Magic build.So right now we have an almost unkillable 1v1 bunker that is confined in side-node fights since the spec can't compete with other teamfight supports like firebrand or tempest.

Why druid support is not at the same level of firebrand or tempest?In pve druid is picked mainly because of might stacking and spirits buffs, which is "static support", also the CA cooldown is only 10 sec.But in pvp/wvw our support/healing potential is locked behind a 15 sec cooldown, while Firebrand and tempest can continuously support their allies. Sure they can't always heal but when they are not healing, they can grant a lot of boons/auras/blocks. Druid support is mostly about healing and is locked behind avatar form. Also spirits and gliphs are not good in PvP game modes since the effect is too static. Another problem that i want to point out is the fact that most of the time we go in OVERHEALING while using CA skills.

What to do?A lot of people think that the main problem is the CA cooldown. if it is 10 sec is too strong, if it is 18 sec is too high.Other people think that the healing/sustain is too much.Personally, i don't think that the main problem is the CA cooldown, 15 seconds is already an high cooldown for a only-healing class. Also the healing is completely balanced considering that most druids pick healing gear/amulets with healing runes.

I think the real problem is the 1v1 capabilities of the ranger combined with a healing role. Most supports have litteraly NO MOBILITY and DAMAGE, look at tempest of firebrands. Druid, on the other hand, can do good damage (mostly by pets) and have a really good mobility.

I think the best way to balance this is by pushing the role of druid in a more teamfight centric play :

1) Increasing the overall support AoE OUTSIDE CA:

• Astral Wisp needs a better AoE effect.
• Ancestral Grace needs to grant Protection AoE and not only to the pet.
• When we are in CA, we already have tons of healing/CC/condi cleanses. We dont need more - Glyph of Alignment/Glyph of Rejuvenation/Glyph of Unity effects needs to be inverted or reworked to grant more support/healing when OUTSIDE OF CELESTIAL AVATAR FORM . The related trait Verdant Etching needs a better effect, something like granting AoE stability and istant AoE condition cleanse.
• "Search and Rescue!" range needs to be increased to 900 range ATLEAST. Make the teleport AoE so we can teleport multiple corpses.
• Spirits needs to become ground targeted/movable skills - something like the Ventari tablet.
• Warhorn #4 should reveal the enemy for 4 seconds. Windborne notes should grant regeneration on every warhorn skill, not only for Call of the Wild.
• Lingering Light needs a better effect.
• CA #1 should have better radius and grant a boon to become worthwhile.
• Some pets need better support capabilities/utilities, especially core pets.

2) Decreasing the dueling capabilities:

• Druidic Clarity effect could be reworked like this: Becoming celestial avatar removes 5 conditions from you AND your allies (still breaks stun).
• Celestial Shadow stealth and superspeed duration should be decreased to 2 seconds in pvp only.
• Grace of the Land could grant 2 stacks for 10 seconds instead of 3 stacks for 8 seconds in pvp only.

3) Increasing Soulbeast dueling capabilities so druid will not be the best choice if you want to play on side nodes. A lot of good suggestions for SB are already in the Ranger Forum.

I think this would promote better aoe team support overall to druid while slightly decreasing the 1v1 - 1v2 capabilities. Let me know what do you guys think :)

No, it's none of those things.

Also, the shout build absolutely did more damage; the current bunker build is hard pressed to push kills against anything with average intelligence. That's why people were opting for LB in Solo Q.

Druid doesn't get the kill in any of it's matchups against a competent player. It just stalls an eventually neutralized point. And even then, only Daredevil is really forced to leave, everything else can just indefinitely kite and stall.

Spellbreaker does everything that Druid does with the same mobility and the bonus of pushing the kills, for a role performance comparison.

Troll Unguents raw healing is the problem. Rugged Growth is the problem.

The old shout build could be counterplayed with just a few interrupts and boon strips. The current bunker build lacks the ability to counterplay it because of how good the options on core Ranger have been made.

This is not the time to go advocating for nerfs on things that were never a balance issue just because recent buffs pushed a build into a competitive position.

Here's how Druid used to work; you could pressure and kill them after coming out of Celestial Form, or with interrupts and/or a condi bomb during. But now, with Troll Unguent + Water Runes + minor trait healing for something like 13k health in 8 seconds and shedding condis on top of Rugged growth adding another 1.6k-3k+ healing depending on the source, the ebb and flow of the old Druid build has been erased by a build that always has a safety net.

Do NOT go nerfing Druid left and right, you'll just end up with a weakened spec with the same, watered down, lack of counterplay gameplay.

Troll Unguent and Rugged Growth need to be addressed. Druid does not.

@jcbroe.4329 said:Troll Unguent and Rugged Growth need to be addressed. Druid does not.

Absolutely not. Troll Unguent and Rugged Growth works fine on core ranger and soulbeast, they don't need to be addressed. Sure both abilities grants a lot of sustain if combined with druid, but they are not the problem. Leave them alone.

@jcbroe.4329 said:

Also, the shout build absolutely did more damage; the current bunker build is hard pressed to push kills against anything with average intelligence. That's why people were opting for LB in Solo Q.

The shout build had more "burst" from pets, that's it. Easy avoidable. Right now we can have almost perma 25 might/fury/swiftness/regen while running only defensive traitlines. Now we have less burst maybe, but the damage is not that different from before since we have more consistent fury / might uptime.

@jcbroe.4329 said:

Spellbreaker does everything that Druid does with the same mobility and the bonus of pushing the kills, for a role performance comparison.

Druid have less killing potential but can heal/clear condies/ress faster/stealthing allies, for a role performance comparison.

The real problem with druid it that you like most players could not even imagine the druid sepc without trating for "druidic clarity" and "celecstrial shadow".

You want better healing support and less mobility survivebility? EZ- go with "cultivated synergy" & "verdant etching"+ gyphs and healing glyph. but you won't do it right?Because glyphs sucks, cultivated synergy" & "verdant etching" sucks, staff 2&4 sucks, CA 1 sucks, druid minors- mhea - When you think about it, druid without "druidic clarity" and "celecstrial shadow" is probably our weakest defensive trait line.

Druid need buffs in most areas and nerfs on "druidic clarity" , "celecstrial shadow", staff (1).

And ya, Rugged Growth should not scale with healing power the way it doses now. It supposed to give survivebility to core ranger/soulbeast and more CA regen for druids. WS being mandatory is a stap back, it's kinda like warrior defense trait line ATM. Other aspects of core ranger like marksmanship and skirmishing could use a serious buff.

@"LughLongArm.5460" said:

You want better healing support and less mobility survivebility? EZ- go with "cultivated synergy" & "verdant etching"+ gyphs and healing glyph. but you won't do it right?Because glyphs sucks, cultivated synergy" & "verdant etching" sucks, staff 2&4 sucks, CA 1 sucks, druid minors- mhea - When you think about it, druid without "druidic clarity" and "celecstrial shadow" is probably our weakest defensive trait line.

This is exactly why i suggested to buff aoe support in favor of self-sustain, just because i can predict heavy nerfs to our favourite traits in the next balance patches.

Why would you nerf an elite spec that was perfectly balanced because you overtuned changes you made elsewhere?

And yes, Troll Unguent and Rugged Growth are both broken specifically in how they interact with Druid because they dislodged what makes Druid a balanced spec; resource management.

The prior builds had maybe 3 things that could tick at 1 time to generate AF, and one of them, the main workhorse, could be removed. Now, there's at least 5 different AF sources going at once, instantly refilling the resource, mindlessly, with no counter. That's why you see people asking for a longer cooldown on CF, because as is it can be used at will.

Which is why "Druid" only needs 2 nerfs:

• Condense Troll Unguent again, down to a 3-5s max duration, personally I'd say 4s is the sweet spot
• Change Rugged Growth, it will never not be broken otherwise. It should alter protection to make it have an increased damage reduction; 40-50%

Short of that, I'd rather just see the cooldown of CF increased to 18-20s. Much better than watering down and reducing the effectiveness of Druid for no reason because we'd rather do that than address an apex predator build.

WS is strong cus ATM SB depends on it.

@"jcbroe.4329" said:Why would you nerf an elite spec that was perfectly balanced because you overtuned changes you made elsewhere?

And yes, Troll Unguent and Rugged Growth are both broken specifically in how they interact with Druid because they dislodged what makes Druid a balanced spec; resource management.

The prior builds had maybe 3 things that could tick at 1 time to generate AF, and one of them, the main workhorse, could be removed. Now, there's at least 5 different AF sources going at once, instantly refilling the resource, mindlessly, with no counter. That's why you see people asking for a longer cooldown on CF, because as is it can be used at will.

Which is why "Druid" only needs 2 nerfs:

• Condense Troll Unguent again, down to a 3-5s max duration, personally I'd say 4s is the sweet spot
• Change Rugged Growth, it will never not be broken otherwise. It should alter protection to make it have an increased damage reduction; 40-50%

Short of that, I'd rather just see the cooldown of CF increased to 18-20s. Much better than watering down and reducing the effectiveness of Druid for no reason because we'd rather do that than address an apex predator build.

I understand your logic but these changes will lead to what?Staff/ regen/ new Troll Unguent will still refill CA within 15 seconds, the only change I can see is the use of Dolyak runes instead of Water runes at worst.Also i don't think Anet will make another Hardy Conduit (Tempest trait). More burst healing on 4s Troll Unguent? Probably a solution, but this penalize core ranger and soulbeast aswell.

Finally someone addressed it @ jcbroe rugged growth is OP as all hell on druid. (My issue with it is the scaleing with healing power)

Now on the other hand op your living up to your name, the suggestions you make would make druid an unkillable bunker. Jcbroe is absolutely right nm bm did more damage. Why? Well you could give your pet quite a bit of damage modifiers between BM minor traits, the top adept tier NM, and stack and bounce might on the pet and yourself with the NM Minor trait

The new WS build a crazy bunker but only because of the rugged growth scaleing with healing power and the Regen it provides to CA form. Even so it's easily forced off of point especially by a scourge or spellbreaker as half of playing a good ranger anything is to kite kite kite.

Sorry dude while I totally the frustration of being gated by CA generation and glyphs sucking, but your suggestions really miss the mark in this case.

@Eleazar.9478 said:Finally someone addressed it @ jcbroe rugged growth is OP as all hell on druid. (My issue with it is the scaleing with healing power)

Now on the other hand op your living up to your name, the suggestions you make would make druid an unkillable bunker. Jcbroe is absolutely right nm bm did more damage. Why? Well you could give your pet quite a bit of damage modifiers between BM minor traits, the top adept tier NM, and stack and bounce might on the pet and yourself with the NM Minor trait

The new WS build a crazy bunker but only because of the rugged growth scaleing with healing power and the Regen it provides to CA form. Even so it's easily forced off of point especially by a scourge or spellbreaker as half of playing a good ranger anything is to kite kite kite.

Sorry dude while I totally the frustration of being gated by CA generation and glyphs sucking, but your suggestions really miss the mark in this case.

Rugged Growth has been added on september, which is not long time ago. Anet DECIDED to give us a trait that could be useful to regen astral force probably because they wanted to compensate the heavy nerfs to shouts and CA as well as to give a little more sustain to core ranger. Currently the trait, as you said, is probably too good for druid, BUT NOT FOR RANGER. Previously Rugged Growth was Bark Skin which already was a damage reduction trait. I simply dont think they gonna revert it. Also generally every trait or skill that grants healing in this game scale with healing power...removing the healing power scaling just because the trait is overperforming on druid doesn't have any sense.

@kappa.2036 said:

@"jcbroe.4329" said:Why would you nerf an elite spec that was perfectly balanced because you overtuned changes you made elsewhere?

And yes, Troll Unguent and Rugged Growth are both broken specifically in how they interact with Druid because they dislodged what makes Druid a balanced spec; resource management.

The prior builds had maybe 3 things that could tick at 1 time to generate AF, and one of them, the main workhorse, could be removed. Now, there's at least 5 different AF sources going at once, instantly refilling the resource, mindlessly, with no counter. That's why you see people asking for a longer cooldown on CF, because as is it can be used at will.

Which is why "Druid" only needs 2 nerfs:

• Condense Troll Unguent again, down to a 3-5s max duration, personally I'd say 4s is the sweet spot
• Change Rugged Growth, it will never not be broken otherwise. It should alter protection to make it have an increased damage reduction; 40-50%

Short of that, I'd rather just see the cooldown of CF increased to 18-20s. Much better than watering down and reducing the effectiveness of Druid for no reason because we'd rather do that than address an apex predator build.

Well right out of the gate, having to rely more on regen again to do the bulk of the CA building has actual counterplay to it because of boon removal.

Beyond that, it reduces the healing per second over time, which is also important for counterplay. With a spec designed with burst healing in mind, the time in between when it's capable of burst healing is incredibly important to balance, and because of the WS empowered Troll Unguent, it's now very difficult to pressure a Druid through their healing skill because they remove half their conditions and heal for ~1.6k per second for 8 seconds, which is HUGE damage mitigation and also lasts half the length across of the CA cooldown, significantly reducing the time that a Druid is truly vulnerable.

But ultimately, besides opening up a longer period of vulnerability for the Druid, what's most important about the changes is how they would affect gameplay. In order to generate enough AF in the cooldown timeframe, a Druid player would have to more actively participate in the fight with their staff or etc so that they couldn't just "run away," get CA back up, and reset the whole situation indefinitely.

Having to be more actively engaged in the fight to generate CA on top of less Healing per Second over time would be huge steps in the right direction, because what the bunker build has ultimately done is taken the old Druid builds weaknesses and removed them almost entirely. Eating a condi bomb during or coming out of CA used to be a death sentence after SoR was down, just as eating a burst of any kind after SoS and your heal was down was.

Druid being a burst utility/healing spec isn't a problem and doesn't need a reduction in efficacy as long as we don't change the combat cadence the removes the specs vulnerabilities when it isn't able to utilize that utility, and that's ultimately the problem; the combat cadence has basically been removed for this spec.

Also, Druid aside, WS is a heavy apex predator traitline and Troll Unguent is in the same boat as it's heal. The heal and traitline are vastly outperforming every other traitline and all of Ranger's other combinations/synergies. I'm not going to say that I don't enjoy or benefit from how strong it is, but Marksmanship and Skirmishing both deserved far more attention, and Healing Spring especially needs a little love.

As far as balance outside of Druid is concerned, Core Ranger is in a great spot PvP wise, and would continue to be in a great spot with the change suggestions I made. It really is just being overwhelmed by the rest of the metabuilds that all need their own slew of reductions.

Soulbeast just needs to be improved. The mechanic itself is clunky, and if you had the utilities of a Bear or Jacaranda or etc readily accessible, it would feel like a much tankier class. Bear Stance needs a straight up healing increase. Every stance that isn't Dolyak is underperforming or just needs a flat out rework. Dagger needs an entire rework. And the Master and GM traits are all bland and one dimensional, not offering nearly enough utility for an elite spec traitline.

@kappa.2036 said:

@Eleazar.9478 said:

I know when it was introduced and I don't want them to revert it I specifically said it scales too much with healing power (682 if you run menders with water and with nm traitlines that's a pretty high protection time lol that's our old troll ungent). The reason they reworked it was because they wanted to reduce flat damage reduction and give us more synergy with protection and our traitlines.

And of course it's not op on base ranger, becuase why would you run healing power on anything not druid. Maybe could make use on a supportive soulbeast but it would be a wasted stat.

Just to summarize my view:

1) druid ATM doing Ok in the meta(not over used or over preforming.

2)Druid is not immortal on point. It will survive for long only when it can kite. scourges/spellbreakers and even mesmers/holos, can get a decap on a druid.

3) "druidic clarity" , "celecstrial shadow", staff (1) could use a nerf(more of a rework for staff "1), but it should be part of balancing druid weak aspects(mostly: glyphs , cultivated synergy" & "verdant etching", staff 2&4 , CA 1, minor traits.

4)WS is too mandatory ATM, Rugged Growth scaling with healing power should be weaker.

5)Even without any changes you can make the sacrifice between self survivability/mobility and healing support, by changing your build. For example:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhZ6kQFoiVsgVwkVgoVsMJYNBgH3Ewpyd5ycwB1jaTtk3kG-jpwBBAw+DaZAA

Given the extensive nerfing history for our class, I'm less than inclined to ask ANet to address anything involving the ranger.

@"LughLongArm.5460" said:Just to summarize my view:

1) druid ATM doing Ok in the meta(not over used or over preforming.

2)Druid is not immortal on point. It will survive for long only when it can kite. scourges/spellbreakers and even mesmers/holos, can get a decap on a druid.

3) "druidic clarity" , "celecstrial shadow", staff (1) could use a nerf(more of a rework for staff "1), but it should be part of balancing druid weak aspects(mostly: glyphs , cultivated synergy" & "verdant etching", staff 2&4 , CA 1, minor traits.

4)WS is too mandatory ATM, Rugged Growth scaling with healing power should be weaker.

5)Even without any changes you can make the sacrifice between self survivability/mobility and healing support, by changing your build. For example:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhZ6kQFoiVsgVwkVgoVsMJYNBgH3Ewpyd5ycwB1jaTtk3kG-jpwBBAw+DaZAA

Nerfing Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow is going to hurt build diversity for Druid.

Healing Power based builds will become the only viable way to run Druid, because right now non-healing invested builds are already only running Druid because of those traits.

I understand that you're trying to accomplish trait diversity, but nerfing those traits is only going to weaken Druid as a whole and ultimately push the role it's played as even further into heal bunker.

I remember when Glyphs were meta and nobody was using Celestial Shadow and thought it was weak. I even remember when condi poison Druid was meta for a short while with Ancient Seeds being taken with the staff and glyph trait.

The current state of the metagame is what's making the trait options seem more powerful/mandatory than they are, coupled with the Seed of Life condition removal nerf. I even made a PvP changes list a few weeks back that would solve these sorts of issues without nerfs if you'd be curious.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/20929/can-we-get-some-slight-changes-pvp-focus#latest

Why would you want to make Druid a lesser version of Firebrand? Nerfing Druid in that way to make it more of teamfighter would make the whole class useless. Also it wouldn't make Soulbeast a viable side noder all of a sudden. The viability of a build in PvP always relies on the viable pvp-builds of other classes. Druid was OK at first, but after condi warrior became unviable it got an increase in popularity.

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@"LughLongArm.5460" said:Just to summarize my view:

1) druid ATM doing Ok in the meta(not over used or over preforming.

2)Druid is not immortal on point. It will survive for long only when it can kite. scourges/spellbreakers and even mesmers/holos, can get a decap on a druid.

3) "druidic clarity" , "celecstrial shadow", staff (1) could use a nerf(more of a rework for staff "1), but it should be part of balancing druid weak aspects(mostly: glyphs , cultivated synergy" & "verdant etching", staff 2&4 , CA 1, minor traits.

4)WS is too mandatory ATM, Rugged Growth scaling with healing power should be weaker.

5)Even without any changes you can make the sacrifice between self survivability/mobility and healing support, by changing your build. For example:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhZ6kQFoiVsgVwkVgoVsMJYNBgH3Ewpyd5ycwB1jaTtk3kG-jpwBBAw+DaZAA

Depends on how "Druidic Clarity" and "Celestial Shadow" should be nerfed and how other aspects of druid should be buffed. " Druidic Clarity" and "Celestial Shadow" were never considered weak, only some bunker specific builds builds used "verdant etching" and it was during the "bunker condi meta" where druid, shield mes , eles stood for ages on points and it was very hard to kill them(so no need for Celestial Shadow). For WvW it was always an auto pick. "Primal echos" became close to useless after A.net nerfed- ancient seeds(used to have no CD), moment of clarity(used to give 100% duration), verdant etching(used to remove 2 condies and gave druid a condi clear option).

Lets tgrow one question in the room to solve the "No counter" problem.How much stability access does a druid have?