Why is celestial avatar so underwhelming?

I tried Druid today and as someone that has played Firebrand, avatar feels very underwhelming compared to heal tome, the heals feel negligible and i can't even outheal a single persons damage making it feel kind of useless.

Is there any reason the elite specs mechanic feels so weak compared to other elite specs?

I expected as much sustain as my spellbreaker atleast for a healing spec.

Am i doing something wrong?

No, you're not doing anything wrong. Firebrand is a busted elite spec and has way many more toys to play with it.

A Firebrand can cover huge area offensively and also for support. It has lots of CC and Wards to stop and push people out. It farts Aegis and Block on himself. Their anti projectile is actually a Bubble/AoE and reflects projectiles. Outside of Tomes, they can still support effectively and also can just reset their tomes with the elite. Their Mantras are actually very useful.

Meanwhile, a Druid has to charge Astral Force, doesn't dish out as much CC if it doesn't use Longbow (Good luck pushing them out when everyone has Stability, Aegis, Passives and plenty of CC/Stun Breaks like DD and Mirage). It doesn't give any superior supporting boons like Aegis, except Regeneration and some self Protection. A Druid doesn't have access to huge area of effects. Celestial Avatar can't be reset like Tomes, it needs to be generated and it also has a cooldown. Outside of CA, a Druid will have a hard time supporting their allies, except for Ancestral Grace, blasting water fields and regeneration. Their Glyphs are useless. When the pet dies, it gets slapped a long cooldown, making the Ranger/Druid even less effective.

Think Druid as to only have Tome of Resolve (Tome 2), that needs to be generated and can't be reset. It just has a shorter cooldown. Also, a Druid can't remove other allies conditions if it doesn't have Signet of Renewal (which dumps all condis on your pet, gg if you don't Swap it), Healing Spring or traited Glyphs (but I just said they were useless, so no). Tome 2 can remove 3 conditions on #2 and 5 condis on #5.

In overall, Druid has been nerfed many times since HoT and FB very much less since PoF (In comparison to Druid). The only thing Druid has over FB is Mobility and Positioning. Even Mobility I'm not sure anymore, because those 600-1200 range teleport tho...

Guardian in general received lots of new things the past years, like Focus, Staff and Spirit Weapon changes. Ranger has yet to see any new things. I'm not even being biased for this point.

@"Krispera.5087" said:No, you're not doing anything wrong. Firebrand is a busted elite spec and has way many more toys to play with it.

A Firebrand can cover huge area offensively and also for support. It has lots of CC and Wards to stop and push people out. It farts Aegis and Block on himself. Their anti projectile is actually a Bubble/AoE and reflects projectiles. Outside of Tomes, they can still support effectively and also can just reset their tomes with the elite. Their Mantras are actually very useful.

Meanwhile, a Druid has to charge Astral Force, doesn't dish out as much CC if it doesn't use Longbow (Good luck pushing them out when everyone has Stability, Aegis, Passives and plenty of CC/Stun Breaks like DD and Mirage). It doesn't give any superior supporting boons like Aegis, except Regeneration and some self Protection. A Druid doesn't have access to huge area of effects. Celestial Avatar can't be reset like Tomes, it needs to be generated and it also has a cooldown. Outside of CA, a Druid will have a hard time supporting their allies, except for Ancestral Grace, blasting water fields and regeneration. Their Glyphs are useless. When the pet dies, it gets slapped a long cooldown, making the Ranger/Druid even less effective.

Think Druid as to only have Tome of Resolve (Tome 2), that needs to be generated and can't be reset. It just has a shorter cooldown.

In overall, Druid has been nerfed many times since HoT and FB very much less since PoF (In comparison to Druid). The only thing Druid has over FB is Mobility and Positioning. Even Mobility I'm not sure anymore, because those 600-1200 range teleport tho...

Guardian in general received lots of new things the past years, like Focus, Staff and Spirit Weapon changes. Ranger has yet to see any new things. I'm not even being biased for this point.

Making a roaming build for druid based on the longbow one on metabattle, somehow a single warrior trait being adrenal health outsustains a whole heal elite spec and its mechanic.

I am talking about the pure sustain, not support it offers. Even on my FB i can spam 1 with quickness to top myself off while druids 1 does 231 healing lol. I just get outdamaged which makes CA useless while adrenal health is passive.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQJL2vCOsAXLWSEsmKwo7EAPV7qj1nAwKYmVi0fD-jlSBQBT4CAkPdBhRpyCOEA7b/hEq+jGOCAA4BAcFlVmRJYAgDgzPPzPPw5nf+5nfeN/8zP/8zP/8zPvMAUjB-w

@Anput.4620 said:Making a roaming build for druid based on the longbow one on metabattle, somehow a single warrior trait being adrenal health outsustains a whole heal elite spec and its mechanic.

Warrior is plagued with Passive play and no wonder a Spellbreaker doesn't go down easily. It fits the theme, but sometimes it just gets too much.

@Anput.4620 said:I am talking about the pure sustain, not support it offers. Even on my FB i can spam 1 with quickness to top myself off while druids 1 does 231 healing lol. I just get outdamaged which makes CA useless while adrenal health is passive.

I mean, even the support it offers is eclipsed by FB. I guess Druid 1 = Cosmic Ray ? That thing is so slow to land and hard to target, because of the small radius (120). The only thing good about it is the 1200 range, but I would prefer to get the, better heal and easier to land, 600 range Tome of Resolve 1 instead. They even nerfed Cosmic Ray on May...

I'd just like to add that Celestial Avatar was nerfed so many times that it's less than a shell of it's former self.

It's a resource mechanic with a cooldown, already a bad design in the gaming industry, that then had it's resources and cooldown nerfed, while having the healing skills themselves heavily nerfed on top of it.

So no, you're not doing anything wrong. ANet is.

The ressource mechanic is fine. People complained too much about Druidic Clarity, Celestial Shadow and Druids being unkillable in PvP so they increased the CA cooldown and nerfed the healing into nothing compared to other classes.

They should switch Druidic Clarity with Natural Stride, so you can't have both avatar traits and buff Avatar to compensate. Change Grace of the Land to it's beta version where it reduced condition damage, maybe 4% per stack/5 stacks for 20% total, there are more than enough might sources. So you have tools against burst and conditions for yourself and allies but not at the same time.Also buff lingering light back to a group buff. It is just a 50% outgoing healing increase right now. The buff you get for entering CA does nothing with it's 3 second duration.

@jcbroe.4329 said:I'd just like to add that Celestial Avatar was nerfed so many times that it's less than a shell of it's former self.

It's a resource mechanic with a cooldown, already a bad design in the gaming industry, that then had it's resources and cooldown nerfed, while having the healing skills themselves heavily nerfed on top of it.

So no, you're not doing anything wrong. ANet is.

This.

Also, the radius on Cosmic Ray is way too small.

@Draeyon.4392 said:Also, the radius on Cosmic Ray is way too small.Aaaand the delay between the cast and the effect. It's like ~2 seconds. When the effect does it's thing the target is in the other corner of the map.Also there is no point for the Cosmic Ray if with CA#4 and CA#3 already fill the time available which are better heals overall.

3 out of 5 Celestial Avatar skills have a fairly massive cast time. Compare that, along with the massive butch of nerfs the spec's received over time, to Firebrand and you'll see why it doesn't see any play. Lack of stability outside of SotP is a large flaw, too.

I love my rangers and really wanted to like Druid, but for all the game mechanic reasons already mentioned it was already annoying when they released it and then with the thrashing it received with the nerf bat I haven't equipped druid since PoF gave us SoulBeast. I would love to see Druid get reworked into something meaningful, but won't be holding my breath.

Yeah Druid is a joke compared to Firebrand. The nerfs they have given Firebrand in comparison to the ones they have given Druid is an even bigger joke. Not as many people complain about Firebrand in comparison to other PoF specs because you don't see them one-shotting people, but they are so disgustingly overtuned. I'm sure they see Druid as totally super awesome because they are wanted in raids.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Yeah Druid is a joke compared to Firebrand. The nerfs they have given Firebrand in comparison to the ones they have given Druid is an even bigger joke. Not as many people complain about Firebrand in comparison to other PoF specs because you don't see them one-shotting people, but they are so disgustingly overtuned. I'm sure they see Druid as totally super awesome because they are wanted in raids.

Druid never 1 shots any thing either. The nerfs to healing should of just been for pvp and pve i guess because no one ever complained druid healing to stronk in wvw. It literally wasent even welcome in wvw zergs only decent in small scale and was decent for trolling noobs with the immortal druid bunker

Celestial avatar is only good if high heal power, and you also take the healing grandmaster trait in druid.

The whole press F5 to change the whole skill bar is annoying as hell.Clunky and small range as hell. Slow to cast as hell. Druid healing in avatar nerfed to hell.I guess we are in hell!