Suggestions for some Druid PvP love

So I guess it's not much news that Druids aren't considered that meta or strong atm, probably a good thing that was needed after its long dominance as a bunker in pvp. Sure, they're still viable, but in their current state I do feel like the elite spec has lost all its character in pvp.

The reasons are quite straight forward I guess:-Celestial Avatar has seen many nerfs in both its healing power and its cooldown-Glyphs are weak and their special Druid Flowerpower trait is also quite underwhelming-Staff has also seen quite some nerfs (also because of some pet nerfs) and isn't as widely used as it once was.

When the Druid was announced I fell in love straight away, simply because I love its thematics and artstyle. Playing as this celestial nature-bound ranger just feels really fun. But all the aspects that form that experience are pretty dead and out-of-meta atm, leaving Druid to be a slightly bunkier and supportier, but much less powerful version of the Soulbeast.

As I was thinking about what could make the Druid abilities better, some simple things came to mind:

-Decrease CA cooldown.This one is probably the highest on my wishlist. The PvE 10sec and PvP 20sec cooldown, hurts a lot. Especially after the may balance patch that further reduced the healing power of Druids. What makes the long cooldown even more annoying is that the entire function of gathering Astral Power has turned completely irrelevant in pvp. The cooldown is simply so long that you have a full CA either way. So even if decreasing the cooldown is deemed too powerful, maybe a slight nerf to the percentages at which Astral Power is gained might help to compensate.-Buff Glyphs.I can't remember any moment when any of the Glyphs was actually activaly used in PvP. Maybe an idea to give them the flowers either way (perhaps with an increased AOE range) and make the current trait buff the power of those flowers even more.-Buff Staff.Staff has lost its touched ever since building up Astral Power became mostly irrelevant and parts of its damage were nerved. It's already clear that other weapons hold much more power and that staff still has some awesome heals and mobility, but it current difference in power output hurt really much. Especially buffs to Staff 2 and 4 would really feel helping this weapon come back to its graces (just as the previously mentioned CA cooldown/astral tweaks)-Buff Lingering LightEver since this trait was introduced I really wanted to love it, both in PvP and PvE. Especially in PvP I see a lot of potential for this trait to be a good replacement for Grace of the Land (I've been using it now). However, the most annoying aspect of it is that for half of the ability to work, you need to cast CA3 or 5 within the intial 5 seconds of getting into CA which strongly handicaps its usefullness (and has quite a high risk of not being used at all in case you're CC'ed). Upping the duration to something like 10 seconds, would give Druids more assurance that even with an intial CC it can still be triggered. Plus we can still start a CA run with CA2 or CA4 without risking the loss of this trait.

So far for my brainfarts on Druids in PvP. What do you think about the current state of Druids and these suggestions?

Yes, I agree. Isn't kinda weird that SBeast is tankier than Druid and are also legit better point holder ?

CA cooldown for me is okay, but Druid lacks in healing outside of CA.

Glyphs : Verdant Etching has been nerfed to death. Thematic was good (Solar/Lunar), execution is really bad. Oh yeah, let me pop my 20 sec cooldown CA to stun break my allies with Lunar Glyph of Equality ! It makes no sense. To me, Glyphs are outdated and need a rework.

Staff : Astral Wisp is a projectile that only heals when your ally hugs the target, now compare it with the new guardian Holy Strike ! Astral Wisp is simply a CA generator with a bonus healing if you happen to heal someone with it :) ! Then you have Vine Surge that is so narrow and slow with only 1 sec immobilize, nearly never worth to use it, only if you run and someone is chasing you. Sublime Conversion should be a dome. Staff 1 and 3 are fine, it's the only thing that holds the Druid and Staff alive.

CA : Beside 3-4-5, nothing is worth mention. 5, for a long stationary channeling skill it should be even more devastating. 2 is better than nothing. 1 is useless in every facets.

Pet dying in PvP with the 45 sec cooldown makes Druid even more useless, since it's a big part of our damage. I hate how Druid has to invest so much in Healing Power and supporting Trait lines (NM and WS) to make it work, decreasing even more their damage.

Bring Druid back in this era ANet. So many of their skills and utilities are outdated.

Druid deserves a re-work and not only because its out of the meta ATM, as even when druids were crazy OP, they were very limited and boring. Also, many relevant systems were not in the game when they made the druid, do you remember when they first presented the druid's skills, even the developer got tired of mentioning that it heals stuff.Few years later we got stuff like barrier, resistance, incoming healing tag(used to have only outgoing) and so on. It's actually good that now after 3 years of nerfs, druid is broken enough to be re-build from the ground.

Suggested Changes Adjustments:Druidic Clarity - this was always druid's survivability source, ironically a.net nerfed almost every aspect of the druid but never touched this trait. Remove the stun-break from the trait , leaving it with the already strong full condi removal.

CA CD- make it 15 sec or even 20 sec globalAF - giving barrier to yourself and allies also generates AF(in combat only?) - One of the issues we had with druid as we cant get AF when we are fully healed, punishing strong healing builds that could heal less in order to get to full hp. Barrier is given on top of health.

Glyphs global - Biggest issue with glyphs is that everything about them is delayed which does not suit the ranger's mobile game-play. Make all glyphs casting time 1/4 sec down from 1/2. The heal glyph casting time can stay the same.

Verdant Etching - Change the trait to work differently in and out CA form(same way the glyhps change). The CA version(the lunar version) will be like it is now. The sloar version will give "vine/throne armor" to you and allies around you. about 700 barrier(same amount as the heal from VE) and -66% duration on movement impeding conditions for 3 sec. It's not only about flavor(which will feel great) , the idea that druid can use light barriers to sustain the allies and himself until he get into CA mode when healing is needed. Also, the solar version will be not as delayed as the lunar one. Ranger mode should be very mobile, CA mode is more stationary by its nature.

Specific glyph changes -

Glyph of Empowerment -Change CD to 30 secSolar version - (9s): 20% Damage -The idea is to make this trait more strategic and more impactful.Lunar version - (9): 50% of your out going healing bonus is considered as incoming healing receive bonus for yourself and your allies. - The lunar version of this skill ATM is very bad, the idea of this change is give a unique bonus which will help the druid and it's allies. It also offer some synergy with the druid minor trait "natural mender" and GM trait lingering light.

Glyph of Unity - Change CD to 40 secSolar version - (9s) in addition to the existing effect, add moderate-big barrier to your self(2k-3k) and 5 sec of 3 stacks of stability. -The idea is to prepare the druid to actually mitigate some of the received damage.Lunar version - (9) - in addition to the existing effect, stun break and give yourself and the affected allies 3-4 sec of resistance.

Glyph of the Tides - Change CD to 30 sec , unblockable(?)Solar version- same pushing concept but change the effect to 3-4 small pushes over 2-3 sec(like the wyvern wing buffet effect) it will be more suited with the "waves" concept and make a purpose for the skill(remove several stability stacks)Lunar version - Same thing but with pulling instead pushing., will help to combo with CA 5.

TraitsDruid clarity - remove stun break

Cultivated synergy - give barrier/heal(based on solar/lunar) to your allies, the amount is based on the number of allies being effected by your healing skill(400-500 per ally?)(make this skill an actual synergy, this trait will obviously will preform better with with heals like glyph and water spirit).

Primal Echoes - fix tool tip to include to daze also working on entering CA. increase the daze to 1.5 sec.

Verdant Etching - change as described above.

Natural stride - Also effect your pet

Ancient Seed - only apply to CC that the druid initiate - Will help to control the proc of this skill, now it's too random.

Staff weapon -Solar beam - consider making it work like ele specter(not as powerful ofc), start weak and getting stronger if not breaking the attack.

Astral wisp - Change this skill to lunch a ball that dmg foes and heal allies in the radius based on astral force. Using this skill will consume astral force. - The concept is to give staff a burst heal and damage skill that will give druid a toll to use astral force while CA is on CD or to decide using this skill over gaining the ability to enter CA until CA is refilled- so its a risk -reward , strategic kind of skill. Also tap into the idea that staff 1 building AF, staff 2 releasing AF.

Vine surge - make the effect wider and the immob on longer duration. Change the cure condition part with the new effect suggested for the solar version of VE(vine/throne armor) for yourself and allies in the radius.

Celestial Avatar skillsCA 1 - beam skill(kinda like solar beam but on single ally) - Chanel a direct heal on a single ally, each pulse giving you additional AF. The idea is to give single ally heal and also give a tool for druids to maintain CA for more than 15 sec.

CA 5 - double the damage of this skill it's very weak ATM.

This version of the druid will be much more balanced with much more play options, the biggest weaknesses of the druid will be CC spam and poison spam . Druids will have to do some hard decisions to balance between healing capabilities, mobility, protection, offence capabilities, etc...

@LughLongArm.5460

Druid “crazy op”... Sorry, but that’s was just a perception problem... Core ranger was a joke, then Druid came along and players couldn’t handle a spec that was capable of fighting back... All the “kiddies” were running around with their “me too” zerker builds and couldn’t just wipe a capable player using Druid so they cried and cried and cried.

I really don’t see anything great honestly, especially removing the stun break... Your suggestions don’t do anything except keep the Druid as the subpar niche build it currently is... a poor damage and poor team healing RP build.

The devs are now changing the boons system, so that’s gonna be a no to “barrier” and it doesn’t fit.

Here ya go... A Druid elite that becomes useful and meaningful to play...

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/39412/eye-on-druid-ideas-yay

what messed up druid imo were the op traits. they nerfed CA to compensate. makes no sense.

The spec is pretty boring and dead i agree rework the glyphs, give it a bit more support outside CA, maybe defensive boons from glyphs or something, and buff staff. Some of the above suggestions are good, staff 2 4 5 need rework.

@"Krispera.5087" said:Yes, I agree. Isn't kinda weird that SBeast is tankier than Druid and are also legit better point holder ?

CA cooldown for me is okay, but Druid lacks in healing outside of CA.

Glyphs : Verdant Etching has been nerfed to death. Thematic was good (Solar/Lunar), execution is really bad. Oh yeah, let me pop my 20 sec cooldown CA to stun break my allies with Lunar Glyph of Equality ! It makes no sense. To me, Glyphs are outdated and need a rework.

Staff : Astral Wisp is a projectile that only heals when your ally hugs the target, now compare it with the new guardian Holy Strike ! Astral Wisp is simply a CA generator with a bonus healing if you happen to heal someone with it :) ! Then you have Vine Surge that is so narrow and slow with only 1 sec immobilize, nearly never worth to use it, only if you run and someone is chasing you. Sublime Conversion should be a dome. Staff 1 and 3 are fine, it's the only thing that holds the Druid and Staff alive.

CA : Beside 3-4-5, nothing is worth mention. 5, for a long stationary channeling skill it should be even more devastating. 2 is better than nothing. 1 is useless in every facets.

Pet dying in PvP with the 45 sec cooldown makes Druid even more useless, since it's a big part of our damage. I hate how Druid has to invest so much in Healing Power and supporting Trait lines (NM and WS) to make it work, decreasing even more their damage.

Bring Druid back in this era ANet. So many of their skills and utilities are outdated.

Well said. I agree with basically everything you wrote here. I want to play Druid as a formidable support spec.

@Swagger.1459 said:@LughLongArm.5460

Druid “crazy op”... Sorry, but that’s was just a perception problem... Core ranger was a joke, then Druid came along and players couldn’t handle a spec that was capable of fighting back... All the “kiddies” were running around with their “me too” zerker builds and couldn’t just wipe a capable player using Druid so they cried and cried and cried.

I really don’t see anything great honestly, especially removing the stun break... Your suggestions don’t do anything except keep the Druid as the subpar niche build it currently is... a poor damage and poor team healing RP build.

The devs are now changing the boons system, so that’s gonna be a no to “barrier” and it doesn’t fit.

Hi, when I wrote the druid OP statement it was more about emphasizing how limited and boring it was even when it was in it's peak. Nevertheless, Druid was very OP during the first couple of mouths after the release of HOT. Smokescale could smoke assault for like 12k, Ancient Seed had no CD so you could root full team in PVP with lunar impact, AF could be build out of combat, lingering light had no CD so you could spam blinds, MMO was 100% daze duration so you could lunar impact for 4 sec, the base healing of skills was almost double compared to now. and nay more examples. And on the top of that, the druidic clarity + clelctrial shadow combo on 10 sec CD. Yes it was OP.

Regarding your feedback(if we can call it a feedback), let's just agree to disagree.

Regarding changes to boon system, I was not aware of such changes, can you plz link to the source? I'm interested...

Thanx.

@LughLongArm.5460 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:@LughLongArm.5460

Druid “crazy op”... Sorry, but that’s was just a perception problem... Core ranger was a joke, then Druid came along and players couldn’t handle a spec that was capable of fighting back... All the “kiddies” were running around with their “me too” zerker builds and couldn’t just wipe a capable player using Druid so they cried and cried and cried.

I really don’t see anything great honestly, especially removing the stun break... Your suggestions don’t do anything except keep the Druid as the subpar niche build it currently is... a poor damage and poor team healing RP build.

The devs are now changing the boons system, so that’s gonna be a no to “barrier” and it doesn’t fit.

Do you really want to bring up damage numbers? Stealth use? CC? Like no other professions were pumping out damage or used stealth or condis? Just because players didn’t want to change their builds or learn to counter doesn’t mean something is OP...

Seriously, with bringing up 12k smokescale compared to 17k CoR that you couldn’t even see coming... or 1 shot stealth Chronomancer clone bursts that my trailblazer necro got hit for 24,999 damage in second.... Druid stealth compared to permastealth 1 shot Thief... And you don’t even want to get me started with condi builds on other professions...

Oh but now you consider Druid “broken”, and worthy of improving, but that’s strange since you feel Druid got some well derseved nerfs bc “op”... Pick a side bc you’re not making sense really.

Your suggestion do nothing to make Druid more playable.

Try looking in the general section of the forums for the dev post on boons.

@Swagger.1459 said:

@LughLongArm.5460 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:@LughLongArm.5460

Druid “crazy op”... Sorry, but that’s was just a perception problem... Core ranger was a joke, then Druid came along and players couldn’t handle a spec that was capable of fighting back... All the “kiddies” were running around with their “me too” zerker builds and couldn’t just wipe a capable player using Druid so they cried and cried and cried.

I really don’t see anything great honestly, especially removing the stun break... Your suggestions don’t do anything except keep the Druid as the subpar niche build it currently is... a poor damage and poor team healing RP build.

The devs are now changing the boons system, so that’s gonna be a no to “barrier” and it doesn’t fit.

You can bring up whatever you want. Druid was top tier back in the days, it was boring to duel other players for how easy it was. Ya, there were other broken things which got nerfed as well(what's your point?)

What's so hard to understand, I said it was OP 3 years ago, I didn't say it's OP now. The suggested changes were not only to buff the druid but rather to give it more options and versatility. Buffing something is easy, just increase the number. If you can't see how my suggestions can benefit druids, you either haven't read, lack imagination or understanding of the game. It's fine, not trying to convince your really, you posted your version of druid, forcing it to be a wanna be "condi mesmer", I like my suggestions better.

Saw the post regarding boons, very general, hard to predict from it anything at this point.

One of the major issues was the nerf of both the glyph trait (reducing condi cleanse from 2 to 1) and the CA cooldown. This forced Druids to take wilderness survival, like all other ranger builds are forced into that traitline. The fairly recent buff of Lingering Light reveals a bit that Anet wants Druid to be a support/team fighter, but it is outshined by Firebrand in any way. Druid is by no means weak, I still play it all the time in PvP. It just doesn't outshine other classes on a certain aspect, like all current meta-builds do.

@LughLongArm.5460 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@LughLongArm.5460 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:@LughLongArm.5460

Druid “crazy op”... Sorry, but that’s was just a perception problem... Core ranger was a joke, then Druid came along and players couldn’t handle a spec that was capable of fighting back... All the “kiddies” were running around with their “me too” zerker builds and couldn’t just wipe a capable player using Druid so they cried and cried and cried.

I really don’t see anything great honestly, especially removing the stun break... Your suggestions don’t do anything except keep the Druid as the subpar niche build it currently is... a poor damage and poor team healing RP build.

The devs are now changing the boons system, so that’s gonna be a no to “barrier” and it doesn’t fit.

This game is a team based mmo, not “duel wars 2” online.

I see gimmicks and unnecessary changes in your post. At least mine makes the original intent of the Druid more of a reality... And talk about out of touch with comparing it to “condi Mesmer”... Yeah, add barrier, when we need to have our team healing mechanics improved first...

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:what messed up druid imo were the op traits. they nerfed CA to compensate. makes no sense.

I agreed so much with this. Few suggestions I have especially with this in mind:

1A) CA has 20 second CD. CD starts when you enter CA. This keeps CS and DC on a 20 second CD if you flash into CA but gives healer really high up time of CA.1B) CA has a 10 second CD. DC and CS increase CA CD.1C) DC/CS has a 15-20 second ICD but CA has a 10 second CD.Any of the above would have worked for keeping DC/CS in check while allowing for pure healers to do their thing in multiple game modes. The nerf to CA CD really hurt the players that tried to Druid healers in my wvw guild.

2) CA2 clears 2 conditions (this can be blasted with CA3 for a 3rd clear) and Verdant etching drops lesser seed of life which clears 1 (as it does now). Consider increasing the AoE radius of CA2 while lesser seed stays the same size.My reasoning: Verdant etching was changed to drop lesser seed of life after CA 2 was already nerfed to only clear 1 condi though. I suspect that CA2 condi clear got nerfed because of the condi clear on Verdant Etching, not CA2 itself. This is more PvP/WvW specific because conditions are abundant and fights are mobile. Current iteration of CA2 provides minimal condi clear in these mobile group fights on an elite spec that provides no resistance. This hampers Druids ability to be a support healer in WvW.

A few "crazy" ideas I'll toss out there:3) Natural stride: Add torment duration reduction in addition to the cripple, chill and immobilize reduction.

This trait is about moving unhindered and torment puts a stop to that. Taken to the extreme, combined natural stride, rune of sunless in PvP, and empathic bond:-78% torment, cripple, chill, immobilize and -45% other condition duration. This combo is in competition to condi clear on VE (or CS) and condi clear in wilderness knowledge. The torment can still tick, it just falls off faster so torment bursts are somewhat negated. Enemy expertise partially counters this. You have a harder time clearing other conditions so natural stride remain niche/not OP. I like the idea of niche choices that compete with meta traits with the purpose of preventing certain OP metas from ever happening. Torment elite spec is too OP and the enemy team stacks 3-5 torment specs? Go natural stride druid. Enemy team runs a balanced team comp? go WK + VE or CS.

4) Add stability counter on Druid.With addition of the concentration stat, boon availability and alacrity/resistance becoming boons, countering boons is kinda getting out of hand. I love playing necro for corrupts but corrupts have been power creeped due to boon creep. This leaves elite specs, especially those I feel are designed around CC or conditions, countered too hard by stability or resistance if they do not have boon removal. I do NOT recommend giving all elite specs generic boon counters. Just like the nerfs to Chrono to reduce boon availability from specific supports, I think certain elite specs need to be given niche boon counters instead of throwing even more generic anti-boon stuff on elite specs (See winds of disenchantment/scourge utilities).

Example already in game:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Brutality

I think some trait/skill like this works well with an idea of how one aspect of Druid should be played. GS4, LB 4 and tides are all knock backs. Staff 4, entangle, CA5 and ancient seeds are all immobilize. Obviously cant use 3 weapons but base ranger + VE glyph and Ancient seed Druid always felt like it had nice synergy/potential as a decap then immobilize off point for PvP.

4A) Primal Echo: Add: CA5 removes 1 stack of stability per pulse4B) Verdant Etching: Add 3-4 stacks of stability stripped on Glyph of Alignment4C) Change elite glyph to remove 1 stack of stability per second to tethered enemies.

None of the above changes are on CC skills. You need to setup stability strip with one of the above then knock back. Furthermore, all the skills I suggested have tells that can be dodged. So there is counter play. Stealth isn't useful to decapping and VE competes with CS so this build wouldn't have "OP" reset potential on top of being good at decapping. Removing stability at 1 per pulse or 3-4 on a single skill doesn't counter stability the way corrupts/removal does so it would feel way better to play against compared to full stack removal/corrupts.

Change 4, especially with change 1 would open up a distinct play style compared to the old meta DC/CS druid build. There would be a reason to use the elite spec glyphs in more than just 1 game mode. This part feels extra bad since PvE glyphs are usually spammed to proc gotl more than the actual glyph function.