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Reworking Underperforming Specs: Druid Edition


shadowpass.4236

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Please, make it usable in PvP again. @Ben Phongluangtham.1065 @Irenio CalmonHuang.2048If there are no new elite specializations coming from a new expansion, reworking old specs and chronically unused traitlines could be a potential way to keep people interested and engaged whilst shaking up the meta at the same time.Here are my suggestions/mock patch notes:


Druid

Druids have been underperforming in the meta lately. Following the many, consistent nerfs this ranger elite specialization has received in the past, we felt that it needed to be reviewed and brought back in line with design standards. These changes are aimed at reducing the strength of a lot of the problematic skills whilst retaining the old playstyle that made Druid fun to begin with. Underperforming/low impact skills have also been reworked in order to feel meaningful and less passive.

Staff
  • Astral Wisp (staff 2): This skill now deals damage over time (similar to Binding Blade, GS5 on Guardian). Base 400 damage per second, 5 second duration.
  • Ancestral Grace (staff 3): Reduced this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 12 seconds. Removed the 5s recharge reduction when healing an ally.(Do not add the evade back on)
  • Sublime Conversion (staff 5): This skill is now a ring instead of a line.
Celestial Avatar
  • Celestial Avatar: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Lunar Impact: Reduced daze duration from 1.5 seconds to .25 seconds and now removes 2 boons on hit.(Or, it would be really cool if it floats enemies for .25 seconds. Just like, ya know, being on the moon)
  • Natural Convergence: This skill can now be cast while moving at a reduced speed (similar to Whirling Wrath, GS2 on Guardian).
Traits
  • Celestial Shadow: This trait no longer grants 3 seconds of stealth. Instead, it grants 2 seconds of alacrity to yourself and nearby allies.
  • Ancient Seeds: Removed internal cooldown from this trait. Successfully hitting an enemy with a crowd control now immobilizes them for 1s.
General
  • Seed of Life: Increased the amount of conditions cleansed from 1 to 2. This skill no longer blinds and the detonation time has been reduced to 1s.
  • Druid: The base attributes of pets are no longer reduced by 20%.
    Celestial Avatar Rework

If Anet were to redesign the elite spec, I'd love it if Lunar Impact and Natural Convergence were kept, and the other 3 skills reworked with the same theme in mind.Here are my suggestions:

  1. Cosmic Ray: This skill now has the appearance of a wider, blue Solar Beam. It now slows and chills enemies for 1 second on the 3rd pulse. Base damage has been increased from 98 to 196 per pulse and hits up to 3 targets (similar to Split Surge, ambush skill on GS for Mirage).
  2. Seed of Life: This skill now grows a random Spirit on detonation (not counting Water Spirit or Spirit of Nature).(I think it would be super neat because it encourages Druid's to stay in CA rather than cast 2 skills and leave. It also means we could spend 12 seconds of casting Seed of Life to have Frost, Sun, Storm, and Stone Spirits up. So, this not only reintroduces spirits to PvP, but also gives Druids a reason to finally run Nature's Vengeance.)
  3. Rejuvenating Tides: This skill now creates a 240 radius, mobile water field around the player on activation that heals for 2700 health, grants 2 seconds of alacrity (or 4 seconds of protection), and partially revives nearby allies (7% per second, 4 second duration). It is no longer channeled.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

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Everything except for the pet stats seems fine. I'm all for trade-offs. This would be a step back.They will still have the "sidenode-monkey" role with reduced cd on CA and staff 3. The change to celestial shadow is great. That has always been the issue with druid.

Another way might be to tone down some of the overperforming pets. Namely smokescale and gazelle.I don't want a druid kiting me for a minute and a half only to align the stars and one shot me with a random gazelle charge.

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Idk why you would not give them their evade back. Literally that alone made dedicated druid mains quit their class. My plat 2 bud quit druid in PvP after they snatched the evade for no reason and even you are saying you don't want it back??

If they can't kite, can't have decent pets, can't do damage or can't heal what do you want them to do at this point? What is their role? Sub par support?

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@Lilyanna.9361 said:Idk why you would not give them their evade back. Literally that alone made dedicated druid mains quit their class. My plat 2 bud quit druid in PvP after they snatched the evade for no reason and even you are saying you don't want it back??

If they can't kite, can't have decent pets, can't do damage or can't heal what do you want them to do at this point? What is their role? Sub par support?

He probably quit because druid was already in a very bad position on top of the evade being removed. From my perspective, a 1200 range evade that can be comboed into a smoke field for stealth made it difficult to punish any misplays. This change would make Ancestral Grace more akin to the likes of Rush (Warrior GS5) with a blast finisher on the end of it.

I've been a ranger main since release and played Druid extensively throughout HoT. I believe that the changes I proposed would help bring Druid back into play as a side noder.

Also, you can kite on ranger regardless of what elite specialization you're using. As for pets, I think that the 20% pet attribute reduction should be reverted. I'd also like it if several CA skills were reworked completely (away from healing), but it's easier for Anet to changes numbers rather than design new animations/skills altogether.

Keep in mind, there was a fine line between druid being an unkillable bunker spec and it being completely potatoed (multiple times). My suggestions are aimed towards bringing back the fast paced playstyle of Druid on release whilst buffing weaker abilities and nerfing ones that were too strong. Overall, I think these changes would be healthy for the game because they open up a lot more build options for ranger. At the same time, they are modest enough to prevent Druid from being as dominant as it used to be.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:Idk why you would not give them their evade back. Literally that alone made dedicated druid mains quit their class. My plat 2 bud quit druid in PvP after they snatched the evade for no reason and even you are saying you don't want it back??

If they can't kite, can't have decent pets, can't do damage or can't heal what do you want them to do at this point? What is their role? Sub par support?

He probably quit because druid was already in a very bad position
on top
of the evade being removed. From my perspective, a 1200 range evade that can be comboed into a smoke field for stealth made it difficult to punish any misplays. This change would make Ancestral Grace more akin to the likes of Rush (Warrior GS5) with a blast finisher on the end of it.

I've been a ranger main since release and played Druid extensively throughout HoT. I believe that the changes I proposed would help bring Druid back into play as a side noder.

Also, you can kite on ranger regardless of what elite specialization you're using. As for pets, I think that the 20% pet attribute reduction should be reverted. I'd also like it if several CA skills were reworked completely (away from healing), but it's easier for Anet to changes numbers rather than design new animations/skills altogether.

Keep in mind, there
was
a fine line between druid being an unkillable bunker spec and it being completely potatoed (multiple times). My suggestions are aimed towards bringing back the fast paced playstyle of Druid on release whilst buffing weaker abilities and nerfing ones that were too strong. Overall, I think these changes would be healthy for the game because they open up a lot more build options for ranger. At the same time, they are modest enough to prevent Druid from being as dominant as it used to be.

Honestly, I don't think Druid could be dominate even if it wanted to be. It would have to hug people to be a decent healer. The scaling of their healing would have to be reverted. A lot of things would have to be reverted for it to even be remotely close to it's titan form in HoT era.

The changes you proposed are modest. Nothing broken, but nothing fairly underpowered either. I am just confused what other people besides ranger mains/druid mains/people that enjoy ranger as a secondary class would still call nerfs on pets, or whatever else druid has to offer. Crap like bristleback and Smokescale have been nerfed at least three or four times lol.

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Druid should be able to be slotted into Firebrand's role as dedicated support and perform that role differently but with similar effectiveness.

The problem is that the last time Druid was been allowed to be good, it immediately overwhelmed the game by becoming a nearly unkillable 1vX build that could fairly comfortably sustain a fight 2v1 and even 3v1 for a bit on top of having almost unstoppable disengage. The game doesn't need unkillable sidenoders and frankly every fight should have some sense of an inevitable end with someone dying or being forced to flee.

Like 12s cool down on Ancestral Grace would be immensely powerful, evade or no. 1200 units of movement in 1.25 second travel time on a 12s cool down means you're almost 2X as fast as a meta condition mirage, for example. And most people think that build is still too mobile with just Blink Jaunt and Phase Retreat.

I do think Druid is due for a massive Scrapper style complete reworking. But the goal should be a making it a Firebrand alternative. This means keeping it succeptible to to being focused, pruning it's mobility and disengage, while supercharging it's capacity to keep it's allies alive and supercharging it's ability to set up kills for it's teammates to execute on.

Staff 5 being a ring would be an excellent change I think.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:Druid should be able to be slotted into Firebrand's role as dedicated support and perform that role differently but with similar effectiveness.

The problem is that the last time Druid was been allowed to be good, it immediately overwhelmed the game by becoming a nearly unkillable 1vX build that could fairly comfortably sustain a fight 2v1 and even 3v1 for a bit on top of having almost unstoppable disengage. The game doesn't need unkillable sidenoders and frankly every fight should have some sense of an inevitable end with someone dying or being forced to flee.

Like 12s cool down on Ancestral Grace would be immensely powerful, evade or no. 1200 units of movement in 1.25 second travel time on a 12s cool down means you're almost 2X as fast as a meta condition mirage, for example. And most people think that build is still too mobile with just Blink Jaunt and Phase Retreat.

I do think Druid is due for a massive Scrapper style complete reworking. But the goal should be a making it a Firebrand alternative. This means keeping it succeptible to to being focused, pruning it's mobility and disengage, while supercharging it's capacity to keep it's allies alive and supercharging it's ability to set up kills for it's teammates to execute on.

Staff 5 being a ring would be an excellent change I think.

In order for Druid to be interchangeable with Firebrand, it would require Anet to rework the entire Celestial Avatar mechanic as well as a large number of traits. The chances of them doing this are very slim. This is why a large number of my suggestions simply change numbers around.

These are the reasons Druids were so hard to kill:

  1. 1200 range evade
  2. Entering CA was a full reset and you couldn't pressure them because Seed of Life and Lunar Impact would blind and apply a lengthy daze in an AoE, then the Druid would get 3 seconds of stealth upon leaving it.

My changes solve both of those issues as they remove the evade from Ancestral Grace, the blind from Seed of Life, and the stealth from Celestial Shadow as well as reduce the daze duration to match Headshot on Thief. Druids won't have as many tools to escape, thus making them a lot easier to pressure and kill while in CA.


Oh, also... regarding the movement from meta Staff Longbow Druid's Ancestral Grace vs. Staff Sword Mirage. Let's assume this takes place over the course of one minute:

  1. 5x Ancestral Grace = 6,000 range
  2. 1x Phase Retreat (300 range?) + 2x Blink (1200) + 4x Jaunt (450 each) + 2x initial Mirage Thrusts (600 each) + 6x Mirage Thrusts (one every 10 seconds, no vigor) = 9,300 range... or if the Mirage is out of combat and uses Phase Retreats off cooldown (7 total in a minute), it comes out to 11,100 range

So, if the Mirage is running sword, it has almost twice the mobility as Druid.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:Oh, also... regarding the movement from meta Staff Longbow Druid's Ancestral Grace vs. Staff Sword Mirage. Let's assume this takes place over the course of one minute:

  1. 5x Ancestral Grace = 6,000 range
  2. 1x Phase Retreat (300 range?) + 2x Blink (1200) + 4x Jaunt (450 each) + 2x initial Mirage Thrusts (600 each) + 6x Mirage Thrusts (one every 10 seconds, no vigor) = 9,300 range... or if the Mirage is out of combat and uses Phase Retreats off cooldown (7 total in a minute), it comes out to 11,100 range

So, if the Mirage is running sword, it has almost twice the mobility as Druid.

I think the meta is scepter/pistol + staff, not sword

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@Tayga.3192 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Oh, also... regarding the movement from meta Staff Longbow Druid's Ancestral Grace vs. Staff Sword Mirage. Let's assume this takes place over the course of one minute:
  1. 5x Ancestral Grace = 6,000 range
  2. 1x Phase Retreat (300 range?) + 2x Blink (1200) + 4x Jaunt (450 each) + 2x initial Mirage Thrusts (600 each) + 6x Mirage Thrusts (one every 10 seconds, no vigor) = 9,300 range... or if the Mirage is out of combat and uses Phase Retreats off cooldown (7 total in a minute), it comes out to 11,100 range

So, if the Mirage is running sword,
it
has almost twice the mobility as Druid.

I think the meta is scepter/pistol + staff, not sword

Either way, removing the 8 Mirage Thrusts and simply relying on staff + teleports for movement comes out to 6300 range, which means Mirage still beats Druid.

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Like @mortrialus.3062 said, I would love for Druid to become a viable support choice, but I agree with the potential issues that he brings up and as you said, it would require a massive rework. I'd say beyond it being a difficult spec to kill, Druid Clarity is also an issue that could be looked at (especially if CA got reduced back to 10 seconds, which I truly believe it should because a 20s cooldown is just silly for a support spec, considering how abysmal its support is outside of CA).

Some other notes on things I'd like to see happen to the spec:-Glyphs get some more attention. First and foremost, I'd like for them to become 10 targets when traited. Druid is a meme-tier support in large-scale WvW and shouldn't be so terribly eclipsed by other choices. I know this is in the PvP thread but it needs attention in WvW too.-Grandmaster trait choices become build-defining and also tweak the tradeoffs the spec has. I'd like for Lingering Light to become even more focused around support and to alter the pet to become less offensive and utility-based, perhaps even reducing them to passive wisps with activatable F2 effects. I'd like for its CF generation to be changed too, so the Druid can reliably access its support kit. Honestly I wish the Druid had a resource mechanic that mirrored the heat mechanic of the Holosmith. It is so much more fluid and the spec could really benefit from having that looked at.-Staff to become a bit more supportive. I like your suggestion for staff 5, but I'd like for staff 2 to orbit around the Druid if no enemy is targeted, and staff 4 to become more reliable/impactful. Druid should be able to support better while outside of CA form, but beyond staff 3, they can mostly just kite and pester.-Diversify its condition cleansing potential. I've seen the suggestion thrown around about giving a trait condition cleanse functionality to Rejuvenating Tides, which I think is a fantastic idea.-Further work on the CA skills. CA3 is fantastic (even with your suggestion of a reduced daze duration), but I'd really like to see CA1 become actually reliable and for CA5 to have some supportive element to it, like pulsing protection to allies and perhaps superspeed at the end.

I'd really just like for the skirmishing/dueling aspects of the spec to compete with some really solid support choices, so it is not made into an immortal spec. I think Druid is one of the trickier ones to balance because it has a pet with stats independent from the player and it doesn't have much inherent support in the base class (lulspirits), so the core class can't really round out the hard support role like it can for say, Guardian and Elementalist.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Oh, also... regarding the movement from meta Staff Longbow Druid's Ancestral Grace vs. Staff Sword Mirage. Let's assume this takes place over the course of one minute:
  1. 5x Ancestral Grace = 6,000 range
  2. 1x Phase Retreat (300 range?) + 2x Blink (1200) + 4x Jaunt (450 each) + 2x initial Mirage Thrusts (600 each) + 6x Mirage Thrusts (one every 10 seconds, no vigor) = 9,300 range... or if the Mirage is out of combat and uses Phase Retreats off cooldown (7 total in a minute), it comes out to 11,100 range

So, if the Mirage is running sword,
it
has almost twice the mobility as Druid.

I think the meta is scepter/pistol + staff, not sword

Removing the 8 Mirage Thrusts and simply relying on staff + teleports for movement comes out to 6300 range, which still beats Druid.

With the current condi mirage by the time you Blink twice for 2400 theoretical 12s CD Ancestral Grace would be on it's 3rd use for 3600.

That's a lot of movement on a short cool down, even without an evade or Z axis teleport. Like a lot a lot. And in general I think the direction balance should be going is looking at side nodes like mirage, holosmith, Spellbreakers, and making them all a bit more committed to the fight with a bit less disengage on all of them. And make them require more skill and use of terrain to escape fights you were losing.

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@"mortrialus.3062" said:That's a lot of movement on a short cool down, even without an evade or Z axis teleport. Like a lot a lot. And in general I think the direction balance should be going is looking at side nodes like mirage, holosmith, Spellbreakers, and making them all a bit more committed to the fight with a bit less disengage on all of them. And make them require more skill and use of terrain to escape fights you were losing.

Ancestral Grace is no different in terms of movement compared to:

  1. Rush (1200 range, 16s cd, Warrior)
  2. GS Swoop (1000 range, 12s cd, Ranger)
  3. SLB Swoop (1200 range, 12s cd, Ranger)
  4. 2x Death's Retreat (1200 total range, limited by initiative but can cast 3x in a row from full ini, Deadeye)
  5. etc. etc.

I don't think a 1200 range, non-evading movement skill is as far-fetched as you're making it seem. The reasons why holosmiths and spellbreakers have more staying power is because they are very tanky compared to mesmers and rangers. Granted, they still have a lot of movement but it's fine (in my opinion, design-wise) to let mesmers and rangers have a bit more mobility to make up for "weaker" 1v1/1vX potential.

To put it in perspective:

  1. Holo Leap travels about 450 range (or more with super speed/swiftness iirc) on a 2 second cooldown. If a holo were to use this skill off-cooldown for a minute straight, they would travel somewhere between 13,500-18,000 range. This skill is a balance issue not only because of it's insane mobility and low cooldown leap finisher, but it also hits farther and harder than a ranger's Maul with half the recharge time.
  2. The meta strength Spellbreaker can also use Aura Slicer, Bull's Charge, Whirlwind, and Rush off-cooldown to travel 12,750 range per minute (higher if the SPB has adrenaline for Breaching Strike)

In other words, Holosmith and Spellbreaker actually have more mobility than both Staff Druid and St/Sc-P Mirage. However, that's not the focus of this thread.

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I dont know why you would want 2 secs of alacrity instead of 3 secs of stealth. Celestial shadow is strong as it is but not OP since it forces you to get decapped. The most important buffs imo would be CA cooldown reduction and increasing the Healing coefficient for CA #4.

Btw I think that if they implement all the suggestions you did here, then you would still lose almost every duel to the meta sidenode classes. I actually get the 20% stat reduction trade-off for Druid (allthough they should make it 20% offensive stat reduction, not defensive stats), but I'd rather see some tradeoffs for other classes as well instead of changing druid traits.

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@"shadowpass.4236" said:Feel free to share your thoughts.

  1. Ancestral Grace needs to be straight reverted back to its previous form. The evade frame on Staff was much much more important to Druid play than people realize. It simply cannot do what it needs to amongst better players in this power crept meta without it.
  2. Reducing CA from 20s to 10s is too much of a buff within the sustain/disengage department. What Druid needs is extra offensive measure, not more defensive heal spam and stealth resetting.
  3. Suggestion to Celestial Shadow is a big resounding no. The two traits Celestial Shadow and Druidic Clarity are absolute must have staples for a Druid. These two traits quite seriously "make the Druid" and without them "it breaks the Druid." The Druid absolutely needs the stun break, the full condi cleanse, and the stealth & superspeed. It actually needs all of that, or it cannot function at all to use its Celestial Avatar kit. I have well explained this in other threads. Mainly here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/77006/lets-talk-about-druid-competitively-after-pet-nerf-and-buffs-that-ca-deserves Not going to do it again in this thread. The nerf to pet attributes was a bummer but it was a manageable nerf to deal with. The removal of Staff 3 evade was enough to immediately remove me from plat 2 play and place me down into gold 3. Yes, the evade frame really was that detrimental. The removal or nerfing of Celestial Avatar functions, would result in a completely dysfunctional playstyle competitively for Druid. Druidic Clarity and Celestial Avatar need to be left alone. If anything needs changings, it's the other traits that contend their selections. Those traits need to be buffed.
  4. Sublime Conversion needs to be a straight well effect and not a ring imo. But keeping it a line, whatever, I'm not too concerned with the performance of this skill.
  5. Ancient Seeds with no CD is just going to be a CI like situation where everyone is going to immediately complain about it to such a degree, that it's going to cause more problems than it would help. Druids or Rangers in general already have plenty of means of spamming immobilization. They don't need more immobilization, they need increased offensive measure in other areas. While playing Druid for the ridiculous long amount of time that I have played Druid, even when other players regarded it as Renegade tier, I found that Druid's one biggest flaw is that it has no damage. Currently the Druid's sustain capabilities are rather equal believe it or not, to that of a Holosmith or some of the other super side noders. But what they have that a Druid doesn't, is like 6x to 8x the $%^&ing damage output. Even when a Druid runs Seeker or Marauder or Berserker "and don't even suggest condi amulets because they don't work, shortbow and ALL other condi options on Ranger in general would need great buffing for it to be viable" even with Seeker/Marauder/Berserker the Druid has the lowest damage output of anything in the game, including full sustain FBs and Scrappers. There are several reasons for this that I'm not going to get into this early in the morning. But a Druid's kit IS INDEED based around healing, and as such if you try to run DPS you'll be pigeonholed into requiring the use of Rune of Altruism to maintain just enough +heal stat for the Druid's kit to be useful at all. And not using Wilderness Survival with Beast Mastery is simply not an option, because the Druid must have the sustain and protection uptime which equates to more healing, off of Wilderness Survival. It also requires the 20% CD reduction traits for survival and shout skills from both Wilderness and Beast Mastery. If it doesn't use Axe/Axe and Beast Mastery, it has no damage output at all. Even while trying to run a Berserker Longbow Druid or something, the damage isn't applicable because the Druid is a sitting duck and dies immediately. The only currently viable version of any form of Druid, was this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEJwTjfSYlA Argue with me all you want, but most of you know that during this era right before all the Druid nerfing, I was the only person even playing Druid in NA at a plat 2+ level, and as indicated in the video, I could reliably side node 1v1 and beat Team USA members while running this build. You have to run Staff Axe/Axe now, if you want the Druid to be viable at all. Nothing else works in higher tiered ranked play or ATs. The nerf to Staff 3 evade was detrimental Druid ruining material, nerfs or changes to Druid Clarity & Celestial Shadow would only worsen the problem, and slight buffs to other things are not going to render any other useful Druid build. Other options on Druid would need to be greatly buffed for any form of any viable build to emerge.

Click and read the link that I posted, to that Druid thread. I still stand by my suggestions in that thread. But now I have these to add:

  • Staff needs damage increase across the entire weapon kit to compensate for the loss in damage from the pet. I also like Shadow's idea for Astral Wisp. As of now, Astral Wisp isn't even worth taking the time to use.
  • Ancestral Grace absolutely must have it's evade frame back, for all of the reasons I've already mentioned in other threads.
  • The Celestial Avatar kit in general, needs a lot of buffing. I could stand to gain a bit of damage output as well, or at least added hard & soft CC effects.

I just really want to point out to all of the non-druid players out there, that before they go on a bandwagon of wild suggestions without a lot of play time invested in the class, we need to remember who the people are who have invested and maintained a great deal of time playing druid. And that maybe focusing on reverting some of the improper nerfs to druid to begin with, would be better than trying to create new mechanisms and buff over them. Namely Ancestral Grace's evade frame. For those of you who haven't played a lot of Druid lately, I'd like to stress the importance of that evade frame vs. almost every other meta side noder or team fighter in the game. If the non-druid players didn't realize it, that evade frame was essential for escaping things like Magebane Tether as example. Without that evade frame, a Druid loses to a Spellbreaker almost every time, considering both players are of equal skill. That same goes for any class with heavy hard & soft CC, they can catch the Druid too easy when AG has no evade frame. AG becomes a deathtrap for the Druid when he is against better players, when it doesn't have the evade frame. Seriously, a good Herald can ride your ass all the way to where you're going, dealing damage the entire length of the travel, with Unrelenting Assault. If any of you are going to come in here and seriously make suggestions about Druid, please have the play time invested and sense, to understand the importance of that one evade frame. Removing it was like if Arenanet was to remove the evade frame off of an S/D Core Thief's sword #3. And no, that statement is no embellishment. The Druid needed that evade frame competitively, in spvp and in wvw.

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considering it's more difficult to build up astral force in 10 secs than it was in hot when staff was used, the only other relevant change is celestial shadow which is a straight up nerf

druid currently has no dmg, neither burst of sustained dmg and pets die very fast

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Honestly they need to focus on making Druid a dedicated support class rather than the hybrid duelist/support we have now. The reason for this is because Druid and soulbeast currently fill the same kind of role which will always lead to at least 1 of them being unused. The new elite glyph is a great step in this direction in terms of the thinking behind it, but the delivery was terrible. What that skill needs is for the cast time to be halved but for the effect to continue to pulse for the full duration. I wouldn’t mind 1 stack of stability being added to it too. CA cooldown should be reduced to 15 seconds and the overall healing should increase, due to the fact that the skills offer very little utility other than pure healing. CA 2 needs a serious healing increase and to cleanse 2 conditions instead of 1 like it used to. This would also be a buff to glyphs if trailed which can be useful for a support. Also give back 1200 range SnR.

The way I see it, the main problem with Druid is that it has no clear role, which was actually a great thing back in HoT when power creep was less it allowed it to be versatile. But now we are in the current meta, there is no room for hybrid roles (with the exception of holosmith, but that is due to the class itself being very unbalanced) since the duelist/support builds are both so OP in their own roles. So yeah, I would love to see Druid become a viable alternative to a firebrand.

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@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:If the non-druid players didn't realize it, that evade frame was essential for escaping things like Magebane Tether as example.

Evade does not help against tether. Only stability does.

You're 100% wrong on that. The evade frame on AG would let you jolt yourself to a range of 1200, and if that ranged movement broke the magebane tether's maximum distance during it's movement, the pull wouldn't work.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:Please, make it usable in PvP again. @Ben Phongluangtham.1065 If there are no new elite specializations coming from a new expansion, reworking old specs and chronically unused traitlines could be a potential way to keep people interested and engaged whilst shaking up the meta at the same time.Here are my suggestions/mock patch notes:


Druid

Druids have been underperforming in the meta lately. Following the many, consistent nerfs this ranger elite specialization has received in the past, we felt that it needed to be reviewed and brought back in line with design standards. These changes are aimed at reducing the strength of a lot of the problematic skills whilst retaining the old playstyle that made Druid fun to begin with. Underperforming/low impact skills have also been reworked in order to feel meaningful and less passive.

Staff
  • Astral Wisp (staff 2): This skill now deals damage over time (similar to Binding Blade, GS5 on Guardian). Base 400 damage per second, 5 second duration.
  • Ancestral Grace (staff 3): Reduced this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 12 seconds. Removed the 5s recharge reduction when healing an ally.(Do not add the evade back on)
  • Sublime Conversion (staff 5): This skill is now a ring instead of a line.
Celestial Avatar
  • Celestial Avatar: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Lunar Impact: Reduced daze duration from 1.5 seconds to .25 seconds and now removes 2 boons on hit.(Or, it would be really cool if it floats enemies for .25 seconds. Just like, ya know, being on the moon)
  • Natural Convergence: This skill can now be cast while moving at a reduced speed (similar to Whirling Wrath, GS2 on Guardian).
Traits
  • Celestial Shadow: This trait no longer grants 3 seconds of stealth. Instead, it grants 2 seconds of alacrity to yourself and nearby allies.
  • Ancient Seeds: Removed internal cooldown from this trait. Successfully hitting an enemy with a crowd control now immobilizes them for 1s.
General
  • Seed of Life: Increased the amount of conditions cleansed from 1 to 2. This skill no longer blinds and the detonation time has been reduced to 1s.
  • Druid: The base attributes of pets are no longer reduced by 20%.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

@suffish.4150 said:Honestly they need to focus on making Druid a dedicated support class rather than the hybrid duelist/support we have now. The reason for this is because Druid and soulbeast currently fill the same kind of role which will always lead to at least 1 of them being unused. The new elite glyph is a great step in this direction in terms of the thinking behind it, but the delivery was terrible. What that skill needs is for the cast time to be halved but for the effect to continue to pulse for the full duration. I wouldn’t mind 1 stack of stability being added to it too. CA cooldown should be reduced to 15 seconds and the overall healing should increase, due to the fact that the skills offer very little utility other than pure healing. CA 2 needs a serious healing increase and to cleanse 2 conditions instead of 1 like it used to. This would also be a buff to glyphs if trailed which can be useful for a support. Also give back 1200 range SnR.

The way I see it, the main problem with Druid is that it has no clear role, which was actually a great thing back in HoT when power creep was less it allowed it to be versatile. But now we are in the current meta, there is no room for hybrid roles (with the exception of holosmith, but that is due to the class itself being very unbalanced) since the duelist/support builds are both so OP in their own roles. So yeah, I would love to see Druid become a viable alternative to a firebrand.

I feel like proposed changes would make Druid more like the staff/longbow roamer. Not quiet a bunker and no where near support again a little bit of face tanking with changed cds for closer to roaming. Correct me if I’m wrong though used to play druid(plat3 around season 5-8) but not much ranger at all rn

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@suffish.4150Druid will never be able to take Firebrand's place as a support. FB can pump out an insane amount of healing, boons, and condi clears in an AoE. Anet would have to rework everything on Druid to the point where they could've just made a new elite spec entirely.

If they happen to redesign Druid, I'd prefer if the spec was shifted away from being 100% focused healing. It would be interesting if they geared it more towards slowing and crowd controlling enemies and boon removal.

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This is directed towards most of the other people in this thread:

  • You have to understand, Celestial Shadow, Seed of Life, Lunar Impact, and Ancestral Grace made it nearly impossible to pressure a Druid. As soon as they entered CA (which cleared conditions and broke stuns), they'd use Natural Convergence to prevent interrupts, AoE blind, AoE 1.5s daze, and then Rejuvenating Tides for 2 ticks before dodging and leaving CA which gave them 3 seconds of super speed and stealth. Then, the Druid could Ancestral Grace evade up to 1200 range away while in stealth into a Smokescale F2 which would stealth them for another 3 seconds.
  • In other words, the only way you'd be able to hit the Druid after he entered CA would be to dodge both the Seed of Life detonation and Lunar Impact OR have both stability and resistance. However, even then, the Druid could just proc Celestial Shadow and Ancestral Grace away and you still wouldn't be able to pressure them. There are more reveals now on the side noder classes, with Holosmiths having Lock On, Spellbreakers having Magebane Tether, and Rangers having Sic Em. So, while Celestial Shadow's stealth won't be as strong as it used to be, a non-interruptible, instant, no-animation stealth is still unhealthy and a result of poor skill design.
  • Damage-wise, Ancient Seeds was completely busted because you could immobilize someone for 5 seconds every 10 seconds into a full (combination of) Rapid Fire, Bristleback F2, or Natural Convergence which would one-shot basically everything. Asides from the fact that Bristleback has had a 234% damage reduction on it's F2 (not counting the 20% attribute reduction), my proposal for the change on Ancient Seeds makes it function the same as No Escape on Spellbreaker.
  • Source? I was consistently one of the highest rated ranger players on NA (if not the highest) during the entire era of Druid's Prime (about 1.5 years after the release of HoT) so I have a pretty good idea what made it strong. Once it got forced into a pure bunker spec, I was still up there on the leaderboards but I ended up playing a lot less because it wasn't as fun.

I'm confident that the changes I proposed would (once again) open up Druid as a side noder. Also, my changes make Druid significantly less auto-spammy, passive, and frustrating to fight against. Instead, Druid would (once again ^^) have a fast-paced, engaging playstyle whilst leaving much more room for people to counterpressure. As @Dantheman.3589 astutely pointed out, my changes would open up the amulet choices as well. So, instead of being forced into Menders, we'd be able to take other amulets and still be effective.

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