Reworking Underperforming Specs: Druid Edition

[aymnad.9023]

Druid is a pure healer. It has little to no buff but some utilities (blind / stealth / daze). That is why it has fallen of meta in PvP and PvE. You know what? I am ok with being pure healer. (edit : Only if it means being able to challenge Swiss knifes support)Seed of Life : I like the blind. I agree it should be slightly faster and would like to have 1 more condi cleanse but since it is a field and you can already combo I think it is already decent.I am not as salty about the pet %reduction as I used to be and I also disagree with your suggestions on staff 3 and 5 as the current one are already nice.I think if we want to keep the pure healer route we need to have more options

Pure healer:We need to be able to keep astral force on death. Dying is extra punishing on druid. You lose a fight and are useless the next because you need to rebuild it. And maybe the next if you die and maybe the all match you are behind like this. NO OTHER SUPPORT HAS THIS PROBLEM since they are bound to CD (also even necro keeps lf on death). Even on a high cd like FB I can come back in and have at least the healing tome if I used everything before.More Healing, support or disruptive options: I like the staff cd reduction and think we can have more. It will allow druid to be focused on allies because people fear the old point holder druid (was pretty stupid and I always considered people doing it bad). For example the auto on CA can explode a second time and be bigger if it hits allies (exclude pet from allies here). I do not really like the disruptive idea but maybe add healing to allies when you interrupt or inflict blind ? (can be a bad idea so not sure)Little to no interactions with core ranger: Again something “special” to the ranger. Other specs do have options in the core specs that they use. Sadly I do not really have a lot of suggestions here. Take a look at “other suggestions ”.

Some upgrades:Glyph of the stars: Channel it 3-4s and the rest channels without you. I said it a lot but this skill is already really strong. I do not want to buff it too much or give no counter but this improvement will give it more space.

Other suggestions (can honestly be for other Specs):Add spells like thorn armor (give barrier + enemies in close combat bleed [ranger always has things unique instead of just retaliation :p]) (this also works with HoT theme).Add Auras depending on the inactive pet categories or each X attacks or each time you buff them. A lazy suggestion I know: it could also be a degen aura when druid is in CA as a GM trait

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"shadowpass.4236" said: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.

I gotcha.

But what you're not understanding is what it's like to play Druid now. Nothing you've said is relevant to current Druid play. Things have been power crept to such a ridiculous degree since the days you're talking about, that what you're remembering that made Druid strong, just isn't like that at all anymore. All of the mechanics you're remembering that you're mentioning in reference to your suggestions, aren't in play anymore. Nothing is the same. What I'm trying to say is that, although I always respect your suggestions, these particular suggestions are no different than if I were to start making suggestions about Scrapper based on what I remember it performing like, back when I used to play it at the end of the HoT meta. I think that as a Ranger main yourself, if you were to go and seriously play Druid in ranked for about 10 games a day for a week, and do ATs every day making it to final rounds against good teams, you'd start seeing why I've said what I've said in this thread. A handful of things to note here:

1. First of all, as I mentioned before, Druid's kit is entirely based around healing and the coefficients of the skills therein are terrible and useless without at least around +300 to +350 heal stat, best source coming from Altruism if a player chooses to try and go DPSy on the Druid. This means that the Druid cannot run DPS options without the use of Altruism, or the CA kit is worth little more than a stubreak, condi clear, stealth superspeed disengage, and boy does that suck when you don't have enough heal stated fuel to recharge CA on time. Without Altruism attached to some DPS option, you may as well be running a Soulbeast because it is better in every single way "not joking about this" that could be compared. This means that Druid DPS options are ultimately gimped right off the bat, because of this first problem. I'd like to point out that this is a problem that Firebrand does not have. A Firebrand could run no heal stat enhancements and due to the sheer amount of boons provided, it would still always be a stronger team support than a Druid.
2. The second problem about current Druid, is that after recent power creeping, there is so much boon production coming off of most classes, that a Druid cannot keep up in natural raw base sustain as other classes. We'll use the main culprit as example: Holosmith. When a Druid meets a Holosmith 1v1 on a node, The Druid simply cannot match sustain vs. sustain to stay on the node with the Holosmith, unless it runs a ton of +conc stat. This pigeonholes the Druid into using either Seeker/Altruism for a more DPSy option, or Harrier/Altruism for a sturdier setup with 1/3rd the damage output. Believe me, I have tried every possible other option/build to create viable Druid builds for higher tiered play, it doesn't work. And even if you were to run Harrier/Altruism, the Druid still lacks the natural damage mitigation of other classes. So regardless of your heal output and boon uptime of prot/regen for more heal ticking, you still could die in 2 direct hits from a Holosmith. You cannot run Mender, you cannot run Paladin, you cannot run Knight, You cannot run anything else outside of Seeker/Altruism Harrier/Altruism. Try it yourself and you'll see the several reasons why this is true. And don't test it unranked, do it ranked and ATs. Regardless, you'll see that a Druid has an exceptionally difficult time holding a node even 1v1 vs. some of these classes anymore, even while running the most sustainy setups possible. The days of "The Bunker Druid" have long been dead. A Druid is a side noder like anything else now. It is a 1v1 duelist. So you need to get this stuff out of your head about worrying about a Druid being too sustainy because that simply is not true at all anymore. This brings me to the 3rd point.
3. The level of chase potential on other classes is the third problem for Druid. At the top of the list, you have Heralds with Unrelenting Assault, Phase Traversal, and very high powered burst DPS. Then Spellbreakers with Magebane Tether CC, Magebane Reveal, more than enough mobility skills to stay on you. Then you have Rifle Holosmiths with Net Shot, Rifle #4, everything in Photon Forge, and it's reveal. Then secondary culprits are things like Mirages now with Jaunt! and Deadeyes with Rifles. Things are a lot different than the old HoT days. Everything in the game has enhanced mobility now and A LOT more damage, CC, and range. This stuff you're worrying about concerning Druidic Clarity & Celestial Shadow staples is simply not founded at all. Druids are no longer these slippery fast hard to catch hard to hit things like back in the HoT days. Back in the HoT days, there was half the DPS or less rolling around in the game, and everything was a short to half-mid ranged Bruiser, only exception being DHs. Hell, even Power LB Ranger was gimped and bad at that point, and even LB Druids did no damage because of wearing Mender. You've got to understand that the only reasons why Druid appeared as potentially too kitey, too sustainy, too hard to catch, is for this reason. That HoT meta was before CA heal and CD nerfs, when people were running: Power Shiros, Berserkers, DHs, Scrappers, D/P Daredevils, Reapers, Auramancers, Chronos, that were all close to mid range attackers that had half the DPS or less that they have now, and most of those classes having half the mobility that they have now or were slow ass rotaters to begin with. Things are very very different now. Everything can stay on you. Even Reapers are roaming around with Runes of Speed nowadays, and everything can teleport around the map or gap close to you with 3x or 4x linked movement skills. I stress again, the Druid needs Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow to stay the same as they are now, because they start nerfing the stealth and superspeed off CS, it won't matter what you do to the rest of Druid, the CA kit won't be functional without that stealth/superspeed disengage. This brings me to the fourth.
4. About the CA kit. Unlike a Firebrand, that is well designed for spamming its kits while in combat, because everything it does is spamming Stability & Aegis & Blinds & constant reapplications of boons & CCs & small damage & more CCs, this is all providing adequate defenses and counter pressure to be able to use its kits. The CA kit on the other hand, is a 100% defensive cycle based around healing alone, and not enough of it. If you were to try and log in and stand on a node and freely use CA while in the face of a good Holosmith or Spellbreaker or Herald, you'd die while using CA. Not only does it not provide enough actual $%^&ing heal to make the time spent spamming skills even over combo fields worth it, but the ratio of damage being dealt to you while playing in the middle of a Photon Forge is far far far greater than any amount of healing that you could possibly achieve with the CA kit, and that's considering that you can even find time to us any of those skills that require animation frames, while you're dodge rolling around and trying to counter play the Photon Forge. Upon this, the CA kit has no Aegis or Stability spam or cool Blinds or cool CC chains or small reapplications of frequent regen/prot ect ect ect. The CA kit is simply not designed to be used while in the fray in the combat, it doesn't work man. And as you said yourself already, if they were to redesign Druid to be like a FB, they may as well design a new elite spec because it would be that large of a change to what Druid is now. To be able to even use the CA kit at all against better players, you have to be able to disengage and get a clear moment to do so. In this current meta with such DPS and CC and chase potential, and reveals, this is a lot harder to do consistently than it seems. Now with such power creep and the recent nerfs to Druid heal factor, CA CD, and the removal of AG evade frame, here is what happens when you are against good players who aren't stupid -> You are in a 2v2. You need to do a cleanse/heal cycle. Normally AG with evade frames would ensure that you were able to disengage 1200 range through all hard & soft CC and damage, to secure the potential for a successful CA for stun break cleanse, pop CA 3 on Staff 5 water field, and exit CA for a short Stealth and Superspeed reposition that allows Regeneration & Rugged Growth & Troll Unguent to usually provide a full health reset before being revealed, and even after that reset, the Druid can very very easily still die instantly if something like a Spellbreaker/Holo/Herald/Deadeye/#$%^ing anything is anticipating your reveal and has a hard burst ready to go for when it happens. But now, when you need to disengage the situation for that cleanse/heal cycle, all hard & soft CCs work while you are trying to disengage with AG that has no evade frame. With the level of CCs & damage that are now in play, against better opponents you will often be tagged by hard CCs or Immoblized on your way out, and might I add how terrible Immobilization is to be caught in while using AG. The AG animation will make you sit in place for the entire duration of the AG animation as you sit in the Immobilization until it ends, allowing players time to cleave you. Other attacks like Rapid Fire or Death's Judgement or Unrelenting Assault, also just follow & hit with no evade frame. To the player who has not recently played Druid, they probably think this sounds more balanced, and I could imagine that it would. But the reality is that without the ability to secure a safe range and opening for a potentially successful stealth reposition reset, the Druid is weaker than every other class in every way. It has the least damage, the least raw tankiness "Seriously it gets hit like a Thief, the only saving grace is Signet of Stone", and mediocre to good mobility, nothing in the range of great. The only way the Druid was able to ensure that it could secure an opening for a potentially successful stealth/reset/reposition, was the evade frame on Ancestral Grace. Without it, the Druid Celestial Avatar kit is complete shit in competitive modes and there isn't anything that's going to change that other than granting the Druid another means to guarantee & secure an opening for a potentially successful use of the CA kit, something to replace that evade frame or to give back AG's evade frame. Again, CA kit is in no way practical to use while standing anywhere even near your opponent or a team fight. It makes you a sitting duck in today's meta. Which leads me to my final fifth point.
5. The difference between Rangers & Soulbeasts and then Druid, is that the sustain on Ranger & Soulbeast is much more passive, most of it is passive actually. So the defense factor & heal factor on Rangers & Soulbeasts is mostly from wearing tankier amulets, synergized with very passive healing from Regens & Rugged & Troll Unguent. This allows the Core Ranger & Soulbeast, almost 100% uptime of being able to stay aggressive and focused on counter offensive pressure while the passive sustain/damage mitigation does its job. Druid on the other hand, well, CA kit is completely active usage. You have to stop everything you're doing, including all offensive pressure, and dedicate significant time towards actually thinking about what the hell you're doing, while you use the CA kit. Not only can it be used improperly and easily interrupted, but it also can fumble if CA charge isn't managed properly. On top of that, the opponent is also granted time frame to reset himself, while the Druid is resetting himself. But the worst part is that while the Druid attempts to enter the CA cycle, it opens a time frame for the opponent, where he is granted immediate kill opportunity vs. the Druid. A wise veteran players knows that if he saves his CC train for that CA moment, if he can catch the Druid and interrupt that important cycle, the Druid has leave or stay and die. The power creep has changed everything. Again, the only two things that made Druid even viable to be able to do what it needs to do vs. the modern Holos & Spellbreakers & Heralds & Deadeyes & High Powered Soulbeasts, ect ect, was the Ancestral Grace evade frame, which ENSURED & GUARANTEED a free movement to 1200 range, which provided a potential opening to actually use the CA kit without being so easily counter pressured by a forge combo or a rampage or a Death's judgement, whatever the hell the veteran player was saving to interrupt the CA cycle and out damage its heal potential. Then once that free movement happens, the Druid can stealth superspeed reposition & reset due to the functions of Celestial Shadow. Without the evade frame, the Druid too often is denied the use of its class functions entirely. Middle to lower Tiered players wouldn't notice this so much. But for those of us who are against $%^&ing Team USA every other game we play, this is detrimental. Players at this level know to kill you, when they see you enter AG now. Now, AG is like saying "HEY GUYS, I'M ABOUT TO USE CELESTIAL AVATAR. BETTER LAY SOME CCS ON ME RIGHT QUICK." and they will. Druid against around high plats 2 or bottom plat 3s and above, is in no way functional at all due to this. And if you didn't have the stealth & superspeed on Celestial Shadow, you wouldn't have the reposition target breaking time for those heal ticks, and gain on CA recharge, to get anywhere in the realm of serious about killing some of these modern super side noders in 1v1s, who are able to stay on your butt 100% of the time with massive CC potential and 2 shot death juggling.

Look, it doesn't take a genius gamer to figure out some optimized function of selections on a class/build in some mmorpg, amongst a scene of current patching. It only takes someone dedicated enough, through trial & error, to keep playing it until they figure out what is working the best in that current patching, and why that is. I'm the guy that did that when everyone else bailed Druid and went Soulbeast upon PoF release. I am actually the only person in NA that has been playing this specialization in ranked & ATs at a plat 2 level, in the past 2 years. I am almost certain, that if you were to reenter the scene in ranked & ATs with a Druid, in a little short of a week, you'd find yourself playing some build that was almost identical to what I have explained here, and you'd probably be agreeing with the large majority of what I've said about it.

I feel like if players can recognize the absolute importance of that evade frame on AG, and the current functions of Druidic Clarity/Celestial Shadow staple, for the potential successful use of the CA Kit, then we can begin discussing ways to bring Druid out of Renegade tier. But regardless, everyone has their opinions & hopes for future patching.

~ Cheers to everyone.

[foste.3098]

I dislike the tradeoff of having a 20% weaker pet for avatar, i'd rather if they remade druid to where the tradeoff was no pet swap or idk anything else.

Avatar is a horrid mechanic as it is gated by a cd and by a resource and i think the way of entering avatar needs to be redone.An interesting change could be to make it work in a similar fashion to firebrand tomes in that you gather charges that you then use to cast avatar skills. This means that instead of filling up a blue bar and only being able to enter avatar at 100% you could enter avatar with 5 charges and cast 5 skills or with 1 charge and cast 1 skill. This would give druid more opportunity to actually support allies, as well as enabling a more reactionary supportive style rather than the all out burst heal it is locked in now.

Another area to consider is that all support specs have alternative play styles that focus on things other than supporting: burning and inhibiting conditions for firebrand, corruption and torment for scourge, cc and aoe damage for scraper, heavy aoe damage for tempest.Now let me ask you when was the last time anyone made a build centered around the secondary play style of the druid line which is cc & mobility centric, enabled by the staff trait, natural stride, the control glyphs?The only trait from this aspect of druid that was used is ancients seeds and even that got ignored ever since the blanket healing nerf to force support druids in to lingering light. So these traits and skills that enable the alternative style also need to be changed in order to be on par.

[HeadCrowned.6834]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said: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.

Yet it aint true.

[Dantheman.3589]

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@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

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said: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.

I gotcha.

But what you're not understanding is what it's like to play Druid now. Nothing you've said is relevant to current Druid play. Things have been power crept to such a ridiculous degree since the days you're talking about, that what you're remembering that made Druid strong, just isn't like that at all anymore. All of the mechanics you're remembering that you're mentioning in reference to your suggestions, aren't in play anymore. Nothing is the same. What I'm trying to say is that, although I always respect your suggestions, these particular suggestions are no different than if I were to start making suggestions about Scrapper based on what I remember it performing like, back when I used to play it at the end of the HoT meta. I think that as a Ranger main yourself, if you were to go and seriously play Druid in ranked for about 10 games a day for a week, and do ATs every day making it to final rounds against good teams, you'd start seeing why I've said what I've said in this thread. A handful of things to note here:

1. First of all, as I mentioned before, Druid's kit is entirely based around healing and the coefficients of the skills therein are terrible and useless without at least around +300 to +350 heal stat, best source coming from Altruism if a player chooses to try and go DPSy on the Druid. This means that the Druid cannot run DPS options without the use of Altruism, or the CA kit is worth little more than a stubreak, condi clear, stealth superspeed disengage, and boy does that suck when you don't have enough heal stated fuel to recharge CA on time. Without Altruism attached to some DPS option, you may as well be running a Soulbeast because it is better in every single way "not joking about this" that could be compared. This means that Druid DPS options are ultimately kitten right off the bat, because of this first problem. I'd like to point out that this is a problem that Firebrand does not have. A Firebrand could run no heal stat enhancements and due to the sheer amount of boons provided, it would still always be a stronger team support than a Druid.
2. The second problem about current Druid, is that after recent power creeping, there is so much boon production coming off of most classes, that a Druid cannot keep up in natural raw base sustain as other classes. We'll use the main culprit as example: Holosmith. When a Druid meets a Holosmith 1v1 on a node, The Druid simply cannot match sustain vs. sustain to stay on the node with the Holosmith, unless it runs a ton of +conc stat. This pigeonholes the Druid into using either Seeker/Altruism for a more DPSy option, or Harrier/Altruism for a sturdier setup with 1/3rd the damage output.
   Believe me, I have tried every possible other option/build to create viable Druid builds for higher tiered play, it doesn't work.
   And even if you were to run Harrier/Altruism, the Druid still lacks the natural damage mitigation of other classes. So regardless of your heal output and boon uptime of prot/regen for more heal ticking, you still could die in 2 direct hits from a Holosmith. You cannot run Mender, you cannot run Paladin, you cannot run Knight, You cannot run anything else outside of Seeker/Altruism Harrier/Altruism. Try it yourself and you'll see the several reasons why this is true. And don't test it unranked, do it ranked and ATs. Regardless, you'll see that a Druid has an exceptionally difficult time holding a node even 1v1 vs. some of these classes anymore, even while running the most sustainy setups possible. The days of "The Bunker Druid" have long been dead. A Druid is a side noder like anything else now. It is a 1v1 duelist. So you need to get this stuff out of your head about worrying about a Druid being too sustainy because that simply is not true at all anymore. This brings me to the 3rd point.
3. The level of chase potential on other classes is the third problem for Druid. At the top of the list, you have Heralds with Unrelenting Assault, Phase Traversal, and very high powered burst DPS. Then Spellbreakers with Magebane Tether CC, Magebane Reveal, more than enough mobility skills to stay on you. Then you have Rifle Holosmiths with Net Shot, Rifle #4, everything in Photon Forge, and it's reveal. Then secondary culprits are things like Mirages now with Jaunt! and Deadeyes with Rifles. Things are a lot different than the old HoT days. Everything in the game has enhanced mobility now and A LOT more damage, CC, and range. This stuff you're worrying about concerning Druidic Clarity & Celestial Shadow staples is simply not founded at all. Druids are no longer these slippery fast hard to catch hard to hit things like back in the HoT days. Back in the HoT days, there was half the DPS or less rolling around in the game, and everything was a short to half-mid ranged Bruiser, only exception being DHs. Hell, even Power LB Ranger was kitten and bad at that point, and even LB Druids did no damage because of wearing Mender. You've got to understand that the only reasons why Druid appeared as potentially too kitey, too sustainy, too hard to catch, is for this reason. That HoT meta was before CA heal and CD nerfs, when people were running: Power Shiros, Berserkers, DHs, Scrappers, D/P Daredevils, Reapers, Auramancers, Chronos, that were all close to mid range attackers that had half the DPS or less that they have now, and most of those classes having half the mobility that they have now or were slow kitten rotaters to begin with. Things are very very different now. Everything can stay on you. Even Reapers are roaming around with Runes of Speed nowadays, and everything can teleport around the map or gap close to you with 3x or 4x linked movement skills. I stress again, the Druid needs Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow to stay the same as they are now, because they start nerfing the stealth and superspeed off CS, it won't matter what you do to the rest of Druid, the CA kit won't be functional without that stealth/superspeed disengage. This brings me to the fourth.
4. About the CA kit. Unlike a Firebrand, that is well designed for spamming its kits while in combat, because everything it does is spamming Stability & Aegis & Blinds & constant reapplications of boons & CCs & small damage & more CCs, this is all providing adequate defenses and counter pressure to be able to use its kits. The CA kit on the other hand, is a 100% defensive cycle based around healing alone, and not enough of it. If you were to try and log in and stand on a node and freely use CA while in the face of a good Holosmith or Spellbreaker or Herald, you'd die while using CA. Not only does it not provide enough actual $%^&ing heal to make the time spent spamming skills even over combo fields worth it, but the ratio of damage being dealt to you while playing in the middle of a Photon Forge is far far far greater than any amount of healing that you could possibly achieve with the CA kit, and that's considering that you can even find time to us any of those skills that require animation frames, while you're dodge rolling around and trying to counter play the Photon Forge. Upon this, the CA kit has no Aegis or Stability spam or cool Blinds or cool CC chains or small reapplications of frequent regen/prot ect ect ect. The CA kit is simply not designed to be used while in the fray in the combat, it doesn't work man. And as you said yourself already, if they were to redesign Druid to be like a FB, they may as well design a new elite spec because it would be that large of a change to what Druid is now. To be able to even use the CA kit at all against better players, you have to be able to disengage and get a clear moment to do so. In this current meta with such DPS and CC and chase potential, and reveals, this is a lot harder to do consistently than it seems. Now with such power creep and the recent nerfs to Druid heal factor, CA CD, and the removal of AG evade frame, here is what happens when you are against good players who aren't stupid -> You are in a 2v2. You need to do a cleanse/heal cycle. Normally AG with evade frames would ensure that you were able to disengage 1200 range through all hard & soft CC and damage, to secure the potential for a successful CA for stun break cleanse, pop CA 3 on Staff 5 water field, and exit CA for a short Stealth and Superspeed reposition that allows Regeneration & Rugged Growth & Troll Unguent to usually provide a full health reset before being revealed, and even after that reset, the Druid can very very easily still die instantly if something like a Spellbreaker/Holo/Herald/Deadeye/#$%^ing anything is anticipating your reveal and has a hard burst ready to go for when it happens. But now, when you need to disengage the situation for that cleanse/heal cycle, all hard & soft CCs work while you are trying to disengage with AG that has no evade frame. With the level of CCs & damage that are now in play, against better opponents you will often be tagged by hard CCs or Immoblized on your way out, and might I add how terrible Immobilization is to be caught in while using AG. The AG animation will make you sit in place for the entire duration of the AG animation as you sit in the Immobilization until it ends, allowing players time to cleave you. Other attacks like Rapid Fire or Death's Judgement or Unrelenting Assault, also just follow & hit with no evade frame. To the player who has not recently played Druid, they probably think this sounds more balanced, and I could imagine that it would. But the reality is that without the ability to secure a safe range and opening for a potentially successful stealth reposition reset, the Druid is weaker than every other class in every way. It has the least damage, the least raw tankiness "Seriously it gets hit like a Thief, the only saving grace is Signet of Stone", and mediocre to good mobility, nothing in the range of great. The only way the Druid was able to ensure that it could secure an opening for a potentially successful stealth/reset/reposition, was the evade frame on Ancestral Grace. Without it, the Druid Celestial Avatar kit is complete kitten in competitive modes and there isn't anything that's going to change that other than granting the Druid another means to guarantee & secure an opening for a potentially successful use of the CA kit, something to replace that evade frame or to give back AG's evade frame. Again, CA kit is in no way practical to use while standing anywhere even near your opponent or a team fight. It makes you a sitting duck in today's meta. Which leads me to my final fifth point.
5. The difference between Rangers & Soulbeasts and then Druid, is that the sustain on Ranger & Soulbeast is much more passive, most of it is passive actually. So the defense factor & heal factor on Rangers & Soulbeasts is mostly from wearing tankier amulets, synergized with very passive healing from Regens & Rugged & Troll Unguent. This allows the Core Ranger & Soulbeast, almost 100% uptime of being able to stay aggressive and focused on counter offensive pressure while the passive sustain/damage mitigation does its job. Druid on the other hand, well, CA kit is completely active usage. You have to stop everything you're doing, including all offensive pressure, and dedicate significant time towards actually thinking about what the hell you're doing, while you use the CA kit. Not only can it be used improperly and easily interrupted, but it also can fumble if CA charge isn't managed properly. On top of that, the opponent is also granted time frame to reset himself, while the Druid is resetting himself. But the worst part is that while the Druid attempts to enter the CA cycle, it opens a time frame for the opponent, where he is granted immediate kill opportunity vs. the Druid. A wise veteran players knows that if he saves his CC train for that CA moment, if he can catch the Druid and interrupt that important cycle, the Druid has leave or stay and die. The power creep has changed everything. Again, the only two things that made Druid even viable to be able to do what it needs to do vs. the modern Holos & Spellbreakers & Heralds & Deadeyes & High Powered Soulbeasts, ect ect, was the Ancestral Grace evade frame, which ENSURED & GUARANTEED a free movement to 1200 range, which provided a potential opening to actually use the CA kit without being so easily counter pressured by a forge combo or a rampage or a Death's judgement, whatever the hell the veteran player was saving to interrupt the CA cycle and out damage its heal potential. Then once that free movement happens, the Druid can stealth superspeed reposition & reset due to the functions of Celestial Shadow. Without the evade frame, the Druid too often is denied the use of its class functions entirely. Middle to lower Tiered players wouldn't notice this so much. But for those of us who are against $%^&ing Team USA every other game we play, this is detrimental. Players at this level know to kill you, when they see you enter AG now. Now, AG is like saying "HEY GUYS, I'M ABOUT TO USE CELESTIAL AVATAR. BETTER LAY SOME CCS ON ME RIGHT QUICK." and they will. Druid against around high plats 2 or bottom plat 3s and above, is in no way functional at all due to this. And if you didn't have the stealth & superspeed on Celestial Shadow, you wouldn't have the reposition target breaking time for those heal ticks, and gain on CA recharge, to get anywhere in the realm of serious about killing some of these modern super side noders in 1v1s, who are able to stay on your butt 100% of the time with massive CC potential and 2 shot death juggling.

Look, it doesn't take a genius gamer to figure out some optimized function of selections on a class/build in some mmorpg, amongst a scene of current patching. It only takes someone dedicated enough, through trial & error, to keep playing it until they figure out what is working the best in that current patching, and why that is. I'm the guy that did that when everyone else bailed Druid and went Soulbeast upon PoF release. I am actually the only person in NA that has been playing this specialization in ranked & ATs at a plat 2 level, in the past 2 years. I am almost certain, that if you were to reenter the scene in ranked & ATs with a Druid, in a little short of a week, you'd find yourself playing some build that was almost identical to what I have explained here, and you'd probably be agreeing with the large majority of what I've said about it.

I feel like if players can recognize the absolute importance of that evade frame on AG, and the current functions of Druidic Clarity/Celestial Shadow staple, for the potential successful use of the CA Kit, then we can begin discussing ways to bring Druid out of Renegade tier. But regardless, everyone has their opinions & hopes for future patching.

~ Cheers to everyone.

Your kind of right. Your maybe only person I’ve seen on Druid during all of pof only other person I saw was tacoman get legend but right after nerfs. If u can dominate 1v1s but on a dps (what was it harriers) then maybe Druid will still be a 1v1 but with changes who knows what will be meta it just depends on what is best not who is the best on it

[Badcat.7320]

@HeadCrowned.6834 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said: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.

Yet it aint true.

i'm thinking Barbie is only druid on na in past two years

[mortrialus.3062]

@"foste.3098" said:I dislike the tradeoff of having a 20% weaker pet for avatar, i'd rather if they remade druid to where the tradeoff was no pet swap or idk anything else.

I really, really, agree with this. Druid was one of the better designed original elite specializations in the sense that taking it alone feels like a serious sacrifice of other avenues in my experience anyway. Druid is just so singlemindedly focused on turning ranger into a dedicated healer that taking it just costs you other things you could be doing with ranger. You will never have as much potential damage as a druid as a core ranger let alone something like soulbeast. That's just kind of fact of the matter. Original scrapper was very much the same in that taking the defensive capability scrapper gave you the maximum damage output a core engineer could do. That's why the -200 pet stat reduction just always felt really unnecessary even beyond Druid already being on the backfoot in Ranked PvP.

Compare this with old school Chronomancer, which if you took just gives you more of everything. You got better support capabilities, better selfish defensive capabilities, better CC, better and more reliable shatter damage through Illusionary Revision and original Chronophantasma. Post phantasm rework they also threw on better power damage through the top row traits that all buffed your damage revolving around slow, as well as super charging phantasm damage output with a reworked Chronophantasma. That stuff needed serious trade offs, and not in the "What if we rework the F skills" sense but to put it in a place similar to original Druid and Scrapper. Where just taking the traitline prevented you from hitting certain maximum potential options your profession could reach. Like Chronomancer should never have the damage potential of a core mesmer and mirage. Stuff that could have been avoided if the Power DPS top line was never reworked into giving Chronos ridiculous one shot potential, or never including Chronophantasma in it's current form.

The problem with Chrono is also the problem with Holosmith right now as well. It'd be one thing if Holosmith was similar to Beserker in that taking it made your defensive capabilities never as good as a Core Warrior let alone Spellbreaker. But Holosmith as a traitline and specialization just gives you everything, more damage, more sustain and self healing, more active defenses, more stability, more crowd control.

[shadowpass.4236]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524"

I appreciate your feedback. :)

1. I've tried to make Druid work but it simply isn't good at a high level, especially in a power meta since it's forced to go Menders (no additional toughness).
2. Druid has the highest sustain out of all three ranger elite specializations. Core or Soulbeast cannot compete in terms of personal healing. Unfortunately, Druid also has the lowest damage and is the squishiest out of the three. In other words, this spec is high-risk, low-reward, which is why it is extremely underpowered at the moment.
3. Another issue is the fact that the base healing on CA skills are incredibly low. This is compounded by the fact that 4 out of the 5 skills heal. Basically, if you don't have healing power, every time you enter CA and use 2, 3, and 4... you end up wasting 4 seconds for a measly 3k heal. In comparison, Holosmith's Photon Forge has an auto attack chain that can hit you for roughly 5000 damage per second (on average) with quickness on the meta tools build.
   • Without healing power, it gets to the point where it's not even worth it to use any skills in CA except for Natural Convergence for the stability before you instantly cancel it and leave CA for the super speed. The stealth doesn't even matter because you'll be perma revealed vs. a Holo and if you're tethered to a Spellbreaker. Seed of Life's blind won't impact the fight much because the long detonation time means that you will never be able to reactively blind anything. Lunar Impact's daze isn't going to affect any of the current side noders due to the abundance of stability. Finally, Rejuvenating Tides is not unlike holding up a big "hit me" sign that also happens to be extraordinarily easy to interrupt.

I mean, to sum it up, Celestial Shadow's stealth (asides from being unhealthy to begin with), is actually doing more harm than good in the current meta. Replacing it with alacrity would enable the elite provide a unique boon to our teams (since Chronomancers are no longer usable either). This change will help us rotate through cooldowns quicker to combat the sheer frequency of attacks being thrown out in fights. The blind on Seed of Life was only strong when it had a cooldown of 1 second. Lunar Impact having a 2 boon removal would be fantastic for removing stability before the daze (a.k.a. it will actually be able to cc someone if it strips the stab).

---

Celestial Avatar Rework

Personally, 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.

[shadowpass.4236]

@mortrialus.3062

I'm not entirely opposed to the tradeoff being only one pet. However, they'd need to make the former pet swap full-heal our current pet and proc pet swap traits.

However, the current tradeoff for taking Druid is the lack of damage. Core ranger and Soulbeast both do a lot more damage. In other words, we're trading kill-potential for survivability because we lose access to Marksmanship, Skirmishing, and Soulbeast (the reasons we can actually down other players). Not to mention that staff is basically required to generate enough Astral Force and tickles whoever you're fighting.

[aymnad.9023]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

• Without healing power, it gets to the point where it's not even worth it to use any skills in CA except for Natural Convergence for the stability before you instantly cancel it and leave CA for the super speed.

  This is not an issue. This is balancing. At the start it required little to no healing power. The dev tried to change the coefficient multiple times. Sometimes druid was really bad for weeks even with healing gear, sometimes overpowered (for personal healing) even without healing gear.I agree with you that the problem is the slow window between each druid heal. Fibrand Healing tome does not get hurt that much because it allows for a much faster (and precise) gameplay with exactly the same tools(on the same keys) as druid skills. Comparing the 2 sets back to back is quite funny.

Celestial Shadow's stealth -> alacrity would enable the elite provide a unique boon to our teams (since Chronomancers are no longer usable either).

I do not want to replace them or have to fight vs revenant for a spot in a group in PvE. (let's not forget that all modes are tied together)

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).I really like this idea as long as it still heals allies :). It fits perfectly with the idea that druid has both offense and support on his skills. Maybe it should be the theme of the class ? Fb will heal and grant boons, tempest hit harder and grant auras, scourge revive and grant barrier, scrapper will redirect condis and damage and druid will Heal allies and degen ennemies (not sure how much it will be wanted in PvE). The druid already has things that look like it so maybe we can push it further.

2. Seed of Life: This skill now grows a random Spirit on detonation (not counting Water Spirit or Spirit of Nature).Current seed is good. It just needs to be faster. I do not want to summon spirits because it removes the point of the normal summon skills and they can still get killed. Having only the activable effect would make more sense but still, even if all regular spirits activable are strong, the random aspect is not good for a support.

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.I like the revive. But then the glyph of stars becomes a bit less usefull when it just needs some small improvement so not sure (or let's make druid the ultimate rez bot :D). The mobile water field would be awesome! I think the dev avoided it because of the lunar impact or thought about the healing spring combo ? (it might also have been too strong at the time). Maybe pulse a boon or a condi with it ? (like vulnerability)

I think druid needs to be rewarded to be so close to the fight. That is why I proposed a degen (or regen) aura. You can have it scaling depending on the number or ennemies/allies in. I prefer the degen (freeze,vuln,dmg you can choose) so it has a use in PvP and grace of the land is still used in PvE