Druid 2.0 Rework! Best one yet!

[Swagger.1459]

You are all welcome!

STAFF

Staff 1- Add 1 Burning condition to the 3rd attack tick. Remove the healing function because it’s almost useless.

Staff 2- Rework to be an astral wisp that detonates on impact. 3 targets for direct damage and 3 allies for healing. 240 radius.

Staff 3- Add a short duration burning condition trail and burning condition aoe burst around the user at the end of the skill movement. 3 targets for aoe burst damage and 3 allies for healing. 240 radius.

Staff 4- Rename to “Astral Seed”, or something... Make it an aoe patch that looks similar to a fiery Seed of Life. Remove the immobilized effect and add burning instead. 3 targets. 240 radius. Same movement condition removal on allies.

Staff 5- Make this skill an aoe dome. 240 radius.

CELESTIAL AVATAR

CA Form- Provides natural stability to the Druid and pulses stability to 5 allies within a 240 radius.

AF Mechanics- Make CA a stance that is maintained until downed, killed or manually exited. Once downed, killed or exited, you have to build up Astral Force again to activate and reenter CA form.

CELESTIAL AVATAR SKILLS

CA 1- Make this skill similar to the old Guardian staff 1. Wide 900 range “astral” cone attack (with effects like the attacks from those bloodstone fen spirits at the Justicar) that hit 5 enemies and heals up to 5 allies within the effect. Does NOT heal the caster, only allies.

CA 2- Remove the reticle aiming function and make it a point blank aoe. 360 radius. 5 targets PLUS the caster.

CA 3- Remove the reticle aiming function and make it a point blank aoe with the same 360 radius. 5 Allies healing MINUS the caster. 5 enemy target daze.

CA 4- 360 radius. 5 Allies healed PLUS the caster.

CA 5- Remove the root so players are not sitting ducks. Add a 5 player, MINUS the Druid, healing component that coincides with the pulses and final damage. 360 radius.

TRAIT REVAMP

Lingering Light- Rename to “Astral Conduit”. Rework the trait to allow the Druid to equally generate Astral Force while wielding any weapon.

Ancient Seeds- Rename to something else based off of one of these...

• "Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe grants Super Speed to the Druid and removes all movement impairing conditions."
• "Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe grants Barrier to the Druid."
• "Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe causes X stacks of Burning"
• "Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe summons the icy coldness of space to Chill opponents."
• "Striking a stunned, dazed, knocked down, or launched foe grants a https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sublime_Conversion energy barrier to the Druid that causes enemy projectiles AND melee attacks to heal upon impact."

SEEDS OF LIFE

Have these pop instantly and have their radius increased to 240. 5 targets as normal.

[Kodama.6453]

Doesn't really make sense for me to let celestial avatar last endlessly until you are leaving the stance or get forced out of it by getting killed.No other stance that has a resource management works like that.

You can't sit endlessly in photonforge, overheating will end it if you stay too long.You can't sit in death or reaper's shroud endlessly, if your life force is depleted, it ends.Why should druids transformation work differently here?

[kiwituatara.6053]

Best as in most OP?

Staff is fine. Just need rework on #2, evade on #3, and faster cast time on #4. Current staff auto attack is underrated. If rapid fire had no cool down, solar beam would have ~60% dps of rapid fire. Doesn’t need the extra burning.

[anduriell.6280]

@"Kodama.6453" said:Why should druids transformation work differently here?Because all classes are different. FB Tomes transformations are permanent until all the pages are consumed, Druid could work with the "permanent transformation".

@kiwituatara.6053 said:Staff is fine. Just need rework on #2, evade on #3, and faster cast time on #4. Current staff auto attack is underrated. If rapid fire had no cool down, solar beam would have ~60% dps of rapid fire. Doesn’t need the extra burning.Staff is trash, it needs some tuning in all the skills, the weapon feels totally useless now because it's double nature and total lack of relevan effects.

@Swagger.1459 said:You are all welcome!

Swagger look, the weapon needs this change:

STAFFWhen equipped the druid target automatically Allies instead enemies.skill 1 beam is a continuous beam now although the effects are applied once every half a second. This is to make easier to target enemies with the skill. Heal allies and burn enemies, because it can't target directly any enemies the beam is unblockable. The burning is in line with other condition weapons from other classes.skill 2 This target allies/pets now , as such the orb heal on hit, heal allies around the target and burn enemies around the target.skill 3 Restoring evade to that skill is not needed at this point. Burning on destination is a better suited effect.skill 4 Targets hit by this skill are trapped by the roots. Increase the CD to 30s.skill 5 extend the duration to 10s, reduce the cd to 20s.

---

TRAITS:

• Natural Mender : this minor is reworked to : apply 10% outgoing healing increase to the druid while in combat. Druid Dazes enemies around the druid when entering in avatar state.
• Druidic Clarity : instead removing all the conditions at once, it should transform one random condition / second while staying in celestial avatar.
• Celestial Shadow: Return 3s of stealth in all game modes, remove the Superspeed part. Increase the radius to 450 so more allies are affected by this effect.
• Primal Echoes: Increase the burning/healing deal by the staff skills. Remove the daze effect from the swap.
• Cultivated Synergy: Extend the duration of the avatar state. Heal around the pet when the Druid comes out of the avatar state.
• Ancients seeds: Delete de trait. This effect should be placed in the staff as active skill.
• Lingering light: This trait is rolled back to create an orb around the druid which heals allies during combat.

• Grace of the land: This trait additionally to granting might, makes any might stacks to grant healing power to the druid as well .

  • New GM can be used to extend the duration of the glyphs to one additional pulse, Also granting the Druid an aura to convert one condition from up to 5 allies every 6s.

  ---

GLYPHS:Glyphs are reworked to function like the Glyph of Unity. Each glyph tether itself to up to 5 allies or enemies and while the targets are tethered they get the effects of the glyphs.Alls Glyphs tether up to 400 radius, allies get an additional range for the leash up to 600. Foes over 400 range break the tether.All glyphs get 3 pulses, pulsing once a second for a duration up to 3 seconds.

• Glyph of Rejuvenation: heal the druid, heal allies for ~1K pulse (example) / heal the druid for less, heal allies for more on each pulse (~3K)

• Glyph of Alignment: Apply weakness, poison and rip boons on 3 pulses / heal and copy boons from the allies to the druid.

• Glyph of Equality: apply pulsing daze to enemies / break stun and convert conditions in pulses.

• Glyph of Unity: Transfer conditions and a percentage damage to nearby enemies / transfer a percentage of direct heals and copy boons to allies

• Glyph of the Tides: Remove this glyph. This effect is added to Avatar#4

• Glyph of Empowerment: Increase outgoing power and condi damage on tethered allies, Increase outgoing healing and boon duration on allies.

• Glyph of the Stars: Keeps the functionality but using the tether to allies mechanic. Instead blocking new conditions to be applied, it transform the conditions.

---

AVATARThe range is removed from all Avatar skills as the work now as PbAoE skills around the druid. All skills are non rooting skills so the Druid can move around while casting them.

• cosmic ray: Heal around the druid.
• Seed of life: instead cleanses convert conditions.
• Lunar impact: PbAoE around the druid.
• Tides of rejuvenation: Additionally adds the existing effect from the Glyph of Tides on the first pulse.
• Natural Convergence: the skill is reworked to: allies are granted short stability and resistance around the druid for each pulse, this effect does not apply to the druid. Final pulse applies longer might, fury, stability and resistance included the Druid. Enemies in the PbAoE area are impacted 1st pulse burning, 2nd weakness+burning, 3rd slow+weakness+burning. It does not deal direct damage or the black hole effect. This skill should not root the Druid, the animation where the druid get's down to the ground is applied to when the druid enters avatar state as it's better fitted for that situation. the rest of the animation with the solar system should stay in this skill instead.

---

OTHER MECHANICS

While using druid cleansing skills, like glyphs or avatar skills, the conditions are not cleansed but instead converted. Damaging conditions are converted to regeneration and CC conditions to protection. Each stack is converted to a fixed duration of the boon, independently of the condition duration or stacks. 25 bleeds provide the same 3s regeneration as 1 bleed.

Druid's pets get restored the missing stats. Instead the Druid loses the ability to use the pets actives (F2). The role of the druid class is now to do damage using allies as the platform ( while using the pet as anker while crossing the enemy in the beams ).

Druid only gain Astral energy when: Directly heal allies or himself using skills/traits. Convert any conditions to boons. Food/runes/regeneration heals is not taken into consideration. Same goes for damage dealt.

---

Thoughts about the new design:Druid has many tools to make it so: Staff#2 to damage while the pet is attacking in melee range, Staff#1 to cross the enemy in the beam, Staff#4 to keep the target rooted to allow the druid to get in a better position.

As such although the druid traits and skills themselves don't have much interaction with the pet, the mechanics between Druid weapons and pet makes the class the need to make strong and intimate use of the pet mechanic as they need the pet alive at all times.

This design makes very easy to balance the class: if the staff does too little damage it is enough to increase the burning, if heals too little increase the healing. If the glyphs seem OP reduce the leash radius so it's easier to break the effect, if it's the opposite (it's too easy to break off from the tether ) increase the leash radius. Because it does not have access to pets actives, those can be freely balanced and empowered to core without any fear for weird interactions with the druid.

It's not like the druid has an actual place in any other game mode other than some raids, so why not to try this out. It can't be worse than how it is now.

[Kodama.6453]

@"anduriell.6280" said:Because all classes are different. FB Tomes transformations are permanent until all the pages are consumed, Druid could work with the "permanent transformation".

Yes, until all pages are consumed. If you actually want to use the tomes, then the tomes are not permanent.

The main problem I have with this is that it makes resource management for druids meaningless in PvE. If you want to play a healing druid, why leave celestial avatar at all? Just camp in it and spam the low cooldown healing spells.

Why even have a resource if it doesn't matter? That makes no sense for me.

[anduriell.6280]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@anduriell.6280 said:The main problem I have with this is that it makes resource management for druids meaningless in PvE. If you want to play a healing druid, why leave celestial avatar at all? Just camp in it and spam the low cooldown healing spells.Why even have a resource if it doesn't matter? That makes no sense for me.Well there i agree with you, if they would move to a permanent avatar there is no need for the resource with the CD should be enough.

I vote for a different approach that is to add a trait to increase or even double the time the druid can spend in Avatar state. It does not extend the resource bar, it costs the same to fill it up, but it gets drained slower.

That should make the Druid easier to manage, as the big issue it has now it's the fact that the transformation is at least 50% of the time inaccessible. It would be the same as once you cancel Photon forge you wouldn't have access to the forge as long as you used it the time before with a minimum of 10 seconds cooldown.

[Abyssisis.3971]

Why not just mix the way soulbeast and berserker does it? Have CA on a 10-15 second cooldown where you can enter it for 10-15 seconds before it runs out and goes on cooldown again?

[kiwituatara.6053]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@"Kodama.6453" said:Why should druids transformation work differently here?Because all classes are different. FB Tomes transformations are permanent until all the pages are consumed, Druid could work with the "permanent transformation".

@kiwituatara.6053 said:Staff is fine. Just need rework on #2, evade on #3, and faster cast time on #4. Current staff auto attack is underrated. If rapid fire had no cool down, solar beam would have ~60% dps of rapid fire. Doesn’t need the extra burning.Staff is trash, it needs some tuning in all the skills, the weapon feels totally useless now because it's double nature and total lack of relevan effects.

@Swagger.1459 said:You are all welcome!

Swagger look, the weapon needs this change:

STAFFWhen equipped the druid target automatically Allies instead enemies.skill 1 beam is a continuous beam now although the effects are applied once every half a second. This is to make easier to target enemies with the skill. Heal allies and burn enemies, because it can't target directly any enemies the beam is unblockable. The burning is in line with other condition weapons from other classes.skill 2 This target allies/pets now , as such the orb heal on hit, heal allies around the target and burn enemies around the target.skill 3 Restoring evade to that skill is not needed at this point. Burning on destination is a better suited effect.skill 4 Targets hit by this skill are trapped by the roots. Increase the CD to 30s.skill 5 extend the duration to 10s, reduce the cd to 20s.

---

TRAITS:

• Natural Mender : this minor is reworked to : apply 10% outgoing healing increase to the druid while in combat. Druid Dazes enemies around the druid when entering in avatar state.
• Druidic Clarity : instead removing all the conditions at once, it should transform one random condition / second while staying in celestial avatar.
• Celestial Shadow: Return 3s of stealth in all game modes, remove the Superspeed part. Increase the radius to 450 so more allies are affected by this effect.
• Primal Echoes: Increase the burning/healing deal by the staff skills. Remove the daze effect from the swap.
• Cultivated Synergy: Extend the duration of the avatar state. Heal around the pet when the Druid comes out of the avatar state.
• Ancients seeds:
  Delete de trait
  . This effect should be placed in the staff as active skill.
• Lingering light: This trait is rolled back to create an orb around the druid which heals allies during combat.

• Grace of the land: This trait additionally to granting might, makes any might stacks to grant healing power to the druid as well .
  • New GM can be used to extend the duration of the glyphs to one additional pulse, Also granting the Druid an aura to convert one condition from up to 5 allies every 6s.

  ---

GLYPHS:Glyphs are reworked to function like the Glyph of Unity. Each glyph tether itself to up to 5 allies or enemies and while the targets are tethered they get the effects of the glyphs.Alls Glyphs tether up to 400 radius, allies get an additional range for the leash up to 600. Foes over 400 range break the tether.All glyphs get 3 pulses, pulsing once a second for a duration up to 3 seconds.

• Glyph of Rejuvenation: heal the druid, heal allies for ~1K pulse (example) / heal the druid for less, heal allies for more on each pulse (~3K)

• Glyph of Alignment: Apply weakness, poison and rip boons on 3 pulses / heal and copy boons from the allies to the druid.

• Glyph of Equality: apply pulsing daze to enemies / break stun and convert conditions in pulses.

• Glyph of Unity: Transfer conditions and a percentage damage to nearby enemies / transfer a percentage of direct heals and copy boons to allies

• Glyph of the Tides: Remove this glyph. This effect is added to Avatar#4

• Glyph of Empowerment: Increase outgoing power and condi damage on tethered allies, Increase outgoing healing and boon duration on allies.

• Glyph of the Stars: Keeps the functionality but using the tether to allies mechanic. Instead blocking new conditions to be applied, it transform the conditions.

---

AVATARThe range is removed from all Avatar skills as the work now as PbAoE skills around the druid. All skills are non rooting skills so the Druid can move around while casting them.

• cosmic ray: Heal around the druid.
• Seed of life: instead cleanses convert conditions.
• Lunar impact: PbAoE around the druid.
• Tides of rejuvenation: Additionally adds the existing effect from the Glyph of Tides on the first pulse.
• Natural Convergence: the skill is reworked to: allies are granted short stability and resistance around the druid for each pulse, this effect does not apply to the druid. Final pulse applies longer might, fury, stability and resistance included the Druid. Enemies in the PbAoE area are impacted 1st pulse burning, 2nd weakness+burning, 3rd slow+weakness+burning. It does not deal direct damage or the black hole effect. This skill should not root the Druid, the animation where the druid get's down to the ground is applied to when the druid enters avatar state as it's better fitted for that situation. the rest of the animation with the solar system should stay in this skill instead.

---

OTHER MECHANICS

While using druid cleansing skills, like glyphs or avatar skills, the conditions are not cleansed but instead converted. Damaging conditions are converted to regeneration and CC conditions to protection. Each stack is converted to a fixed duration of the boon, independently of the condition duration or stacks. 25 bleeds provide the same 3s regeneration as 1 bleed.

Druid's pets get restored the missing stats. Instead the Druid loses the ability to use the pets actives (F2). The role of the druid class is now to do damage using allies as the platform ( while using the pet as anker while crossing the enemy in the beams ).

Druid only gain Astral energy when: Directly heal allies or himself using skills/traits. Convert any conditions to boons. Food/runes/regeneration heals is not taken into consideration. Same goes for damage dealt.

---

Thoughts about the new design:Druid has many tools to make it so: Staff#2 to damage while the pet is attacking in melee range, Staff#1 to cross the enemy in the beam, Staff#4 to keep the target rooted to allow the druid to get in a better position.

As such although the druid traits and skills themselves don't have much interaction with the pet, the mechanics between Druid weapons and pet makes the class the need to make strong and intimate use of the pet mechanic as they need the pet alive at all times.

This design makes very easy to balance the class: if the staff does too little damage it is enough to increase the burning, if heals too little increase the healing. If the glyphs seem OP reduce the leash radius so it's easier to break the effect, if it's the opposite (it's too easy to break off from the tether ) increase the leash radius. Because it does not have access to pets actives, those can be freely balanced and empowered to core without any fear for weird interactions with the druid.

It's not like the druid has an actual place in any other game mode other than some raids, so why not to try this out. It can't be worse than how it is now.

Celestial avatar should be buffed, Ancient seeds deleted. But I insist staff is fine, it just needs tuning a bit. It is really underrated.

And I don't want staff to apply any damaging conditions. Druid by its nature can become quite tanky. I don't want to push for another cancer bunker condi build. If Staff gets a major buff, it should remain as a power weapon.

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

Ive been playing DPS Staff/LB druid in WvW lately (I used to main it) and the staff def need a change (a buff of some sort). Imo ancient seeds is fine as you need to take druid to get it (how many DPS druids do you honestly see in a competitive environment? Most druids you see are condi). Druid isnt that strong so having ancient seeds def helps when landed. I run an unblockable and there are still a lot of moments they cleanse it fast and shrug it off. Avatar could use a bit of polishing, but not as much (maybe apply a short dose of regen while in celestial form...something). Maybe rework a couple traits that are underused., look at warm ups and CD's of some skills (I liked the staff 5 aoe block idea...maybe moves with you?)

[mistsim.2748]

@kiwituatara.6053 said:Best as in most OP?

Staff is fine. Just need rework on #2, evade on #3, and faster cast time on #4. Current staff auto attack is underrated. If rapid fire had no cool down, solar beam would have ~60% dps of rapid fire. Doesn’t need the extra burning.

Staff AA was actually pretty damn good when HoT launched. I ran a fun staff/sword/wh build on marauder amulet. CA 5 also did really good damage with that setup, so we had a nice aoe nuke. it's trash now, with the nerfed power coefficient. they either need to add some condis to staff, or revert staff 1 nerf.

[BadSanta.6527]

why no remove ca and insted glyphs change base on your pet family ?

[Swagger.1459]

delete this comment

[InsaneQR.7412]

No offense but: I disagree.

The best rework yet was from @"Pterikdactyl.7630"

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1209118#Comment_1209118

It basically revamps the class into better specific roles and disperses play patterns more.

Its my favorite revamp so far and it is pretty much what i will adapt when i convert all gw2 classes into DnD instead of the official druid.

[anduriell.6280]

@InsaneQR.7412 said:No offense but: I disagree.

The best rework yet was from @"Pterikdactyl.7630"

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1209118#Comment_1209118

It basically revamps the class into better specific roles and disperses play patterns more.

Its my favorite revamp so far and it is pretty much what i will adapt when i convert all gw2 classes into DnD instead of the official druid.

Agreed that is a fantastic rework. We could get something similar for the Soulbeast where the Archetype ability is defined by your grandmaster trait, so at least the Soulbeast can go for the preferred pet without being constrained by the poor archetype choices.

[lare.5129]

one small thing, why driud should not be useless at all ? It sis anyway fun for roleplay players on wvw, and I don't see reason boost them.