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Eye On Druid Ideas! Yay!!!


Swagger.1459

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The team finally decided to read some of Swagger’s threads, and upon filtering out a bunch of the verbose whining, we found some really incredible ideas to use! So, armed with this great feedback, our near future update aims to improve Druid Staff skills so they will be in a good spot for any game mode! But that’s not all!!! This update will also focus on improving healing Druid gameplay patterns and mechanics (just like we recently improved gameplay patterns and mechanics for the Deadeye)!

AMAZING STAFF IMPROVEMENTS!

Staff 1- Added 1 burning condition to the 3rd attack tick. The low damage and low healing make adding conditions to this skill ok.

Staff 2- Added a few burning conditions and increased radius to 300. All effects hit 5 enemies and allies within the radius. The current 130 radius was not enough to support allies, so the increased radius will help. This change will also be a useful for helping to contribute to breaking up the tight zergs in wvw.

Staff 3- Added a short duration burning condition trail and burning condition aoe burst around the user at the end of the skill movement.

Staff 4- Made this a circular patch, like all those other aoe patches, and added bleeding. The current cone design was awful to use during movement based combat, so the aoe design allows this skill to be useful. This will also make the skill useful for zerg breaking and sieging structures in wvw.

Staff 5- Made this skill an aoe dome. The previous small rectangle design was kind of useless, so this change will allow players to support their team better during mass combat situations.

USEFUL CELESTIAL AVATAR!

This form is now designed to be dependable! It will no longer be clunky to heal with, or overly easy to interrupt and shut down! Celestial Avatar will now be a sturdier form that is also front line support capable in WvW!

CA Form- Provides natural stability to the Druid and pulses stability to 5 allies within a 360 radius. We know that players get tossed around like rag dolls in wvw zerg play, so this will be a much needed improvement.

AF Mechanics- CA is now 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.

CA 1- This skill now functions like the old Guardian staff 1. Wide 600 range “astral” cone attack (effects are now like 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. This will be great for kill credit too!

CA 2- Removed the reticle aiming function and made it a point blank aoe that pops a seed instantly. 360 radius. 5 targets PLUS the caster.

CA 3- Removed the reticle aiming function and made 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- Removed the root so players are not sitting ducks! Added a 5 player, MINUS the Druid, healing component that coincides with the pulses and final damage. Same 360 radius.

AWESOME NEW TRAIT!

Lingering Light has been reworked! It is now called “All weapons generate Astral Force”. Selecting this trait allows the Druid to equally generate Astral Force while wielding ANY weapon! Enjoy!

SEEDS OF LIFE

These now pop instantly and have their radius increased to 360. 5 targets as normal.

ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR ANY SKEPTICS

The team took a ton of various gameplay factors into account before we planned on these changes. We know that trying to heal moving teammates with ground target skills wasn’t really fun, or effective, and more akin to herding cats. We know the staff needed some major love. We know that gating heals so harshly created scenarios where you couldn't heal your team when needed. We know that every ranger spec wasn't needed, and in some cases kicked from organized wvw squads, and we were sad about that for you all. We know that facing off against an 80 player zerg had some complications due to all the knock backs, interrupts... and especially the major incoming AoE damage spam… As cited by our very awesome, and communicative, @Ben Phongluangtham.1065

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:We considered the nerfs for passives in WvW. But in the end we were really concerned that the reduced defenses would make large group fights a lot less fun. There are just too many AOEs being flung around.

I'd welcome more discussion though.

The mega AoE damage spam video for reference...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ivAbKhzg0

And we also wanted to get back to our envisioned design roots for the Druid, as mentioned by none other than the amazing dev, and father of the Druid, @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048"

“Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.”

“Upcoming content will have stuff that you can’t just dodge to survive.”

“Berserk meta is going away”

...Enjoy your now fun, functional and fantastic new Druid! And sorry it took so long, but we were in extremely deep meditation about this subject and really wanted to make sure that our ranger players had the best Druiding experience ever! Thank you for your patience and support! We love you ppls! A lot!

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Here's one: Since CA healing, staff, and CA cooldowns (mostly in PvP/WvW) have been taking nothing but reductions, just do away with building Astral Force crap and have CA on a normal cooldown timer.

It's already bad enough that it's gated by a cooldown, further hindered by resource accumulation, limited through healing allies due to them making heals-over-time apply, and made more complicated with regen competition from other sources (which is better now but still flawed).

It would also be easier to balance without them having a meltdown thinking about all the runes, traits, skills, or whatever that would add to this madness. Then, maybe core Ranger stuff can have some of their effectiveness restored because it won't be empowering Druid anymore.

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Made some sometime ago in my Comprehensive improvement threads.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/29106/updated-comprehensive-ranger-elite-specialization-improvement-thread#latest

Soulbeast is in there too. I basically focussed on less used stuff.

GotL could be made less potent in might generation but could get the effect of might increases outgoing healing to allies (and allies only). So this would be the dedicated support option and lingering light could be made the competitive version. With a nice burst heal on my proposed explo effect.

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id Personally just like them to add more support to the staff, the auto just feels lacking for what it does, I really wish it’d stack vuln or burn, or something on top of it’s pitiful healing and damage.

The 2 skill is just... bad, I like your idea of just making it an AoE you attach to the target that heals and damages.

3 skill is fine as is imo

4 skill could move faster and maybe do something more than just immob and movement impare cleanse, MAYBE apply a condi? Personally I think if it moved faster and did slightly more damage than the auto it’d be fine.

5 skill is pretty good, but I do like the idea of making it a dome instead of just a wall, but if the wall were just longer and taller I think it’d be good too.

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@Wondrouswall.7169 said:Here's one: Since CA healing, staff, and CA cooldowns (mostly in PvP/WvW) have been taking nothing but reductions, just do away with building Astral Force crap and have CA on a normal cooldown timer.

It's already bad enough that it's gated by a cooldown, further hindered by resource accumulation, limited through healing allies due to them making heals-over-time apply, and made more complicated with regen competition from other sources (which is better now but still flawed).

It would also be easier to balance without them having a meltdown thinking about all the runes, traits, skills, or whatever that would add to this madness. Then, maybe core Ranger stuff can have some of their effectiveness restored because it won't be empowering Druid anymore.

That’s a really interesting idea! I like the way you think!

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@Wondrouswall.7169 said:Here's one: Since CA healing, staff, and CA cooldowns (mostly in PvP/WvW) have been taking nothing but reductions, just do away with building Astral Force crap and have CA on a normal cooldown timer.

It's already bad enough that it's gated by a cooldown, further hindered by resource accumulation, limited through healing allies due to them making heals-over-time apply, and made more complicated with regen competition from other sources (which is better now but still flawed).

It would also be easier to balance without them having a meltdown thinking about all the runes, traits, skills, or whatever that would add to this madness. Then, maybe core Ranger stuff can have some of their effectiveness restored because it won't be empowering Druid anymore.

I would personally be a big fan of this change. I have been giving healing druid more of a chance in WvW, and although CF generation is sometimes not an issue, there are many situations when I feel like the mechanic is too punishing. If they are trying to bring down the bunkering capabilities and bring up its support potential, I think this would be a step in the right direction. Either that or take off the timer for CA and make it be based off of each CA skill cast.

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The CA1, CA2, CA3 changes would make me rather sad, especially turning the beautiful Lunar Blast into yet another boring and rather limited AoE or conal shaped support skill. A huge nerf in quite a few scenarios, even a nerf in WvW skirmishes as these CA changes are only focused on turning druids into a 'Firebrand 0.5' to possibly give them a spot in blobs. Everything else sounds like a good idea. Making CA transformations less limiting would be a start.

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@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@"Wondrouswall.7169" said:Here's one: Since CA healing, staff, and CA cooldowns (mostly in PvP/WvW) have been taking nothing but reductions, just do away with building Astral Force crap and have CA on a normal cooldown timer.

It's already bad enough that it's gated by a cooldown, further hindered by resource accumulation, limited through healing allies due to them making heals-over-time apply, and made more complicated with regen competition from other sources (which is better now but still flawed).

It would also be easier to balance without them having a meltdown thinking about all the runes, traits, skills, or whatever that would add to this madness. Then, maybe core Ranger stuff can have some of their effectiveness restored because it won't be empowering Druid anymore.

I would personally be a big fan of this change. I have been giving healing druid more of a chance in WvW, and although CF generation is sometimes not an issue, there are many situations when I feel like the mechanic is too punishing. If they are trying to bring down the bunkering capabilities and bring up its support potential, I think this would be a step in the right direction. Either that or take off the timer for CA and make it be based off of each CA skill cast.

I would rather CA's resource be converted into energy that fuels the skills, rather then the Transform itself. You can even adapt several aspects of Life Force from Necro to make a new system that works with CA so you don't just spam skills in order to avoid wasting the effort it took to build up. Make the Proficiency trait "Celestial Resonance" that applies a buff to nearby allies, which generates CA whenever those allies are healed (from any normal healing source), and repurpose Lingering Light to increase CA's pool size. CA skills now have an Energy cost to use, and the Transform's upkeep cost drastically reduced. Its essentially an inverted Heat mechanic. And just like Photon Forge, the GM traits control how CA is generated and Manged, while the Adept and Master lines trade off between passive bonuses and skill enhancements.

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  • 9 months later...

Really good ideas. What I'd like to see, personally for Staff:

Staff 1 - Add Cripple on the third tickStaff 2 - Pulse Blind every 2 secondsStaff 3 - Reduce recharge from 18 to 16Staff 4 - Lessen the impacts by 2 but steal 1 boon (or health) per target. Sort of life roots siphoning nutrients.Staff 5 - Dome

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@"Crystal Paladin.3871" said:Instead of burning on staff1,2,3 as suggested by OP, it could inflict blindness , weakness, a knockdown...

Burning for druid?... Doesn't ring right with plant / green nature theme... But I might be wrong ;) :p

But but but!

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Solar_Beam“Fire a concentrated beam of light...”

Solar

  • relating to or determined by the sun."solar radiation"
  • relating to or denoting energy derived from the sun's rays."solar heating"

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Astral_Wisp

“Send a wisp to attack your foe...”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ancestral_Grace

“Become a wisp of natural energy...”

The Druid clearly channels cosmic energies such as solar and lunar power... “Their new profession mechanic allows them to accumulate astral force to become a celestial avatar”! So it totally fits and these would be awesome changes!

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@Rysdude.3824 said:Really good ideas. What I'd like to see, personally for Staff:

Staff 1 - Add Cripple on the third tickStaff 2 - Pulse Blind every 2 secondsStaff 3 - Reduce recharge from 18 to 16Staff 4 - Lessen the impacts by 2 but steal 1 boon (or health) per target. Sort of life roots siphoning nutrients.Staff 5 - Dome

Thank you for the kind words! You are truly a cosmic ray of solar energy illuminating these dark times!

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@Swagger.1459 said:

@"Crystal Paladin.3871" said:Instead of burning on staff1,2,3 as suggested by OP, it could inflict blindness , weakness, a knockdown...

Burning for druid?... Doesn't ring right with plant / green nature theme... But I might be wrong ;) :p

But but but!

“Fire a concentrated beam of light...”

Solar
  • relating to or determined by the sun."solar radiation"
  • relating to or denoting energy derived from the sun's rays."solar heating"

“Send a wisp to attack your foe...”

“Become a wisp of natural energy...”

The Druid clearly channels cosmic energies such as solar and lunar power... “Their new profession mechanic allows them to accumulate astral force to become a celestial avatar”! So it totally fits and these would be awesome changes!

Okay... U can have burning... But I wish it also gets these: ;)Solar beam : blind the eyes... So blindnessWisp: wisp drains the enemy's power while attaching to them... So weaknessAncestral grace: blast finisher and travels with speed of light. Appearing suddenly with a momentum, knockdown foes... So knockdown or knockback...

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  • 2 months later...

Glyph changes do not move this spec closer to the fun side. Especially a 7s long cast time elite. 7s in combat is a long time.

Healing in GW2 is a pretty thankless job, that rewards less than doing damage to enemies instead, and I think it would be awesome to work on areas that move Druid in a more enjoyable direction.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

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