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Playing Druid in PvP has never been this unfun


EgyptRaider.3946

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As somebody who would absolutely love for Druid to become a more viable PvP and WvW support, the biggest thing I would like is for the celestial force mechanic to be reworked. Personally I find the heat mechanic to be so much better designed than celestial force. It is difficult to support your allies when almost all of the spec's support potential is frontloaded into CA and you are stuck drained on juice, spamming 1 on staff trying to build your CF while your allies die. I find it a bit silly that I feel it necessary to build around CF generation (like WS thanks to its minors) in order be able to access my support, rather than building fully around support. Personally I would opt for a change in Celestial Force generation and Celestial Avatar cooldown/duration via Lingering Light, which should be THE support-defining trait in the tree. It could come at the price of further weakening the pet, or even sacrificing it (unlikely, but the pet does from a sneeze in zergs as is).

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@jcbroe.4329 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:It's really just time for an entire overhaul of Druid. The spec lacked an identity when it was introduced (Core was a sustainable 1v1er, Druid was a sustainable 1v1er - PvP standpoint), and has been repeatedly nerfed because of how it performed at the role to the point where no matter how many numbers changes it gets to half-implemented role concepts, it's nowhere the scope or weight of change to make Druid desirable over other Ranger specs and other classes (outside of Raids).

There's a million of these that have a million good ideas so I'm just going to add to the pool here; Druid rework:

Staff
  1. Guardian treatment: replace this with the current 2 skill. New auto casts at the rate of Necro staff auto, sending an orb that passes through allies and healing them before attaching to the target for a brief time and healing allies that contact the orb. Total animation for Necro staff and therefore this attack is a hair longer than 1.25 seconds, so orb should persist on the target for 1 second. Alter damage/healing to compensate. This attack can be cast without a target; doing so will leave it unable to attach to enemies it contacts.
  2. New skill. "Steal" the Rev offhand sword 4 animation. This skill heals the player and allies in a wave, while damaging and weakening enemies. 5 total hits/heals, maybe ~200 damage and healing per @ 0.5 coefficient healing and adjust from there.
  3. The current iteration is actually fine. Maybe add a smaller area healing component to the travel path to heal allies you pass through and/or a blind to the end of the skill.
  4. New skill. 1200 ranged cast AoE, 240 radius. Immobilize enemies on initial cast, then pulses respectable damage and bleeds/cripple. Pulses grant allies in the AoE 1s of Resistance per pulse.
  5. In addition to its current functionality - allies passing through it are healed a small amount and gain regeneration (2-4s range) (Make this work like Mesmer focus 4). Enemies passing through it are damaged slightly and chilled.

Celestial Form
Normalized the cooldown to 15 seconds across all gamemodes.
  1. Reworked to mimic Firebrand tome 1 skills. Start with healing @ 300 base with 0.5 scale coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  2. New skill/functionality. Applies a unique "Seed of Life" effect, lasts for 2 seconds, 240 AoE radius, 1200 range. 2 second cooldown. On initial cast, does nothing. When the effect ends, heal and remove 2 conditions. Taking damage ends the effect, receiving the effect from another source ends the current effect and replaces it with the new. If it is prematurely ended in either way, the conditions removed and healing received are halved. Start with healing @ 1200 base with 0.4 coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  3. This skill is fine as is.
  4. In addition to the current effect, each pulse also provides 1s protection per pulse.
  5. This skill can now be cast while moving. The stability is now applied per pulse, and as an AoE effect.

Glyphs
  1. Glyph of Rejuvenation - this skill is probably okay now but may need more number tweaks.
  2. Glyph of the Tides - reverse the current Normal and Celestial form effects so that it pulls normally, pushes in Celestial Form.
  3. Glyph of Equality - Normal: added effect - breaking a stun with this skill causes the skill to stun instead of daze. Celestial: Fine as is.
  4. Glyph of Unity - Normal: Added effect - Gain Protection on cast for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered enemy. Celestial: Added effect - gain regeneration for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered ally.
  5. Glyph of Alignment - Normal: New effect - Deal damage in an area, immobilizing enemies and copying 3 conditions from yourself to enemies hit by the attack. Celestial: Fine as is.
  6. Glyph of the Stars - Both versions: Remove ranged component. The player now channels this skill. Reduced the channel duration to 5 seconds. Condense the effect into that time frame. Normal : Fine as is. Celestial: added effect - Astral Force drains 50% slower while channeling this skill.

Traits
  • Staff proficiency and Celestial Being fine as is
  • Druidic Clarity: Removed the stunbreak component. Changed the effect to be "Entering Celestial Form removes 3 conditions."
  • Cultivated Synergy: Fine as is.
  • Primal Echoes: Swapping weapons casts Lesser Glyph of Equality - the Normal version of the glyph with no stunbreak component. Reduces the recharge of Staff skills.
  • Live Vicariously: Fine as is.
  • Celestial Shadow: Replaced with Celestial Shephard (or whatever name): Entering Celestial Form provides 3 stacks of Stability for 5 seconds, 240 effect radius.
  • Verdant Etching: Fine as is - it casts the new form of the skill explained above on Glyph use.
  • Natural Stride: Fine as is.
  • Natural Mender: Reduce stacks to 5, increase outgoing healing percentage to 4%. Added effect - reduce damage received by 1% (per stack).
  • Grace of the Land: Fine as is.
  • Lingering Light: Outgoing healing is increased by 20% and Astral Force drains 20% slower in Celestial Form. Swap the trait position with Grace of the Land (this is a minor OCD type thing - doing this will make top row enter/celestial form effects, middle row skill modifying effects, and bottom row conditional/combat effects).
  • Ancient Seeds: Replaced with Ancient Magic: Enemies you or your pet inflict with movement impairing conditions are also inflicted with Weakness (short duration, ~2 seconds, no ICD, adjust from there).

Essentially, give Druid the ability to group support on a level that compares with the other supports in the game while reducing any emphasis it may have had on dueling/pushing kills.

WoW @jcbroe.4329 , You put a lot of thought into this. This is probably one of the best full druid overall I have seen. Very delicate approach, the staff trait change for example is so logical, I have no idea how they haven't implanted that yet. Only issue i have is that still druid will not have any option to build offensively , you added some effects rangers have access to from different sources like more protraction, more weakness etc... Glyphs will still be hard to use due to cast time so I don't think your improvements will be enough to make them viable in pvp/wvw. I think the only way to make offensive druid balanced and usable is to give it some/more synergy with ranger offensive trait lines(mostly MM and Skirmishing) . Getting druid off WS and NM with your suggestions to DC and CS will make them squishy enough to justify some offensive capabilities. The most obvious option is something to do with "daze" element of the druid. It could be either implemented directly to the druid traitline or the offensive traitlines themselves or/and to the staff weapon skills(I hope your version of staff 2 should do nice damage). I also think the glyhps in CA mode need something special. CA is a special mode, you need some reason to save the glyphs CD for while you are in CA. One Idea I had is that each glyph should empower one CA ability. For example glyph of tides was made this way for a reason. Devs imagined players using it while in CA + CA 5. But this was back in the days zerk rangers could benefit from druid healing powers and CA did fair damage. With current state of the game players don't even bother to get away from CA 5. So what if for example glyph of tides will stay the same but while in CA will empower the CA 5 by 100% for the next 5 sec. Each glyph will some effect to empower one CA skill(only the elite will not have this effect). Also some traits you have not touched could use a second review if you ask me. Also something to help with pet survivability to compensate for the stats nerf. I suggested to give pets damage immunity while in CA form.

I just want to say before I start textwalling that I like your ideas a lot.

Also that I was only trying to introduce a theme/direction - not a manual or "necessary" list of "absolutes", but a nudge in....well, any direction but the lack of one the spec currently has.

Most importantly, from my own hands on gameplay and experience over the years, what I really want is for Druid to be PvP/WvW support tier viable. Not collateral healer, smallscale duelist with healing, or etc, but peak Tempest, current Firebrand level support. To do that, it needs the tools to compete with the support that other classes bring, the tools to "zerg", and the AoE to CC, damage utility, tag, cleave, etc.

Druid is just so miserable to play right now because it's eaten SO MANY nerfs because it could win duels. After playing almost exclusively WvW support Firebrand (when I'm not PvPing) for the last almost 2 years, AND playing Soulbeast/Core in PvP throughout that time, Druid needs to give up being this weird, nonfunctional hybrid spot between the 2 and either go one way or the other.

All of that said, moving away from Druid for just a second, Core traitlines/skills need in some cases just as much work to update their functionality and viability too. Marksmanship and Skirmishing are as much a culprit as why people don't run them as elite specs are - the first 2 columns and the minor traits of both traitlines are actual garbage compared to almost every other trait selection in the game, and on top of that, people are going to gravitate towards picking the specializations that affect the cooldowns of their skills/utilities.

Ignoring the outliers, here is the "awful utilities" list:
  • Traps
  • Signets
  • Spirits (for PvP/WvW)
  • Glyphs
  • Stances

Here's the outliers list:
  • Signet of Stone
  • Dolyak Stance

Here's the usable skills list:
  • Shouts
  • Survival

See every "meta" PvP/WvW build since the removal of moving spirits as a reference for how this has affected build diversity.

So obviously I don't care too much about "arguing" what "needs" to happen with Druid; I'll take anything. I just desperately, desperately want some new (viable/optimal) way to play the class that isn't Shouts/Survival + cooldown traitline(s) +- outlier skill +- elite spec playing as a duel, +1 damage, roamer. And Druid has everything it needs to be a fantastic addition to the "support class" roster except for an effective design/implementation/balance team/initiative.

I agree with everything you say. It seems A.net is taking a limited approach to balance in-order to control the process. Some skills and traits they balance toward PVE and some to be more suitable for PVP . They also like to load some traits with OP powers compared to other traits and balance everything around it. It always annoyed me how they crippled druid in all areas over 2+ years, but never touched the obvious over performing traits, DC+CS. It is clear that nerfing those traits would have made druid much less of threat as a point holder/ dueling class. Instead these traits stayed the same and everything else got cut to a useless level, including the support capabilities. Its the same for traits like WK, not only its one of the best traits ranger has, it also synergies directly with so many other good traits(SF/ZS/remorseless). This is a bad design for so many reasons, it forces nerfs in other areas to compensate and push the player to a very narrow and limited option selection.

I would love if they would take a break from developing more elite spec and instead do a full overall to the core trait lines and elite specs.

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Druid needs to give up being this weird, nonfunctional hybrid spot between the 2 and either go one way or the other.

Druid needs to be reworked into a damage dealer with heavy boon support. the reason i say this is because our other traitlines don't provide support for healing. That's what puts us in a hybrid state and leaves us at a disadvantage when compared to some of the other healing specs. If Druid was a condi dps spec with great buffs as support this would synergize with NM and WS. A unique buff like GoL would also still synergize with this dps spec by providing might if it where reworked to be something more like "when the druid gives and ally boonx they also get # stacks of might"

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@"Prophet.1584" said:

Druid needs to give up being this weird, nonfunctional hybrid spot between the 2 and either go one way or the other.

Druid needs to be reworked into a damage dealer with heavy boon support. the reason i say this is because our other traitlines don't provide support for healing. That's what puts us in a hybrid state and leaves us at a disadvantage when compared to some of the other healing specs. If Druid was a condi dps spec with great buffs as support this would synergize with NM and WS. A unique buff like GoL would also still synergize with this dps spec by providing might if it where reworked to be something more like "when the druid gives and ally boonx they also get # stacks of might"

Boons already are flying around in PvP now, we dont need more of that. Being supportive through healing is better.

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@"Prophet.1584" said:

Druid needs to give up being this weird, nonfunctional hybrid spot between the 2 and either go one way or the other.

Druid needs to be reworked into a damage dealer with heavy boon support. the reason i say this is because our other traitlines don't provide support for healing. That's what puts us in a hybrid state and leaves us at a disadvantage when compared to some of the other healing specs. If Druid was a condi dps spec with great buffs as support this would synergize with NM and WS. A unique buff like GoL would also still synergize with this dps spec by providing might if it where reworked to be something more like "when the druid gives and ally boonx they also get # stacks of might"

Or they just double down, make Druid a super aggressive healer, almost like a scourge but healing instead of barrier.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I woulda made more sense to me for soulbeast pet to get nerfed since it could have been a way to balance the player getting damage multipliers that were initially just meant for the pet ie sic em. Druids pet should be the spec that has a high dps pet. The druid archetype arenets clearly going for would have the strongest possible bond with nature including animals. As usual poorly thought out nerfs that make little sense leaving players of the class scratching their heads.

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I left the game for 1 month and half for my job, to come back to see to the funniest thing ever. Nerfing the Druid's pet ? The Glyphs changes ? It really shows how disconnected the devs are when it comes to Druid/Ranger.

I asked many times for Buff to Ranger's Torch, but again, they buffed Guardian's Torch which is already doing crazy burn damage and is super meta with FBrand.

Time to jump ship to another profession before they go nerf Solar Beam for doing too much power damage again. Splitblade unsplit, when !?

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:The disconnection is occurring with every class unfortunately when comes to nerfs. This game has the beat iteration of the ranger class of any mmo imo and thier needing the wrong areas and not giving the right areas any love. Not surprising tho

I think they're doing a fine job with their intended plan of making every ranger player a soulbeast in every game mode.

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@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:The disconnection is occurring with every class unfortunately when comes to nerfs. This game has the beat iteration of the ranger class of any mmo imo and thier needing the wrong areas and not giving the right areas any love. Not surprising tho

I think they're doing a fine job with their intended plan of making every ranger player a soulbeast in every game mode.

True. Soulbeast is a great concept but druid is a awsome concept as well,such a waste.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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