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Let's Talk About Druid Competitively After Pet Nerf - And Buffs That CA Deserves


Trevor Boyer.6524

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Hey guys, check out what's going to happen to Druid in this next balance patch. No buffs, no enhancement to mechanics, just this nerf:

Ancestral Grace: This skill no longer evades attacks. Increased recharge from 18 seconds to 20 seconds. If at least 1 ally other than yourself is healed, the recharge is reduced by 5 seconds. = "Ok, as the last person who even plays Druid at a plat 2 level, just why? Why nerf Druid further? This is the stupidest and most unwarranted change in this entire list of patch notes. Let me explain why: First of all, making the recharge 20s from 18, just completely screws up the synergy of weapon swapping with the staff. The staff is generally used as a defensive measure and the #3 staff skill is the largest part of that defensive measure. Being able to evade while using it, allows the Druid to do what it does, and that is survive and disengage. So quite often, when a Druid swaps to staff they are able to use #3 immediately alongside of an effect such as sigil of escape. 18s CD scales perfectly for this purpose while weapon swapping back and forth between a damage weapon side and staff escape side. Now with a 20s CD, the player can no longer immediately use staff #3 escape, which is an enormous nerf to the already Renegade level gameplay in competitive modes. Secondly, having the recharge reduced by 5s if at least 1 other ally is healed during the use of staff #3? That's ridiculous for so many reasons. The Druid is a side node mainly in spvp, which means it is usually alone, and it doesn't have realistic reason to keep teleporting to its pet for the 5s reduction either. It needs to use the #3 to stay away from things, as far away as possible. Furthermore, the 5s CD would put it to a 15s recharge, which is meaningless because it doesn't matter if it is a 15s CD or an 18s CD, because weapon swapping takes 18s anyway to rotate, and Druid's DO NOT CAMP STAFF SIDE. So this effect granted of a 5s reduction is completely useless not only in competitive modes, but also in pve, where Druids are weapon swapping as often as possible to warhorn and back to staff, meaning it will take them at least 18s to be able to use staff #3 again. This change is a completely lackluster nerf to the Druid in competitive modes and pve. Why is there no one in the Arenanet office that is capable of recognizing skill trait practicality issues like this?"<- It's these kinds of changes that make gameplay feel funky & wonky, and not smooth.

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Anet realizing that the profession already full of regen sources didn't have any way to apply regen from its support elite spec without the use of core skills. Luckily they rectified it ASAP, with the small cost of nerfing Ancestral Grace. Good change.Ugh.

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CA deserved condi to boon conversion, perferable in rejuvenating tides. If engi can be reworked to suit the new wvw and gain a spot in the meta- so can rangers. either boost range of stances and improve merged f1-f3 skills to give group benefits OR buff CA length and healing/condi convert.

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Druid needs a serious rework at this point, it has very unfun mechanics like celestial shadows and ancient seeds, but if you remove those directly it would be better just to delete it.

It is just how is implemented, not the general design, For example think about the new elite. Terrible implementation, right? So now instead using the ranged AoE, the old elite effect(equality) is used to apply the new effects. So the druid is not locked up while using the glyph, but it has to stay in close range of his team.And the Systems team wanted to change the Empowerment Glyph? So just apply the new effect of the elite (chanelled ranged AoE for 7 seconds) and all the players inside of it get the damage buff. Increase the AoE and the damage buff a little and that skill will be amazing and not to cast and forget.

Why is ancient seeds a super passive and unfun trait and not a secondary effect from the underwhelming vine surge? Additionaly to the actual effects it cast ancient seeds on foes. And remove the trait, its so random and the druid has very little control over it.

What about Sublime Conversion to heal the first 10 players who cross it instead the regen?

Celestial shadow... Why can't be a trait to stealth\superspeed the druid for 2s while in celestial avatar when hit with an ICD of 6s? The trait could be use to detarget the druid and provide the same support but at the same way provide counterplay.

Druidic clarity can make the Druid so it cant take new conditions while in CA (so still has to use cleanses for the existing ones, but while in CA it wont be affected by new conditions).

And bring back the evade and the CD Ancestral grace. It is extremely needed for the druid to be able to position itself. As the new GM they can bring back the beta lingering light, a fastastic trait for zergs and squads.

Make all avatar skills pbaoe instead ranged and buff them accordingly so the druid has to be in the heat but the payback is good. Add conditions to regen\protection conversion in the CA skills. More conditions with an Adept trait (cultivated synergy can be replaced)

Change Natural convergence to become a 1200 teleport for the druid which applies Slow, cripple, small immob and some burning on destination (no physical damage)The design of all of this is:

  • druid goes into avatar, teleports to the Front line using Natural converge, stays in front line while burst healing and when it finish goes back to backline using Ancestral Grace.

Some glyphs could get the Treatment of the new elite, Ranged AoE channeling skills which apply effects on pulses. The druid should only need to get into close combat when trying to heal.

And add condition damage to the staff instead power. Then sets like seraph may begin to make sense.

The main differentiating thing of the druid should be high mobility\CC\burst heal\condition conversion from tempest\rev ventari\FBStrong emphasis in mobility. It should be able to build the most mobile class in game, think the pets are weaker and the druid can not damage while in avatar. Definitely makes no sense the actual state.

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@anduriell.6280 said:Druid needs a serious rework at this point, it has very unfun mechanics like celestial shadows and ancient seeds, but if you remove those directly it would be better just to delete it.Actually I really like those 2. They both have a place in either a disruptiv build or support.

It is just how is implemented, not the general design, For example think about the new elite.Lots of people do not like it but the new elite is really strong (look below for an improvement suggestion). You cannot use it in PvP but I am ok with that since I use it 90% of the time in PvE. If you try it in fractals or raids you will see how much it can nullify some attacks (while providing good healing). The range aoe save is also great + it rebuilds CA if you channel it before leaving CA form.

And the Systems team wanted to change the Empowerment Glyph? So just apply the new effect of the elite (chanelled ranged AoE for 7 seconds) and all the players inside of it get the damage buff. Increase the AoE and the damage buff a little and that skill will be amazing and not to cast and forget.Wow rez + boosted heal or empowerement + immune to condi. How about adding it to unity instead ? I think it would make sense.

What about Sublime Conversion to heal the first 10 players who cross it instead the regen?Sublime conversion already does a ton of things. Water field (staff, warhorn and ca have blast), projectile hate and regen. I think it was already strong and would leave it like that.

Celestial shadow... Why can't be a trait to stealth\superspeed the druid for 2s while in celestial avatar when hit with an ICD of 6s? The trait could be use to detarget the druid and provide the same support but at the same way provide counterplay.The detarget option instead of stealth (like mirage) sounds really nice, the cd is good because it will not be too strong in 1V1 and still be decent in a teamfight but I hate it on mesmer.

Druidic clarity can make the Druid so it cant take new conditions while in CA (so still has to use cleanses for the existing ones, but while in CA it wont be affected by new conditions).I would leave it as it is. ButSuggestion for glyph of stars : Channeling 4s the glyph and the last 3s are doing it by themselves would be enough to push it in a really strong state while beeing far from OP.

And bring back the evade and the CD Ancestral grace. It is extremely needed for the druid to be able to position itself.I tried the changes in PvE. The cd reduction works on the pet and I am now sure that quickdraw triggers first (before staff cd reduction on ally) which is awesome. I will need some time to get used to the loss of the evade but it does not look as bad as I thought.

Change Natural convergence to become a 1200 teleport for the druid which applies Slow, cripple, small immob and some burning on destination (no physical damage)The design of all of this is:

  • druid goes into avatar, teleports to the Front line using Natural converge, stays in front line while burst healing and when it finish goes back to backline using Ancestral Grace.I love this design! But suddenly we loose our main source of stab so not sure :/.

And add condition damage to the staff instead power. Then sets like seraph may begin to make sense.I see this suggestion a lot in the ranger forum. I like the staff as it is and never liked the condi druid.

Other suggestions : glyph of unity : Increase the range (mandatory) + add a small barrier to you in regular form or add the effects of empowerment

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The Ancestral Grace nerf, removing the evade frame, has completely removed Druid from competitive play. I was going to make a post in here explaining why, but it ended up being well written enough to deserve its own thread. I'll be posting it in the pvp subforum if anyone wants to follow it and give their own input.

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-> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/82294/discussion-about-detrimental-weapon-kit-changes-for-all-classes

The OP post in that thread finely details what happened here to Druid. I wasn't going to post a link here, but Arenanet went into my thread and changed the title of it, so I figured I'd post this link where it belongs, here in this thread.

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imo this nerf was perfect in that it pushes the spec further towards needing a total redesign which is a good thing.

Lets be honest celestial avatar was a last minute slap on to ranger because they needed a healer role for raids, it could have been added to any class that's how poor a mechanic it is both thematically and functionally (add avatar to any other class and call it astronomer or something, it makes about as much sense).Remember in HoT beta events how it only used to charge from direct healing you did and not from passive sources like regeneration boon? It was the case that i could not even see my avatar skills because the thing charged so slowly, and on top of all that it was (and still is) gated behind a cool down. If that doesn't scream last minute implementation idk what does (also druid was the first elite spec to be revealed but the last to be actually seen in the dev live stream event thing that they did for each spec).

One thing to notice is that every supportive elite spec except druid has some other option within it:-tempest can trait for heavy aoe damage and cc mitigation-firebrand can trait to be a damage dealer through burning and gets mh axe which is a offensive weapon-scourge can trait to be a condi damage dealer and aoe corruption machine-chronomancer can trait for burst damage with interruption synergy and slow (well it could before the rework a few days ago).Meanwhile druid has healing, the option for more healing, and oh look even more healing with staff being all about healing..... Joking aside there seams to have been the intention for druid to have a subtheme of mobility and mobility denial through soft cc (natural stride, ancient seeds, avatar skill 5, the staff trait) but it was never good and the traits that were suppose to enable that build style never got any changes so now we have a buff bot for raids. So in my mind just tear the entire spec down and make something new out of it, they already did that three and a half times with other elites.

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@"foste.3098" said:imo this nerf was perfect in that it pushes the spec further towards needing a total redesign which is a good thing.

how poor a mechanic it is both thematically and functionally

It was without question a last ditch effort and not having regeneration filling the CA meter from the get-go when ranger is such a regen heavy class also reflects that, but thematically it works perfectly fine with the game's lore. Of course, you could make an "astronomer" spec with a similar mechanic. However that would be stretching it even further than letting ranger have a heal spec based off the druid lore, which is definetely tied more into nature magic and the fact that druids (the people) were followers of Melandru, something rangers also often were in lore. Pretty sure Rejuvenating Tides in CA is a callback to the waters in the Maguuma jungle that granted +1 regen in GW1.

As for additonal roles, druid was definetely tuned to be CC heavy (daze and stun, with some immobilize, in particular), but it has been nerfed to the point where it can't run glyphs (two of which has CC) effectively (or competetively, I should say) and CA 3 was also nerfed in that aspect. The nerf to the Seed of Life, affecting the glyp trait and ultimately removing glyphs from being used competetively, also reduced the druid's access to part wide condi cleanse. This is now best done by an elite glyph which you can't afford to run because it takes the druid's only source of stability, and regardless of that it has too long of a cooldown to fulfill that role in the first place.

If they don't they buff other aspect of the spec, it should definetely be on the block for a rework, redesign or at least having a bunch of comprehensive changes in the future, unless they're dead set on this being a pve group content only elite spec (which is incredibly lackluster for an elite spec). If that's the case then I'll probably agree with it being a good thing.

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ANet is pretty ambitious with the direction it is trying to take that aims to make sure that there is some degree of a trade-off by choosing an elite spec over a core spec. Because of this, I expect that it will probably take a few more patches before they really adjust enough to fully realize that goal. As it is now, several of the changes they've made, such as the pet nerf on druids and the swipe change on thieves have just axed some builds completely out of the meta. Meanwhile, other classes such as Ele still don't have any much of any downside to picking up their elite specs, even though I expect we will see some before long.

I get that they can't roll out all the changes needed to pull off this type of goal in one balance patch, it does suck that they've partially rolled it out to some classes in a way that makes the elite specs too much of a penalty to be worth considering in some game modes.

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