gelnor.9265

Decoy does not slot a blade if it is used without a target, but does if a target is selected. This is understandable from its original clone generation behavior, but very unintuitive for blade generation.

The removal of constant passives is intended, the devs talked about that on the livestream. Instead of constantly having a passive while not on cooldown, the new virtues provide a passive effect for a duration after activation (stance-like behavior), with effects triggered on each 5th strike. Lethal tempo is talking about this temporary passive effect. Battle Presence still gives the original Virtue of Resolve passive constantly to allies, which is a bit strange, but not a big problem. As Virtue 3 no longer has passive ticks based on a time interval, the Indomitable Courage trait loses a part of its original effect, but most of it still applies.

As others have said, a thematic rework of druid does not make much sense, it would be too much work for too little. And I actually like the celestial theme. Adding more skill choices to it just so that people could switch the theme would make balancing the game even harder than it is, and we already see it's far from trivial. The OP's problem of not having a clearly nature magic themed elite spec can be fixed in a much more efficient way though: give ranger a new elite spec in EoD that's more plant magic oriented, with scepter as a new weapon and cantrips for example as the new utility skill type. The elite spec profession mechanic could also lean into the nature magic theme. Unlike the staff, scepter would not be support oriented, so it could do real damage. Druid could stay in the support role, it could even get a mechanical rework if really needed (I don't have enough experience to have a relevant opinion about whether it's needed).

Just tested this with all the mounts I have: it worked with raptor, springer, skimmer, jackal and roller beetle, but it didn't work with skyscale for me, tried multiple times. I don't have griffon yet. I also checked other attunement combinations, and they worked as well, at least with fire-water and air-fire I was able to reproduce it multiple times. I tested only with sword-dagger. I'm sure it isn't intended.