Druid and spirit changes are not okay

[FalsePromises.6398]

I want to preface this with a hand-wave phrase I frequently heard going into the June 28 patch when I expressed alarm over the new changes on spirits... 

"Druid will basically be the same thing but now with alacrity"

That's gone out the window. Grace of the Land's might halved and reduced duration, frost spirit now on a 27 second rampup for 9 might (at 100% boon duration) that flickers if you have your spirit out of radius for 3 seconds (same with the other spirits' boon upkeep)... this is miserable in comparison to the original, where I could generate 25 might with Celestial Avatar in seconds and upkeep it with great comfort. I hope I'm not the only one who feels that way. I want to really bring out some of my sentiments about druid I've felt as of late. This'll be long, so if you don't like reading, just read what's bolded or underlined. 

Originally, spirit-babysitting felt like a worthwhile labor of love because it was a unique set of buffs that boosted everyone's damage or provided boons on a reliable semi-on-demand set of commands, so having to babysit a bunch of little tree people felt rewarding in some sense. Now that spirits just do what other classes do but with a now more demanding babysitting aspect, a LOT of the shine of the spirit-babysitting duty is lost. This is worsened by the fact that the frequency of the pulses imply a loss of boon uptime if allies are away from your spirits for 3 seconds, even with 100% boon duration, reinforcing this stupid babysitting identity. This doesn't bring a fun playstyle, especially in fights where you're having to move frequently. To add insult to injury, the Spirit of Nature Renewal bug isn't helping by prioritizing full-health allies over your dying spirits, forcing you to use your stronger active heals to keep them alive, but I'll accept that that's a bug and not an intended effect. 

At this point, spirits should just be redesigned. Look at renegade spirits and guardian spirit weapons: they look WAY better in comparison. I think those are optimal models to follow, making burst benefits through ground targeted skills that grant strong offensive, supportive, and control oriented effects instead of a constantly dying entity with what are essentially now just alacrity-upkeep reposition skills that apply a spare condition (barring storm/elite spirits, the former almost never used anyway). Also, before you say it, yes I know spirits are integral to druid's astral force generation. That's its own problem, don't justify a problem with another problem. That said, druid needs better avenues of astral force generation outside of healing, because it seems stupid to need to heal allies to get fuel for your optimal healing form that you're frequently using just for boon upkeep. Maybe take some inspiration from the bladesworn's flow options? 

Another sore point I have on druid is the Grace of the Land nerf. The biggest question I'm asking is... why? It wasn't like mechanist where they passively ramp 10-20 might and fill in the gap by using another skill off cooldown for a free perma 15 might and fury (and face no repercussions or tradeoffs for this, these capabilities are uncontended BIS support traits). Using Celestial Avatar to generate might was a mini rotation that felt rewarding and refreshingly comfortable for upkeeping might on your team. I used to use a rotation of 4-5-4-3 (quickdraw on 4 skill) to generate 28 might for 24 second duration alongside a good chunk of healing quickly, and could recover astral force fast enough to do it again before it started draining. Now that rotation is 14 might of 20 second duration, which presses me to do this rotation more frequently AND makes it less effective. Why did druid deserve nerfs? Why did druid deserve preemptive nerfs? Please don't tell me it was to compensate for frost spirit's bonus 3 might (9 total), because frost spirit's even worse than before due to that 27 second might rampup as compared to its previous near-instant 6 might. 

That's all from me. If you read all that, thanks for reading. If you read just the bolded and underlined stuff, thanks for making that effort not in vain, and I recommend reading all the text if you want to discuss further. I'm personally upset with how druid has fared not just as of late but also as of this patch, and I think druid deserves better. Much better.

[Beddo.1907]

Some of those issues come from balance team not doing math.
For instance the Druid Grace nerf was because of the frost spirit might. However the frost spirit just doesn't make up for the loss.
If they change Frost to provide more than 1 stack that will be all really.

Also the spirits are bugged, where the boons come from you instead of the spirits which actually fixes the positioning issue.
If they keep it as a feature it should be a temporary solution. (full on sprit rework doesn't seem possible any time soon with the change queue they already have)

Overall Druid needs a design refresh where they dump the CA cooldown so the glyph swap is actually usable and healing is easier to access, staff gets a bit more utility and traits have actual alternatives rather than 1st and 2nd major having only one good trait. 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

3 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Some of those issues come from balance team not doing math.
For instance the Druid Grace nerf was because of the frost spirit might. However the frost spirit just doesn't make up for the loss.
If they change Frost to provide more than 1 stack that will be all really.

Also the spirits are bugged, where the boons come from you instead of the spirits which actually fixes the positioning issue.
If they keep it as a feature it should be a temporary solution. (full on sprit rework doesn't seem possible any time soon with the change queue they already have)

Overall Druid needs a design refresh where they dump the CA cooldown so the glyph swap is actually usable and healing is easier to access, staff gets a bit more utility and traits have actual alternatives rather than 1st and 2nd major having only one good trait. 

I don't think frost spirit changes were why GoTL was nerfed. I quite honestly think it was because a certain someone wanted complete and total dominance of 2 specs.

 

And as someone who does like the 'stationary support "totem"' aspect to spirits, they need a rework. Fix them as a whole- no profession mechanic should die. Auto decay? Sure, I can play around that- properly holding casts as long as I can or need to, etc. But if there's anything that just so happens to hit player AI, they're done for- no counterplay for something you can only move once every 20s.

[FalsePromises.6398]

7 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Some of those issues come from balance team not doing math.
For instance the Druid Grace nerf was because of the frost spirit might. However the frost spirit just doesn't make up for the loss.
If they change Frost to provide more than 1 stack that will be all really.

Also the spirits are bugged, where the boons come from you instead of the spirits which actually fixes the positioning issue.
If they keep it as a feature it should be a temporary solution. (full on sprit rework doesn't seem possible any time soon with the change queue they already have)

Overall Druid needs a design refresh where they dump the CA cooldown so the glyph swap is actually usable and healing is easier to access, staff gets a bit more utility and traits have actual alternatives rather than 1st and 2nd major having only one good trait. 

Frankly, I think glyphs are just inherently flawed. Look at elementalist glyphs: they have an innate, universal effect with element-oriented flavor adjustments, not complete inversions of functionality. That's how druid glyphs need to work. Glyphs fail to be reliable skills due to lack of consistent effects. Their design implies they would work best if you're juggling CA like an elementalist attunement when in reality you're having to charge and question your use of CA like a necro's death shroud, and that can't be compromised for the sake of glyph usage. 

Druid glyphs need to be changed to have a standard and unconditional innate effect with bonus offensive effects on normal form and bonus supportive/defensive or CA-synergetic effects in CA form as opposed to functional inversion based on form. The glyph's effect shouldn't be compromised by your form but rather complemented by it. For example, glyph of equality should always daze and stunbreak yourself. Then, normal form should deal bonus debilitations and damage alongside this daze while CA form breaks stun on nearby allies as well and possibly also does area superspeed or area cleanse for bonus flavor and synergy. You feel me?

Edited July 4, 2022 by FalsePromises.6398

[FalsePromises.6398]

7 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

For instance the Druid Grace nerf was because of the frost spirit might. However the frost spirit just doesn't make up for the loss.

Sorry if I sound like I'm shooting the messenger here, but I don't believe this was or should have been an issue due to frost spirit regardless of how much might it would output, especially since the nerf was preemptive and not reactive. The new spirit design locks druid into running 100% boon duration already, so it's not like druid could start skimping on boon duration and scraping by with unscathed 25 might upkeep still, it would detract from their other boons like fury, protection, vigor, swiftness, and regeneration. 

Further on that notion though... how would overcapping might be an issue? It's not like mirage and mechanist don't already do it. Druid was doing it for ages before too. I find it hard to fathom how the thought process worked out here, was it like "We changed a 6 might upkeep skill with no rampup (that the spec never relied on in the first place) to a 9 might upkeep skill with 27 second rampup, that's too strong so we need to halve the breadwinner might generation effect on druid to compensate"? I really really really don't want to believe that was the thought process. 

[Hellion.2360]

I found out the ramp up to 25might is awful on druid as well. I scramble to keep up 25might with a low ramp-up time (heavily effects encounters like KC) even with warhorn 5 and the (joke) spirit pulsing. 

One the other hand, you got HFB who just pukes mantras off cooldown + staff 4 and have time to thread other skills that benefits the group like tome 1/2/3 utility skills etc etc. While as a druid most of the time I found myself fighting my own mini-game for might uptime.

I love ranger and have been a ranger main for a long time, sadly anet murdered it and all it's elite specs. So I found a new home in hfb since they cannot bring harm to their precious bby guardians 🤡

 

 

Side note,

This is really odd imo, healers in this meta give 25might stacks at 100% uptime without giving up important healing or boon-generating traits. While druid have Grace of the Land which should keep up might reliably (but it doesnt) have Lingering Light on the other hand which is an amazing healing skill and astral force generator you NEED to pass on on order to give might.

idk man, the balancing team is unbalanced or smt.

[Soilder.3607]

2 hours ago, Hellion.2360 said:

...Lingering Light on the other hand which is an amazing healing skill and astral force generator you NEED to pass on on order to give might.

idk man, the balancing team is unbalanced or smt.

Everyone seems to forget this but all Lingering Does is give back the healing power that Druids had when they were first released. Arenanet did an across the board nerf of all CA healing skills and gave a healing modifier to Lingering Light in order to force Druids to make a decision between good healing and might generation.

 

Game Update Notes: May 8, 2018 - Game Update Notes - Guild Wars 2 Forums

 

• Quote

   

  • Cosmic Ray: Reduced the healing of this skill by 30%.
  • Seed of Life: Reduced the healing of this skill by 35%.
  • Lunar Impact: The heal scaling of this skill is no longer split between game modes and will now use the lower 20% reduced heal scaling in all modes.
  • Rejuvenating Tides: Reduced the healing of this skill by 40%.
  • Lingering Light: This trait no longer grants its effects when healing an ally. It now grants its effects when entering celestial avatar form. While in celestial avatar form, outgoing healing to allies is increased by 50%.

   

   

So previously Lingering Light just gave us back the healing they took away. Now that Lingering Light has been reduced to a 20% healing buff, we don't reach parity with what the numbers used to be. It's a straight 30% nerf to healing output while in CA mode.

[mistsim.2748]

Might generation isn't important on Druid because there are so many ways to get 25 stacks. I thought the thing to do now is go Lingering Light. I'd be interested to know from experienced Strike/Raid players how Druid is performing now.

Edited July 4, 2022 by mistsim.2748

[Hellion.2360]

Hello, exp raider here (not insanely exp but somewhat). I'm not amazing speedrun 2h speed clearer raiders, but i think i know a thing or two.

Last time I saw a druid was before the dreaded patch. I even saw a warrior (should've taken a screenshot, i know!) in a raid and not a druid.

I also agree there are many many many ways to generate 25might stacks without a druid or a healer. But having one who keeps might reliably, especially in pugs, is a great thing to have.

I'm not here to bash heads with anyone, just pointing out my exp 🙂

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

4 hours ago, mistsim.2748 said:

Might generation isn't important on Druid because there are so many ways to get 25 stacks. I thought the thing to do now is go Lingering Light. I'd be interested to know from experienced Strike/Raid players how Druid is performing now.

If it wasn't important on druid, why did it all but disappear in most instanced scenarios?

[FalsePromises.6398]

3 hours ago, mistsim.2748 said:

Might generation isn't important on Druid because there are so many ways to get 25 stacks. I thought the thing to do now is go Lingering Light. I'd be interested to know from experienced Strike/Raid players how Druid is performing now.

It's hard to put into words how wrong this is, in multiple ways. Sorry if that sounds rude, or if you just don't know the whole picture. Experienced raid/strike player here, as well as plenty others above if you want more opinions... that's been the context in which we're all talking already. Onto the substance though, there's three important points to consider: 

1. Supports should always be role compressing as much as possible to enhance other players' flexibility in the team and let people play what they want as well, instead of forcing allies to change builds to clean up your loose ends (in this case might). This is why mechanist and firebrand are so popular as supports while things like specter and scrapper aren't near as popular for dedicated support options in PvE.
2. Druid's might was one of its integral identities, the only other universal duty being unique spirit buffs. Druid has been covering 25 might for teams since its initial Grace of the Land rework turned it from a damage buff to a might generation trait, all the way up until its might target cap got reduced just before EoD. Taking that away to slap druid with a weaker alac support kit, while mechanist does just about everything druid does but more reliably AND with might is simply bad taste. Might as well tell players to use mechanist instead of jumping through hoops to make druid work to weaker effect still. 
3. As an extension of the druid might point, druid's healing has historically been nerfed specifically because of its might output, because anet wasn't fond of druid doing high might and high healing at the same time. Now, in a single patch, they trash its might AND nerf lingering light's healing modifier (from 50% -> 20%). There's no win here. 

To reiterate based on the initial statement: "might generation isn't important on druid" might generation IS important on druid since its one of their mainstay identities; "there are so many ways to get 25 stacks" there are other ways to generate might, but if a support doesn't do might it just encourages people to play other supports instead of work around it; and "the thing to do now is go Lingering Light" lingering light is a bigger kick in the balls than before since it's not even a really powerful healing modifier in its current state to warrant giving up druid's historically strong (but now weak) might. 

[mistsim.2748]

1 hour ago, FalsePromises.6398 said:

might generation IS important on druid since its one of their mainstay identitie

It's not. Other supports do that better. You didn't bring Druid for their might generation, it just came with the package. You write so much yet say so little.

Edited July 5, 2022 by mistsim.2748

[FalsePromises.6398]

8 minutes ago, mistsim.2748 said:

It's not. Other supports do that better. You didn't bring Druid for their might generation, it just came with the package. You write so much yet say so little.

Flat out incorrect. Druid was probably one of the best might supports before the boon target cap reduction patch, rivaling tempest and mirage (post-staff-buff). If you had quickness, you'd cast frost spirit and warhorn 5 for 12 might, then enter CA and top off the might easily in like 2-4 seconds, and maintaining it was even easier (as I said, quickdraw CA form with 4-5-4 for 26 might upkeep ez rotation, throw 3 on the end for more heal if needed). The general meta used to be 3 boondps for alac/quick, a druid for might/heal and unique buffs, and the rest dps (maybe make a boon role a second healer if needed). Only way druid wasn't on might duty is if you had one of those overvamped staff mirages covering alacrity and might, or if you had two healbrands, and at that point you were running a soulbeast with a spirit or two instead of druid anyway.

Regardless, even if one says might wasn't druid's mainstay, the spec has been balanced around that high might output. Getting rid of both spotter and spirit damage buffs and then nerfing both the might and healing traits is distasteful, especially when other classes could beat druid's might and healing output pre-nerf anyway. It's a full kit nerf when druid was dropping popularity. 

[Fwog.9387]

I have said it previously. Its poor mans mechanist. Druid has to jump through hoops to do what mechanist is doing for some reason. They should have left druids might alone and given a bit more alacrity per spirit so you don't have to run 3 - 5 of the things. Also frost spirit is complete trash. When i mentioned in guild chat what frost spirit did, the immediate response was WHAT?! and OOF!

[FalsePromises.6398]

1 hour ago, Jaricko.6143 said:

They should have left druids might alone and given a bit more alacrity per spirit so you don't have to run 3 - 5 of the things.

I want to say amen, because that's the best realistic outcome, but... I just don't like the notion of spirits being mandatory at all. They're annoying to micromanage, and if they get wiped or attritioned away by some weird mechanic like Whisper of Jormag's mind control phase, you're not just out of alacrity but also face hard multi-boon downtime since there's ZERO cushion on spirit boon upkeep (100% boon duration and traited effects result in bare minimum for full uptime). Largely immobile, fragile and withering, requires constant attention, all to be completely eclipsed by mechanist. 

My issue with spirits design-wise runs a bit deeper too. Having a core skill archetype do alacrity limits ranger design, present and future. Anet now can't make a quickness spec for ranger in the future or else people will start trying to do alac and quickness at the same time, which they crusaded against chrono for ages over. It's why they removed alacrity from revenant's Ventari legend too. You'd think they would've learned something, but clearly not, just like how they learned to remove the shroud-specific crit chance from death perception but then turned around and gave an attunement-specific crit bonus to elementalist in the same breath (and had to do silly damage control patches afterwards lol). 

Alacrity should just be a druid thing, and it should be left at that. Do something silly like make CA skills apply alacrity on each pulse alongside might on Grace of the Land (not the first spec to do might and alacrity from the same skill, mirage says hi), or make the seed summoned by Verdant Etching and CA2 apply alacrity (in a much larger radius than the seed itself) if you take that trait (granted I'd want a glyph rework before making glyphs a functional requirement). 

Any way you look at it really, this new spirit design just drops the ball, and they need to rework them completely. Druids were chained to crappy but still powerful spirits for ages before, and now they're still chained to spirits in their new weaker state. It's obnoxious. 

[Lazze.9870]

The fact that spirits are tied to druid's identity was never "okay" to begin with. There is rarely (never in pve) a conversation of one without the other.

Instead of a functional rework that worked out great over multiple modes like scrapper gyros, they went ahead and changed spirits from not just having great synergy with druid, but being dependent on druid to babysit and heal them.

And the big rework they announced turned out to be removing unique effects, moving the boons from the trait to the spirts and adding alacrity to the trait.

ZzZzzzZzzZzzZZzZzzz.. No one at their office has any, ANY AT ALL, enthusiasm about this class. Barebone changes everytime, with the occasional good change like Lingering Light because someone bothered to look at the faults for more than a mere second.

[Canidae Canis.2861]

Thanks for the thoughtful post, OP. I agree completely – Spirits shouldn't be the druid mechanic, they're a core utility. But the babysitting mechanic of keeping them alive essentially relegates them to the Druid spec. If ANet wants us to have hybrid support/damage specs with alacrity, Spirits need to actually be overhauled into a Spirit Weapon/Facet-like mechanic. 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 hour ago, Lazze.9870 said:

ZzZzzzZzzZzzZZzZzzz.. No one at their office has any, ANY AT ALL, enthusiasm about this class. Barebone changes everytime, with the occasional good change like Lingering Light because someone bothered to look at the faults for more than a mere second.

Lingering Light changes imo weren't that great. If it was 25% in CA and 25% when leaving CA it'd be fine, but we got a healing nerf in exchange for... a 60s recharge timer (if not able to heal people). Fine for PvP, but the healing still sucks. Either buff the base healing of CA back up (which was considered a problem and now sucks because they decided to not revisit druid) or give us more healing from the trait.

[FalsePromises.6398]

10 hours ago, Canidae Canis.2861 said:

Thanks for the thoughtful post, OP. I agree completely – Spirits shouldn't be the druid mechanic, they're a core utility. But the babysitting mechanic of keeping them alive essentially relegates them to the Druid spec. If ANet wants us to have hybrid support/damage specs with alacrity, Spirits need to actually be overhauled into a Spirit Weapon/Facet-like mechanic. 

I do agree with the notion that spirits' health decay pushes rangers into druid to use them and limits alac build diversity, but I more want to say that a core skill archetype or traitline doing alacrity is recipe for future design disaster when they try to give ranger a quickness spec (if this game isn't killed by the balance team before then) since a class/spec doing both vital boons is dangerous to the meta. Anet knows this, it's why they removed alacrity from revenant's salvation line before making herald a quickness spec, and why they crusaded against chronomancer boon builds for ages before finally making the shared alacrity and quickness mutually exclusive traits. 

They really just need to push alacrity into druid line to make ranger boon roles match the rest of the classes and reduce future turbulence for elite spec designs. I'd have said this in the initial post, but I didn't want it to be too long or convoluted. 

Side note: if they make druid the dedicated alacrity build on ranger, I hope they make soulbeast the quick build. It already has some good infrastructure for quickness synergy and has some middling support options that look fun. 

[Canidae Canis.2861]

11 hours ago, FalsePromises.6398 said:

I do agree with the notion that spirits' health decay pushes rangers into druid to use them and limits alac build diversity, but I more want to say that a core skill archetype or traitline doing alacrity is recipe for future design disaster when they try to give ranger a quickness spec (if this game isn't killed by the balance team before then) since a class/spec doing both vital boons is dangerous to the meta. Anet knows this, it's why they removed alacrity from revenant's salvation line before making herald a quickness spec, and why they crusaded against chronomancer boon builds for ages before finally making the shared alacrity and quickness mutually exclusive traits. 

They really just need to push alacrity into druid line to make ranger boon roles match the rest of the classes and reduce future turbulence for elite spec designs. I'd have said this in the initial post, but I didn't want it to be too long or convoluted. 

Side note: if they make druid the dedicated alacrity build on ranger, I hope they make soulbeast the quick build. It already has some good infrastructure for quickness synergy and has some middling support options that look fun. 

Perhaps putting alacrity in our core traitline is a signal that they don't intend to give us a spec with group quickness? I'd be OK with that I think. Who knows what the next elite spec holds for us?

[Lazze.9870]

On 7/5/2022 at 3:46 PM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Lingering Light changes imo weren't that great. If it was 25% in CA and 25% when leaving CA it'd be fine, but we got a healing nerf in exchange for... a 60s recharge timer (if not able to heal people). Fine for PvP, but the healing still sucks. Either buff the base healing of CA back up (which was considered a problem and now sucks because they decided to not revisit druid) or give us more healing from the trait.

It is great. Exactly what was needed. Get rid of that ridiculous 50 % modifier (which was needed anyway for any avatar buffs in the future), even it out with the modifier outside of CA as well, and a nice bonus of building up CA outside of combat which DOES matter. It's a not a 60s recharge timer when you play the game. It covers the downtime.

The issue now is the ever remaning 20s pvp cooldown on CA that needs to be put down to 15s.

It could also need some stability access. Staff #2 rework is always welcome.

The healing doesn't suck. Slap on a couple of glyphs and use rune of the druid and transference sigils. Still burst oriented, but overall pretty good. Yes, they should revisit some healing power scaling on the avatar skills, but it's not gloomy doomy.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

49 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

It is great. Exactly what was needed. Get rid of that ridiculous 50 % modifier (which was needed anyway for any avatar buffs in the future), even it out with the modifier outside of CA as well, and a nice bonus of building up CA outside of combat which DOES matter. It's a not a 60s recharge timer when you play the game. It covers the downtime.

The issue now is the ever remaning 20s pvp cooldown on CA that needs to be put down to 15s.

It could also need some stability access. Staff #2 rework is always welcome.

The healing doesn't suck. Slap on a couple of glyphs and use rune of the druid and transference sigils. Still burst oriented, but overall pretty good. Yes, they should revisit some healing power scaling on the avatar skills, but it's not gloomy doomy.

Theyve continuously nerfed druid healing in the past explicitly because of might generation. Now they've hit the healing hard AND made it impossible to have 100% might uptime on druid. How is that great???

[FalsePromises.6398]

8 hours ago, Canidae Canis.2861 said:

Perhaps putting alacrity in our core traitline is a signal that they don't intend to give us a spec with group quickness? I'd be OK with that I think. Who knows what the next elite spec holds for us?

I personally wouldn't be too thrilled with that, it just means they're giving us gimmick dps specs from here on out lest they face hard questions about support options. In this current core alacrity model, any future support specs would directly compete with (and most likely beat) druid, especially since druid is just a healing chassis and a large portion of druid's boonage and utility is handled by core skills (e.g. spiirits, warhorn, entangle, etc.). 

[FalsePromises.6398]

4 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

It is great. Exactly what was needed. Get rid of that ridiculous 50 % modifier (which was needed anyway for any avatar buffs in the future), even it out with the modifier outside of CA as well, and a nice bonus of building up CA outside of combat which DOES matter. It's a not a 60s recharge timer when you play the game. It covers the downtime.

The issue now is the ever remaning 20s pvp cooldown on CA that needs to be put down to 15s.

It could also need some stability access. Staff #2 rework is always welcome.

The healing doesn't suck. Slap on a couple of glyphs and use rune of the druid and transference sigils. Still burst oriented, but overall pretty good. Yes, they should revisit some healing power scaling on the avatar skills, but it's not gloomy doomy.

As to the first thing, it would be great... if there was any guarantee they'd actually buff druid's base coefficients. They don't want druid to be doing might and healing at the same time effectively, as they've said before (and is the entire reason for Lingering Light being so strong before), so it's hard to imagine them turning back on that, especially with how crude this druid/spirit rework was. Keep in mind buffing the base CA skills means buffing them while using GotL too. If you want less emphasis on Lingering Light's modifiers and higher base CA effectiveness... you really just want Lingering Light removed and druid's post-HoT healing and might simultaneous effectiveness returned, which I agree with, amen. Either way, at this rate it doesn't seem like they're aware of druid's problems at all, at least not in a way that does druid justice. 

I think a bigger issue for competitive is the remaining selfish and PvP gimmicky skills that keep the cooldown of Celestial Avatar high there. Celestial Shadow and Druidic Clarity (as well as Ancient Seeds, but that's not directly a CA thing) have been problems for druid balance in competitive since time immemorial but they almost NEVER touch those directly. I don't know good balance solutions to Celestial Shadow, but if they turned Druidic Clarity into a middling area cleanse instead of a selfish overpowered cleanse, it would help mellow them out in competitive AND help give low-investment cleanse potential in PvE by trading the bonus healing AoE on healing skill cast. 

As to stability... every support needs proper shared stability at this point. Guardian and Revenant hog ALL the shared stability options, that's why they've been so popular as general use supports and boon hybrids in PvE. It's obnoxious that anet keeps letting them have this stranglehold on stability, especially after remembering their old rhetoric against chronomancer's monopoly on quickness/alacrity which inspired firebrand and renegade boon options. Even worse is guardian's monopoly on aegis, but that's an even hairier issue. 

Lastly though... the healing does relatively suck, for an ultra-powered, charged up transformation with a pure support kit. I also use transference sigils and glyphs, and the defensive/supportive capabilities still don't quite compare to others like tempest or mechanist. Druid's merits now are largely in its annoyingly micromanaged boon upkeep or its debilitations which aren't always effective due to defiance. 

[Lazze.9870]

17 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Theyve continuously nerfed druid healing in the past explicitly because of might generation. Now they've hit the healing hard AND made it impossible to have 100% might uptime on druid. How is that great???

First off, you need to stop talking about game modes across of each other.

PvP druid with transference sigils has a 45-55 % outgoing heal modifier. With druid runes and a couple of glyphs you can basically achieve mender amulet stat on your healing power when you need the burst healing. The healing is good and the AF regen is better than before. There are other issues than healing that need to be solved for it to be closer to the meta.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Lazze.9870