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Druid: Improving Squad Viability


Soilder.3607

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Currently, the meta support characters for organized squads are Firebrands and Scrappers. Firebrands are the dominant provider of Stability as well as other highly useful boons like Aegis and Protection, while Scrappers provide high healing and condition cleansing as well as some boons through condition conversion in addition to powerful utilities like stealth, superspeed, and projectile reflection. Tempest remains a viable pick for healing and condition cleansing in a squad while the newly released Vindicator is seeing usage as a healer/cleanser as well.

 

Druid was introduced in 2015 as the game's first ever dedicated healer, a role which it has more or less been a staple at in PvE in encounters which require it. However, in WvW the Druid has not been a meta healer in organized comps during this time.

 

Why isn't Druid a meta healer organized comps? Well, it's not because it lacks healing nor condition cleansing. In fact, it is actually quite good at that, and can heal/cleanse at levels competitive to other healers. What it lacks is utility such as boons, most prominently defensive ones (spirits can give alacrity now, but they are unviable in zergs because they die immediately), stealth and superspeed access (the trait Celestial Shadow grants both these buffs but requires you to leave Celestial Avatar mode in order to do so. This is not always viable to do when playing in organized comps because leaving Celestial Avatar mode to grant stealth/superspeed means you now have downtime on your healing abilities), and projectile hate (Sublime Conversion is decent but is small and immobile whereas Tempests, Scrappers and Vindicators provide reflects that move with them and their allies). Lastly, Druid also suffers from the pet, which does little during zerg fights because it spends the majority of its time dead. The pet may also interfere with stealth pushes made while in combat as a dead pet cannot be stealthed.

 

 What can be done to improve the Druid? There are a variety of ways that we could improve the supportive performance of the Druid in order to make it a viable pick over other healers in a squad. What I think should be done is a mild increase in the boons provided by the Druid, quality of life changes to existing skills in order to make them more effective, as well as reworks of certain Druid skills that have never been useful in large scale play. At the bottom of this post, I will also list an idea for replacing the pet with Astral Whisps, a non-attacking, unkillable spirit which provides a small passive stat buff to the Druid as well access to new F2 skills. This idea will be left at the very bottom because it is least likely to be implemented.

 

Skill and Trait Changes


Windborne Notes

This trait will now heal any ally you grant regeneration to instead of just the Ranger himself.

 

Rejuvenating Tides

This skill will now grant 1 second of regeneration on each pulse of healing. This change is intended to synergize with the above suggestion to Windborne Notes.

 

Druidic Clarity

Currently, this trait is quite selfish and removes all conditions from the Druid. We can make it better for squads by adjusting it in the following way: Instead of clearing all conditions from the Druid, this trait will remove 3 conditions from the Druid and 3 more conditions from up to 5 allies around the Druid, with a PBAoE radius of 300.

 

Seed of Life

Seed of Life is a respectable cleanse, but has a small radius of 180. The radius of this skill should be increased to 240. This radius increase is significant enough to make Seed of Life a much more reliable tool for cleansing allies. It is now much more likely to affect its total potential of 5 targets.

 

Cosmic Ray

The radius of this skill is extremely small at a mere 120 units. It will be increased to a 240 radius. As a tradeoff, the range will be reduced from 1,200 to 600. 

 

Solar Beam

This skill should be allowed to target allies since that mechanic has now been introduced to the game with the release of Specter.

 

Astral Wisp

Astral Wisp is an extremely ineffective skill in PvP because it is a slow moving projectile (which means it can be blocked, evaded, blinded, or reflected) that needs to land on an enemy in order to heal and delivers that healing in a mere 120 radius around the enemy. This skill needs a complete redesign in order to be effective in squad vs. squad fights. I will put forth the following suggestion: Astral Wisp will be redesigned and renamed to Astral Explosion. This new skill is ground targeted, has a 3/4 second cast time, a 1,200 range and 240 radius, a 5 target limit and an 8 second cooldown. This skill impacts the target area, healing allies for 550(Healing Power x 0.5) and granting them Vigor for 3 seconds.

 

Ancestral Grace

Instead of granting protection to the pet, this skill should grant protection to up to 5 affected allies.

 

Glyph of Equality (Celestial Avatar Version)

This skill will now grant stability (3 stacks, 4 seconds) in addition to its previous effects. A source of minor stability would be much appreciated in squads.

 

Replacing the Pet

 

I acknowledge the following suggestion as being the least realistically achievable idea on this post, however, the Pet has been useless in zergs ever since the game came out. Arenanet will most likely continue to allow the pets to be useless in zergs for the duration of the games lifetime. I do not know why they choose to ignore the pet issue in WvW. They may not know how to fix it, or they may not care. Either way, here is an idea to replace the pet with a mechanic that would actually be viable in zergs.

 

To replace the pet I have the following suggestion: A selection of 5 different Astral Wisps can be chosen when opening the pet management window (default key K) while playing Druid. These Astral Wisps permanently circle the player (similar to the Astral Wisp summoned by the staff skill Astral Wisp), cannot attack, and are invulnerable (they do not receive damage, conditions, status effects or boons and do not affect the AoE target cap for allied or enemy effects). Similarly to regular pets, you can select two Astrals Wisps, with one active at all times and a second Wisp available to swap to (swap recharge remains the same as before and all swap effects remain as usual for traits). Each Wisp has a unique color to help differentiate them from one another. Each Astral Wisp grants the players a small passive stat buff while it is active, and each Astral Wisp also comes with a new F2 skill. Each F2 skill shares the following characteristics: They are PBAoE based with a 300 radius, a 5 target limit, and a 1/2 activation time that is channeled by the Wisp and not the player. They also qualify as Beast skills for the purpose of fulfilling trait effects. The five Astral Wisps are as follows:

 

1. Wisp of Healing (green colored)

 

This Astral Wisp grants the player +100 Healing Power and +50 Concentration while it is active. It has an F2 skill, Soothing Light, which cleanses two conditions from yourself and allies and heals them for 1450(Healing Power x 0.5). This skill will have a 20 second recharge.

 

2. Wisp of Protection (yellow colored)

 

This Astral Wisp grants the player +100 Toughness and +50 Vitality while it is active. It has an F2 skill, Melandru's Blessing, which grants allies Stability (3 stacks, 4s duration) and Protection (4s duration) and has a 25 second recharge.

 

3. Wisp of Control (purple colored)

 

This Astral Wisp grants the player +100 Expertise and +50 Precision while it is active. It has an F2 skill, Celestial Binding, which Dazes (1s duration) and Blinds foes (3s) and has a 25 second recharge.

 

4. Wisp of Destruction (red colored)

 

This Astral Wisp grants the player +100 Power and +50 Ferocity while it is active. It has an F2 skill, Cosmic Impact, which damages foes for 497(Power x 1.36) and applies weakness (5s duration). This skill has a 20 second recharge.

 

5. Wisp of Debilitation (orange colored)

 

This Astral Wisp grants the player +100 Condition Damage and +50 Expertise while it is active. It has an F2 skill, Nature's Vengeance, which burns (2 stacks, 5s duration) and confuses (3 stacks, 5 seconds) foes and has a 20 second recharge.

 

Unlike the pet, these Astral Wisps would be usable in Zerg vs Zerg play because they can't die. The tradeoff of this would be the loss of the ability to have an attacking pet; the passive stat buffs and new F2 skills attempt to alleviate this somewhat.

 

I like my pet and don't want to lose it. What are the alternatives?

 

The realistic answer is there are no alternatives. Arenanet will not do anything to the pets to make them usable in zergs.

 

The far-fetched alternative is this: Giving the pet unbalanced mechanics that activate when a threshold of enemies are within a certain radius of the player. For example: Whenever 10 or more enemy players are within a 1000 radius of the Ranger, their pet gains 95% damage and condition damage reduction, and their pet gains all healing, boons, evasion, condition cleansing, and other beneficial effects received by the player (such as stealth, superspeed, and unique buffs) whenever the player receives it and for the same duration as the player. This type of change would be extremely, highly, unbelievably unbalanced in small scale play, but it would be crucial in zergs in order to allow the pet to at least activate their F2 skill reliably.

 

Conclusion

 

So, if these changes were made, the most important things that might make Druid a viable pick over others healers are an increase in its defensive boon applications (two sources of minor stability would be the most important ones), the removal of the pet (no longer revealing stealthed pushes), and the rework/buffs to various skills (Cosmic Ray can finally hit more than one target. Leaving it at a 120 radius is inexcusable). Thanks for reading.

Edited by Soilder.3607
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I agree with basically everything you suggest in your post OP. However, I would prefer Cosmic Ray to not get nerfed to 600 range. Would rather they buff it to just 180 radius and also clean up the aftercast. 

Staff 2 does need a rework and although I would prefer your suggestion, I would still be so ecsatic if it just simply got allied targeting functionality. Of all weapons in the game, Druid staff is the one that would benefit the most from allied targeting.

With Glyph of the Stars being reduced to 5 targets, I don't think a small buff or partial rework to it would be out of the realm of possibility. Perhaps have it grant 1 stack of stab for like 2-3s to at least help prevent it from not being auto interrupted by a random CC. Maybe instead convert it into a cast time time with a lingering AoE. I think there a lot of cool tweaks they could do to really increase its potency. I was such a massive fan of this skill prior to the target cap nerf.

Also for the love of god...can ANet finally take a look at Invigorating Bond to give it some actual scaling from our own healing power and not our pets? Imagine a healing GM trait having more synergy with Soulbeast than Druid. Either that or give it additional functionality, like AoE cleansing.

I had a similar suggestion a few years back for converting pets to wisps because I think the pets majorly hold the spec back. Would love for this to happen, though I understand a lot of people would be upset by such a change.

Another thing I'd like to see change is Glyph of Alignment's non-CA functionality. I know the immob can actually be useful in WvW but the class already has so much immob access. I would rather see it remove boons instead of immobing to help give it a unique identity.

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9 hours ago, Za Shaloc.3908 said:

 

With Glyph of the Stars being reduced to 5 targets, I don't think a small buff or partial rework to it would be out of the realm of possibility. Perhaps have it grant 1 stack of stab for like 2-3s to at least help prevent it from not being auto interrupted by a random CC. Maybe instead convert it into a cast time time with a lingering AoE. I think there a lot of cool tweaks they could do to really increase its potency. I was such a massive fan of this skill prior to the target cap nerf.

 

Yes, I made a separate post about that in the Ranger subforum. It shouldn't have been nerfed to 5 targets in WvW. They could either revert it to its 10 target cap or buff it in someway to compensate.

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now all support need to be boon. I like the original way Druid worked. I would rather it keep its own niche. Perhaps un-nerfing the staff nerf so the druids can stay alive with staff. Also increasing Astro form duration. Also a new Auto attack for Staff that has better support healing would be nice. 

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On 8/1/2022 at 11:48 AM, Citizen Snips.5438 said:

These are the kind of big picture class re-works I was hoping for from the last balance patch. Instead we got "yeah so your spirits give alac and now you spam them in an even more brain dead manner". That's it. 

 

Naturally. Anet's reworks are number tweaks ans band aid fixes. I expected nothing and received nothing. Glad to be correct. 

 

Only reason Im playing is to play with friends and flex my warrior gaming. 

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2 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Naturally. Anet's reworks are number tweaks ans band aid fixes. I expected nothing and received nothing. Glad to be correct. 

 

Only reason Im playing is to play with friends and flex my warrior gaming. 

Why do reworks when gw3 is on the way. 

Obviously Warrior will be fixed in GW3. 

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18 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Why do reworks when gw3 is on the way. 

huh?

the rumors because of the jobapplication?

IF they are actually hiring people for gw3... and if we go by history...  it will be atleast 3 years from now on, till we see Guildwars3.

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