Druid Glyph Changes- PvE perspective

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

As someone who's been mailing druid for ~2 years now, I think I can safely say that 99% of the time glyphs suck. There's a few instances where they work well (i.e. glyph of the tides on Vale Guardian, Glyph of the Stars on Slothasaur (if your teammates even stand in it)), but for the most part they're somehow worse than ranger's already decently abysmal supportive kit.

 

I would like to see 2 major changes:

 

1. The removal of Alacrity on Spirits (and instead turning them into 'boon nukes' of their respective boons, i.e. 10 might on active for frost, lots of duration vigor, prot, fury, and regen on the others) and moving it to glyphs. It could either be a baseline effect (as they should have, they're not consistent with elementalist glyphs. Ele glyphs ALWAYS do a specific base effect with sprinkles added on based on attunement, not completely swapping effects like druid's), or removing the casting of Seed of Life from Verdant Etching.

 

This would remove Druid's over reliance on Spirits while also providing both a reason to take Spirits and glyphs, and could open up trait options for druids. More options is better for supports, imo. For example, Frost Spirit could be good enough with warhorn 5 or a might giving pet to completely remove the need to take Grace of the Land, opening up the slot for Lingering Light, or you could still take GoTL and not have Frost Spirit.

 

2. Flipping the effects of some glyphs. I can understand some being locked behind CA, such as Glyph of the Star's reviving aspect, however others could use a major switching of when the disruption and the support happens. Glyph of the Stars, Tides, Rejuvination, and maybe Unity would be the same. Glyph of Alignment, Equality, and maybe Unity would swap.

 

Druid has a terrible, terrible mechanical downside that isn't talked about enough- a lot of the druid specific support is entirely locked behind CA, Celestial Avatar. You cannot enter CA from below 100% Astral Power (AP), and you cannot enter CA while it is still cooling down (10s base, 20s pvp but this isn't focused on pvp). Unlocking some of the support qualities of glyphs by making them not CA only would be a nice QoL change that also makes them putting Stability on Glyph of Equality make more sense, as Stab is currently locked in CA. 

 

Glyph of Unity is the only one I'm iffy on- on one hand, it'd be really nice to have more healing options outside of CA, bringing the burst and sustain a little closer. On the other, it healing with regen currently could be a little too strong- maybe split the coefficients? Tiny, tiny extra heals from regen, big heals stay the same? I think it should be flipped, but the strength of the healing is making me a little wary of it going overboard when flipped.

 

The glyphs that wouldn't be flipped either work well enough currently for support or wouldn't make sense to flip, such as Tides- it's not inherently supportive, it's entirely disruptive. Support via disruption, sure, but flipping it just hinders pve druid's current uses for it.

 

Hopefully Anet sees this and, at the very least, frees up alacrity for core. Having core give Alacrity is a huge balancing issue, as they have to 1. Not give us quickness until it's moved and 2. Balance around the possibility that we have Alacrity available on every specialization. Glyph changes would be wonderful, though.

[Beddo.1907]

I'd rather have full rework to spirits and druid, rather than another half measure that's a bare minimum for PvE.
This change just removes Alac Untamed and swaps spirit boons for glyphs that do timing dependent effects which don't allow for consistent alac without wasting the effect. To make this work we need better glyphs and CA changes.

I agree with the need for the changes, but not the execution.

 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

2 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

I'd rather have full rework to spirits and druid, rather than another half measure that's a bare minimum for PvE.
This change just removes Alac Untamed and swaps spirit boons for glyphs that do timing dependent effects which don't allow for consistent alac without wasting the effect. To make this work we need better glyphs and CA changes.

I agree with the need for the changes, but not the execution.

 

Changing spirits to not give alac opens up potential for quickness on untamed- it drops a major qualm many people have with druid (spirits being bad) and makes it so they can balance untamed better.

 

A lot of higher tier players agree- the trait alone, Fervent Force, is pretty OP. Any sort of hard CC cools down your skills by quite a bit. They could easily change FF to give quickness on hard CC rather than cool your skills down (and hopefully along with that change a lot of balancing to make up for the FF loss). Ranger can't get quickness with alacrity on core- we have historic evidence of that, even as recent as the June patch, removal of Alacrity on core rev because herald got quickness. I'd rather expand our role options rather than keep going with alacrity roles.

[Beddo.1907]

10 minutes ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Changing spirits to not give alac opens up potential for quickness on untamed- it drops a major qualm many people have with druid (spirits being bad) and makes it so they can balance untamed better.

 

A lot of higher tier players agree- the trait alone, Fervent Force, is pretty OP. Any sort of hard CC cools down your skills by quite a bit. They could easily change FF to give quickness on hard CC rather than cool your skills down (and hopefully along with that change a lot of balancing to make up for the FF loss). Ranger can't get quickness with alacrity on core- we have historic evidence of that, even as recent as the June patch, removal of Alacrity on core rev because herald got quickness. I'd rather expand our role options rather than keep going with alacrity roles.

Again I just don't agree with the execution. If the glyphs are better and CA forms work/are removed for some other effect then moving alac to druid is fine. 

As for FF... yeah the only reason why this trait wasn't nerfed/remade is because ranger have limited CC and skills are not too insane.
Also https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Enhancing_Impact already gives quickness on CC, just not team wide.
 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

2 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Again I just don't agree with the execution. If the glyphs are better and CA forms work/are removed for some other effect then moving alac to druid is fine. 

As for FF... yeah the only reason why this trait wasn't nerfed/remade is because ranger have limited CC and skills are not too insane.
Also https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Enhancing_Impact already gives quickness on CC, just not team wide.
 

That's... what the changes are for. Make glyphs able to be more supportive, at least outside of CA in PvE, and then add alacrity to them to give druid the option of having alacrity, opening up other specs to get alacrity. The more supportive glyphs have potential to be good, and quite honestly the main problem with them is that they're already locked behind your support kit that can only be active for a limited time even if you don't use the skills associated with it.

 

Flipping the order in which you get the support or disruptive form of the glyph allows druid to function as a support better, especially considering that it's one of the few explicit support specs in the game. For PvE specifically having the disruption in CA isn't as bad as it is in PvP or WvW because the disruption affects nearly nobody, you're not looking to tether yourself to enemies and deal damage with the Glyph of Unity, for example. Very little of that disruption would be used in CA in PvE, whereas the supportive aspects are locked away but needed to make them function well in PvE. With such heavy restrictions compared to other energy mechanics for entering and exiting CA, having the support aspects being stuck behind something is a problem, and without ripping the skills out and adding something new (which could affect pvp negatively) switching the order you get access to them is basically the only option here. Glyph of Alignment heals in CA- why would you need that? You've already got 4 more healing skills. Why make new glyphs when the current ones could work if just changed slightly?

 

I suggested Fervent Force be changed because ideally Enhancing impact or debilitating blows would be merged to be one trait and the open traits could be used to buff untamed by simply adding new ones and not cranking up numbers for a band aid approach like they did with Vow of the Untamed. Other traits would be either merged if possible or added onto if possible. Fervent Force would also need nerfs if they actually manage to buff untamed well, and quickness on untamed would be nice to have as it means we've filled out pure DPS, heal support, alacrity, and quickness roles, like everyone else but warriors (who have the same problem currently, quick on core).

[Mell.4873]

On 8/25/2022 at 5:19 AM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

I suggested Fervent Force be changed because ideally Enhancing impact or debilitating blows would be merged to be one trait and the open traits could be used to buff untamed by simply adding new ones and not cranking up numbers for a band aid approach like they did with Vow of the Untamed. Other traits would be either merged if possible or added onto if possible. Fervent Force would also need nerfs if they actually manage to buff untamed well, and quickness on untamed would be nice to have as it means we've filled out pure DPS, heal support, alacrity, and quickness roles, like everyone else but warriors (who have the same problem currently, quick on core).

Untamed is fine as it is right now. Like most ranger elite specialization its the weapon/mechanic that make most of your DPS. I mean the DPS you see on "Sic Em" soulbeast is using a burst rotation after a single utility. The traits you use are just the flavor of playstyle. Fervent Force does lead to a cheese DPS build but its Super Hard generally the reason you want Untamed instead of Soulbeast it has better Hybrid playstyle, it can do anything.

[Zyreva.1078]

If you want to make alac druid only - tie it to ca, not glyphs. Being forced to slot multiple utility skills and press them of cd, just do do one thing, is bad design. Utility skills should be chosen and used for ... utility and as such there should be room for flexibility and adaptation (one reason why support fb and mech are so good - they can grant quick/alac without having to "sacrifice" their entire utility bar).

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 hour ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

If you want to make alac druid only - tie it to ca, not glyphs. Being forced to slot multiple utility skills and press them of cd, just do do one thing, is bad design. Utility skills should be chosen and used for ... utility and as such there should be room for flexibility and adaptation (one reason why support fb and mech are so good - they can grant quick/alac without having to "sacrifice" their entire utility bar).

You don't have to slot all spirits to get current alac uptime, and glyphs would have similar values (increased so you can take roughly the same amount to compensate for the cooldown).

 

Druid's main issue right now is how flip floppy it is with CA. It shouldn't have so many things locked behind CA- you can't enter from below 100%, there's a decently long cooldown for such an important kit, and if you can't heal between phases, alac uptime would drop. We already partially see this issue with might (if solo might genning which isn't viable post patch). It shouldn't be on CA, and there's very little druid could slot from both glyphs and core ranger's kit that would be viable right now for a support setting in a general sense.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

3 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Untamed is fine as it is right now. Like most ranger elite specialization its the weapon/mechanic that make most of your DPS. I mean the DPS you see on "Sic Em" soulbeast is using a burst rotation after a single utility. The traits you use are just the flavor of playstyle. Fervent Force does lead to a cheese DPS build but its Super Hard generally the reason you want Untamed instead of Soulbeast it has better Hybrid playstyle, it can do anything.

Sic em soulbeast uses multiple utilities for a burst increase... One Wolf Pack, sic em, and frost trap are used in the burst phases. The traits are NOT flavor of playstyle, you have to upkeep Twice as Vicious (10% damage boost) and Oppressive Superiority is a flat damage boost when you have half decent healers (10% damage boost when your health is above the target's).

 

Untamed isn't in a good spot design wise. It's one of the hardest rotations in the game because of an overlooked mechanic, that being Fervent Force. They'll eventually change FF, so Untamed needs something to compensate. The other traits are just not good for PvE.

[Mell.4873]

18 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Sic em soulbeast uses multiple utilities for a burst increase... One Wolf Pack, sic em, and frost trap are used in the burst phases. The traits are NOT flavor of playstyle, you have to upkeep Twice as Vicious (10% damage boost) and Oppressive Superiority is a flat damage boost when you have half decent healers (10% damage boost when your health is above the target's).

 

Untamed isn't in a good spot design wise. It's one of the hardest rotations in the game because of an overlooked mechanic, that being Fervent Force. They'll eventually change FF, so Untamed needs something to compensate. The other traits are just not good for PvE.

My point was if you cant pull off the rotation all those traits go to waste so they are not as important as trying to preform the rotation correctly, as appose to something like Mechanist where the traits really do mater.

In terms of Untamed it is really only Axe 4 that is the problem, nothing else is.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Mell.4873

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

4 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

My point was if you cant pull of the rotation all those traits go to waste so they are not as important as trying to preform the rotation correctly, as appose to something line Mechanist where the traits really do mater.

In terms of Untamed it is really only Axe 4 that is the problem, nothing else is.

Fervent Force is the problem. Axe 4 is perfectly fine. Fervent Force is a broken OP trait that is the only reason why untamed is the best condi ranger option right now, and it's only really able to be on ranger because of our lack of high value cooldowns.

 

Saying 'the traits don't matter' is just flat out incorrect. Traits are what boost DPS's damage to the bench. It doesn't matter if you can get the rotation done correctly, adding the traits adds a lot of damage. A good build will beat out a bad build every time.

[Beddo.1907]

3 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Untamed is fine as it is right now. Like most ranger elite specialization its the weapon/mechanic that make most of your DPS.

No it's not fine.
Hammer is awful, rotations falls apart if something goes wrong(spirit dies/despawns, the enemy moves/teleports), trait options in PvE are nonexistent and a lot of smaller issues.

[Mell.4873]

7 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Fervent Force is the problem. Axe 4 is perfectly fine. Fervent Force is a broken OP trait that is the only reason why untamed is the best condi ranger option right now, and it's only really able to be on ranger because of our lack of high value cooldowns.

 

Saying 'the traits don't matter' is just flat out incorrect. Traits are what boost DPS's damage to the bench. It doesn't matter if you can get the rotation done correctly, adding the traits adds a lot of damage. A good build will beat out a bad build every time.

Its the best Condition build because axe 4 is on a 11 second cooldown. Honestly though the rotation APM is so high it is impossible to achieve, its on par with core Engineer at launch.The most i have gotten is 20k DPS with same gear.

 Traits don't mater, i normally take defensive traits, or ones that provide boons over DPS traits since in OW they help more. If you cant complete the rotation no DPS like Shared Anguish is amazing for this principle and you only lose 120 condition damage. A dead Ranger will do 0 damage every time.

7 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

No it's not fine.
Hammer is awful, rotations falls apart if something goes wrong(spirit dies/despawns, the enemy moves/teleports), trait options in PvE are nonexistent and a lot of smaller issues.

I'm not to sure what you mean, I'm easily able to pull of 20k in a burst rotation roughly the same and Soulbeast. It is in fact much better since you are able to CC the whole time.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

You don't have to slot all spirits to get current alac uptime, and glyphs would have similar values (increased so you can take roughly the same amount to compensate for the cooldown).

 

3 out of 4 (5) slots occupied to do 1 thing is awful. Period.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 minute ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

3 out of 4 (5) slots occupied to do 1 thing is awful. Period.

You're already taking 3 of those 4 for different things in addition to alacrity- healing, might, vigor, prot.

[Zyreva.1078]

39 minutes ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

You're already taking 3 of those 4 for different things in addition to alacrity- healing, might, vigor, prot.

You don't always need to bring all those boons yourself, also for healing there are other and sometimes better options (eg spring for cleanses).

Edited August 26, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 hour ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

You don't always need to bring all those boons yourself, also for healing there are other and sometimes better options (eg spring for cleanses).

Fair enough, but I don't think we'll get anything that shifts druid off the 'I'm bringing spirits' meta for it for a while. Not enough worthwhile support in core and glyphs need a boost- I wouldn't mind slotting rejuvination and alignment (if they had their support capabilities outside of CA) with alacrity on them, dropping spirits.

 

Ranger needs better group support overall, spirits mechanically are trash. I think changing up what gives alac would give glyphs potential new life, and changing the support and disruption order would help them in PvE since we're stuck in CA already for a lot of our good support.

 

I don't think making it so you only have to take 1 of the utility you need to provide a boon is good balancing, I'd rather see the stuff that doesn't need to bring so much forced to bring more before we cut down on the required number for other professions. Having druid required to take a few utility slots for alacrity I don't think is a bad thing in the long run, so long as they do it to other quick and alacs as well.

[Zyreva.1078]

41 minutes ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Ranger needs better group support overall, spirits mechanically are trash. I think changing up what gives alac would give glyphs potential new life, and changing the support and disruption order would help them in PvE since we're stuck in CA already for a lot of our good support.

Oh i absolutely agree that spirits are trash. But replacing them by glyphs doesn't really change the boring and brainless "spam your utility bar on cd to provide boon" gameplay, while still having very little room for actual utility, such as protect me, healing spring, search and rescue, various soft and hard cc skills, ... all which used to see some use on druid. Glyphs don't need alac to be useful.

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I don't think making it so you only have to take 1 of the utility you need to provide a boon is good balancing,

Why? Being able to bring and use utility skills based on a given situation, instead of being forced into a very limited selection of skills and having to press them on cd regardless of what's going on, is far far better. More room for variety, more room for skill expression, more room for fun.

The design for most "new" alac/quickness builds is one of the worst design decisions they have ever made and i wish they'd rework that nonsense into something more fun and interactive instead of expanding that garbage further.

Edited August 26, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 hour ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Oh i absolutely agree that spirits are trash. But replacing them by glyphs doesn't really change the boring and brainless "spam your utility bar on cd to provide boon" gameplay, while still having very little room for actual utility, such as protect me, healing spring, search and rescue, various soft and hard cc skills, ... all which used to see some use on druid. Glyphs don't need alac to be useful.

Why? Being able to bring and use utility skills based on a given situation, instead of being forced into a very limited selection of skills and having to press them on cd regardless of what's going on, is far far better. More room for variety, more room for skill expression, more room for fun.

The design for most "new" alac/quickness builds is one of the worst design decisions they have ever made and i wish they'd rework that nonsense into something more fun and interactive instead of expanding that garbage further.

Glyphs aren't useful (in pve) in their current state for 90% of interactions. Theres decently clear cut ways of making them better that shouldnt take too much effort to impliment, and making druid give Alacrity outside of CA helps shore up the lack of support it has outside of CA (which is one of my biggest gripes- there's no reason to not give it the potential to support outside of CA, just have reasons to go into it as well as stay out of it) while also giving glyphs more of a use and freeing up the 'utility boon' for other professions.

 

CA alacrity would add on more boons to CA, which has the same major drawbacks as might currently does. Either that or CA loses might entirely, and there goes druid from the radar entirely.

 

I'm not saying you should be forced to slot a full bar for a boon, but you also shouldn't be bringing only 1 skill for a boon you're trying to upkeep permenantly. That just gets to lazier gameplay and opens up some power creep issues imo. Part of why I really don't like mech's implementation of alacrity, barrier, etc.

 

Fun is subjective. However, if you don't have the skills to slot in to fill those opened slots, what's the point of even opening the slot? Ranger at most could bring search and rescue for consistent group support, and if you're doing your job and your group isn't blind to the situations around them you won't ever need to use it. Protect Me would be very iffy, if you need a group stunbreak it's there but that's about it for that. Guard is useless. Spirits would still end up being taken, and that's more casts just for boons. I don't think it'd be a bad thing to make a few glyphs used for alacrity (with good numbers so you're not forced to slot a whole bar) while still being able to pick some utilities- but not entirely freely.

 

Guild Wars 2 keeps trying to provide tradeoffs to things. 'Druid's doing too much dps, 20% pet nerf.' 'Reapers need a shroud cost increase.' Etc. They could actually give a tradeoff for utilities so things can't just slot whatever extra utility they want while still providing the basic support they advertise their role around. It's powercreeping.

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Glyphs aren't useful (in pve) in their current state for 90% of interactions.

And if you remove alac from spirits they are even worse. You are just trying to replace one utility category with another, but overall nothing really changes (for druid anyway, alac untamed obviously ceases to exist).

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I'm not saying you should be forced to slot a full bar for a boon, but you also shouldn't be bringing only 1 skill for a boon you're trying to upkeep permenantly. That just gets to lazier gameplay and opens up some power creep issues imo. Part of why I really don't like mech's implementation of alacrity, barrier, etc.

It can't get lazier and more powercrept. 100% uptime is 100% uptime, and pressing stuff on cd is boring and braindead either way. Which is why there should be more room for stuff that maybe requires at least a tiny little bit of brain and timing.

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Fun is subjective. However, if you don't have the skills to slot in to fill those opened slots, what's the point of even opening the slot? Ranger at most could bring search and rescue for consistent group support, and if you're doing your job and your group isn't blind to the situations around them you won't ever need to use it. Protect Me would be very iffy, if you need a group stunbreak it's there but that's about it for that. Guard is useless. Spirits would still end up being taken, and that's more casts just for boons.

So worst case nothing changes and best case you are able to bring valuable utility in addition - where is the downside?

And it's not like underwhelming skills can't get improved without slapping alac onto them.

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Guild Wars 2 keeps trying to provide tradeoffs to things. 'Druid's doing too much dps, 20% pet nerf.' 'Reapers need a shroud cost increase.' Etc. They could actually give a tradeoff for utilities so things can't just slot whatever extra utility they want while still providing the basic support they advertise their role around. It's powercreeping.

These artificial "trade-offs" they randomly slapped on certain specs (not all mind you) were not very well though out and quite pointless. Mostly made specs less fun, but didn't adress powerceerp at all. There are better ways to balance specs.

Edited August 26, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[InsaneQR.7412]

Tbh woth the exception of equality all should be ground targeted. And alignment needs to inflict more condis or immob targets.

[anduriell.6280]

On 8/27/2022 at 12:06 AM, InsaneQR.7412 said:

Tbh woth the exception of equality all should be ground targeted. And alignment needs to inflict more condis or immob targets.

Ground target sounds better that what it is now, I would like better the tethering mechanic and traits to change what happens when an ally or enemy crosses those tethers. And staff to target only Friendlies (there is a keybind to change to that mode now) and indirectly cause harm to enemies. 
 

Druid needs a rework period. Anet did not stick with the “healer” thing and the constant nerfs has simply degrade the subclass too much. It is not so serious as the unWanted but druid needs a proper rework at everything. 
 

removing the dual glyphs if the avatar is so short lived for once.

Dual skills + pet simply doesn’t work, too many things to keep track. Same goes for the unFun dual hammer thing. No more dual garbage on the ranger unless it is designed by somebody who actually main ranger and has many hours with it already.