Verdant Etching

[Buzzbugs.1236]

Please don't remove Minor Seeds of Life from this trait. Especially since Druidic Clarity is having it's Condi Removal reduced from 13 condi's to 3. As well as Glyph of the Stars no longer cancelling out all Condi's.. this is overall a huge nerf to Druid's ability to cleanse itself and counter heavy condi in PvP, forcing dedicated Druids to take core skills instead for condi cleansing (for example, survival skills and signets)

Also with the removal of Minor seed of Life from the traitline, where is a Druid supposed to have access to light combo fields? You've gutted this trait and in it's place put 3 Seconds of Protection. Which is a good buff but I wouldn't choose it over having access to cleanses and light fields.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Buzzbugs.1236

[Markus.6415]

I feel like Resolution would have been a much more fitting replacement than the Protection that'll be covered already anyways.

[Buzzbugs.1236]

They mentioned in the Stream they are wanting to move Druid to compete with Guardian as a Boon support I don't like this direction they are going. If I wanted to play Guardian.. I'd play Guardian..

[Levetty.1279]

If they want Druid to compete as a boon support they need to rework spirits.

[anduriell.6280]

20 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

If they want Druid to compete as a boon support they need to rework spirits.

That is a good point although then it would be core ranger who would be pushed to compete. In any case Druid can not be a Firebrand or core guardian alternative without much rework, the devs saying that shows how little they actually know about the ranger. 

Soulbeast on the other hand it's closer to that objective. 

It is just i don't understand what are they thinking or what is they thinking process to come up with this decisions. 

[aymnad.9023]

Seed of life is going to be way faster and larger and glyph of stars will remove condis in an area without the need to channel so I am fine with Verdant itching not removing 2 condi on glyph usage. However I agree they could have kept the blind and / or the combo areas on glyphs because there is still a lack of support (outside of cc) when not using CA. I also wonder if CA 2 + CA 3 combo is still doable with the new execution speed (edit : checked the stream again, they said it is possible but it looks harder).

Edited September 18, 2022 by aymnad.9023

[anduriell.6280]

14 hours ago, aymnad.9023 said:

Seed of life is going to be way faster and larger and glyph of stars will remove condis in an area without the need to channel so I am fine with Verdant itching not removing 2 condi on glyph usage.

That's because probably you don't play Druid where it matters. The issue the Druid has is that in current design the specialization has nothing to offer for 10 seconds until the Avatar is charged up. 
Old verdant etching, although a waste of glyphs and very clunky mechanic,  would allow the Druid to keep doing something, not much but at least something, during those 10 secs. 

But what can you expect from people you does not know anything about one of the classes they are supposed to balance. If they would play with them outside of the testing arena  they would know. Obviously their "experts"  in their discords know absolutely nothing either. 

I wonder if it's the same case for other classes as well or just ranger because they despise the class and by extension the people who picks this as their  mains. 

[aymnad.9023]

3 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

That's because probably you don't play Druid where it matters. The issue the Druid has is that in current design the specialization has nothing to offer for 10 seconds until the Avatar is charged up. 
Old verdant etching, although a waste of glyphs and very clunky mechanic,  would allow the Druid to keep doing something, not much but at least something, during those 10 secs. 

But what can you expect from people you does not know anything about one of the classes they are supposed to balance. If they would play with them outside of the testing arena  they would know. Obviously their "experts"  in their discords know absolutely nothing either. 

I wonder if it's the same case for other classes as well or just ranger because they despise the class and by extension the people who picks this as their  mains. 

I already said many times that more support outside of CA would be nice and gave a few suggestions. 

I would love to debate / exchange with you so maybe you could elaborate on those situations where you think it matters and give examples?

Edited September 19, 2022 by aymnad.9023

[anduriell.6280]

46 minutes ago, aymnad.9023 said:

I already said many times that more support outside of CA would be nice and gave a few suggestions. 

I would love to debate / exchange with you so maybe you could elaborate on those situations where you think it matters and give examples?

Sure although i think the devs should be the ones reaching out in this fashion. Our debate will take us nowhere as no-dev ever bothered to check this forums before. 

All the points about the Druid  that i bring are common sense, at least they are if you played with it for a bit:

• Nobody wants a healer, which right now the only function can perform is healing, to stay "idle" whom can perform a healer role for 10 seconds and then stay idle for another 10 seconds. 50% coverage is not good. 
• A druid in fractals or example. A couple of party member are low in health, should it use the avatar and risk the party wipe because it has nothing to offer after those 10 seconds? 
• A Druid in WvW: Those 10s are an full squad wipe. 
• Avatar with the limited time it last makes the use of any glyph irrelevant and actually a wasted resource. 

Original support design was right: 

• (HoT beta) lingering light and verdant etching was the solution so the Druid could offer some support during that downtime. 
• (HoT beta) Grace of the Land and Glyph of Empowerment was there to add something else aside healing and cleansing. Something useful to the team during that downtime to compete with other support specs which could provide boons on demand, projectile hate or stat buffs like herald. 

Unfortunately the devs of the time completely ignorant about the class decided to nerf all those aspects on the druid because it should be now a "burst healer" (whatever that translates to actual gameplay). The PvP issues are of other nature and it was as simple as to remove self-sustain from the avatar skills, but well.... 

So yeah this balance patch as you can imagine  changed nothing and is actually making thing worse.  

 

[aymnad.9023]

7 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Sure although i think the devs should be the ones reaching out in this fashion. Our debate will take us nowhere as no-dev ever bothered to check this forums before. 

All the points about the Druid  that i bring are common sense, at least they are if you played with it for a bit:

• Nobody wants a healer, which right now the only function can perform is healing, to stay "idle" whom can perform a healer role for 10 seconds and then stay idle for another 10 seconds. 50% coverage is not good. 
• A druid in fractals or example. A couple of party member are low in health, should it use the avatar and risk the party wipe because it has nothing to offer after those 10 seconds? 
• A Druid in WvW: Those 10s are an full squad wipe. 
• Avatar with the limited time it last makes the use of any glyph irrelevant and actually a wasted resource. 

Original support design was right: 

• (HoT beta) lingering light and verdant etching was the solution so the Druid could offer some support during that downtime. 
• (HoT beta) Grace of the Land and Glyph of Empowerment was there to add something else aside healing and cleansing. Something useful to the team during that downtime to compete with other support specs which could provide boons on demand, projectile hate or stat buffs like herald. 

Unfortunately the devs of the time completely ignorant about the class decided to nerf all those aspects on the druid because it should be now a "burst healer" (whatever that translates to actual gameplay). The PvP issues are of other nature and it was as simple as to remove self-sustain from the avatar skills, but well.... 

So yeah this balance patch as you can imagine  changed nothing and is actually making thing worse.  

 

I agree with you. I do not see druid being a main healer in PvP / WvW anytime soon. But with a few more incrementation it could be a viable pick. At least on the level of something like a shout healbreaker for PvP. I will try to provide some ideas.

The 1st and main issue is definitely the restrictions. I have been spamming that on any occasions. Sadly I do not see them going away. They will even give astral force for free to not remove it! They could increase the support ouside of CA on some glyphs.

Glyph of unity (base mode): gives thorn armor. Gives a small amount of barrier + inflicts bleeding when hit.

• Since the introduction of barrier into the game, ranger not sharing it has always been strange to me. Also this glyph is far from being good as I just do not use it in base mode and it just overheals in CA which makes me want to use it only before exiting. It could be a bit strong for a duelist which they want to avoid. To be honest I also do not find duelists / bunker druid fun to fight.

Other supports are healing + bring something. I loved glyph of empowerment and old lingering light. I used it on my support druid even in PvP. Since unique buffs are (mostly) removed so I think there are other niche aspects they could give to ranger. 

Invigorating bond : On top of the current effect you give resistance around you when you use a heal skill

• Ranger traits / skills seem to have a good emphasis on movement conditions and removing them. For some reasons there are not that many ways to share resistance in the game. While not on the same level as stab, it would provide a way to have an impact when engaging / disengaging.

It seems like they want druid to be a support with cc (ancient seeds) and not blind. I think we have already have enough cc heavy supports so blind could be cool (giving it back on verdant etching). But for pure healers we could have: 

Lingering light : Casts a mini glyph of unity (healing version) when going out of CA. The effects lasts 3s

• I really like what they are going to do with berserker by giving the heal when entering berserker mode and I really hate that glyph of unity best use is before leaving CA otherwise you overheal.

Edited September 19, 2022 by aymnad.9023

[anduriell.6280]

11 hours ago, aymnad.9023 said:

I agree with you. I do not see druid being a main healer in PvP / WvW anytime soon. But with a few more incrementation it could be a viable pick. At least on the level of something like a shout healbreaker for PvP. I will try to provide some ideas.

The 1st and main issue is definitely the restrictions. I have been spamming that on any occasions. Sadly I do not see them going away. They will even give astral force for free to not remove it! They could increase the support ouside of CA on some glyphs.

Glyph of unity (base mode): gives thorn armor. Gives a small amount of barrier + inflicts bleeding when hit.

• Since the introduction of barrier into the game, ranger not sharing it has always been strange to me. Also this glyph is far from being good as I just do not use it in base mode and it just overheals in CA which makes me want to use it only before exiting. It could be a bit strong for a duelist which they want to avoid. To be honest I also do not find duelists / bunker druid fun to fight.

Other supports are healing + bring something. I loved glyph of empowerment and old lingering light. I used it on my support druid even in PvP. Since unique buffs are (mostly) removed so I think there are other niche aspects they could give to ranger. 

Invigorating bond : On top of the current effect you give resistance around you when you use a heal skill

• Ranger traits / skills seem to have a good emphasis on movement conditions and removing them. For some reasons there are not that many ways to share resistance in the game. While not on the same level as stab, it would provide a way to have an impact when engaging / disengaging.

It seems like they want druid to be a support with cc (ancient seeds) and not blind. I think we have already have enough cc heavy supports so blind could be cool (giving it back on verdant etching). But for pure healers we could have: 

Lingering light : Casts a mini glyph of unity (healing version) when going out of CA. The effects lasts 3s

• I really like what they are going to do with berserker by giving the heal when entering berserker mode and I really hate that glyph of unity best use is before leaving CA otherwise you overheal.

I like your proposals, i think they are very different to what we have now. 

But this convo we are having right now about ideas for the Druid has been posted many many times already, many different ideas and reworks. I think this is a waste of time. 

As i said, if the devs were really interested on working on the forest boi and recognized they have 0 idea on how the class work they would reach out somebody. They haven't done so and admittedly they have recognize they balance the ranger by the wiki. 

[Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341]

The nerf to druidic clarity should not go ahead, in my opinion. 

It would be a bad choice for those who either duel and roam in sPVP and wvw. 

Druids need the extra cleanses to be able to have enough sustain to put up a fight. Power scaling is terrible with druid, and even the condi builds are not as powerful as other classes. Now one major element is about to be diminished, and without buffs to the staff (we need either a power or condi buff, i.e. stacks of burning) to increase damage (and other buffs to damage/condi's on other weapon choices), it is going to be even more difficult to not only have the sustain to wear an opponent down, but the having the damage to make count the time one has to defeat the opponent. 

These comments relate to dueling and roaming builds, not support builds. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341

[Buzzbugs.1236]

They are killing Druid with this patch, it's as simple as that.

It will be time to play another spec.. Druid just isn't going to be worth it after being neutered like this.

[Lazze.9870]

On 9/17/2022 at 2:03 AM, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

Please don't remove Minor Seeds of Life from this trait. Especially since Druidic Clarity is having it's Condi Removal reduced from 13 condi's to 3. As well as Glyph of the Stars no longer cancelling out all Condi's.. this is overall a huge nerf to Druid's ability to cleanse itself and counter heavy condi in PvP, forcing dedicated Druids to take core skills instead for condi cleansing (for example, survival skills and signets)

If they wanted druid to be a more competent support option in PvP/WvW, shaving off some of its self sustain (we're really only talking about that one full cleanse) in favor of support was a must. Otherwise it will double as a super annoying sidenoder as well. Ranger has other options for sidenoder builds, druid was the only one with potential to support properly.

The druidic clarity change is a good change in that regard. I'm a bit split on the Verdant Etching change, having the new version of Seed of Life proc would also be great, but I'm overall happy with the changes as a whole.

On 9/23/2022 at 6:55 AM, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

They are killing Druid with this patch, it's as simple as that.

They are not killing it all. None of its selfish builds relied on sustain from Verdant Etching procs from glyphs, a selfish druid build hardly ran glyphs to begin with. They are making it a much stronger support spec, which is what druid should be, and the only real sustain nerf it got was the full cleanse from Druidic Clarity in favor of more ally cleanses.

You now get passive astral force without Lingering Light, which means you can run Ancient Seends and still get that passive regen. Pets get their stats back. Builds like condi trapper druid or survival bleed druids are gonna be stronger, not weaker. Cleansing three condis on yourself (and your pet, actually, that's a positive) when entering the avatar is still pretty good. The end result here is that you get better support builds and at the very least similarly performing solo builds without ending up with some monstrosity that can excell at both at the same time.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Lazze.9870]

On 9/19/2022 at 9:17 AM, anduriell.6280 said:

That's because probably you don't play Druid where it matters.

The upcoming changes are great to make druid more competetive for a support slot while at the same time keeping those selfish druid builds alive.

There are still changes that could be made to make the support outside of the avatar a bit stronger, but they are on the right track. Staff 2 change is good, not what I wanted, but better than what we had. Staff 5 should still be larger. Staff 1 could arguably have a better healing power scaling. Core ranger still has a couple of traits and skills that could be improved for support as well. But the changes are good, the only nerf we got was the full cleanse from Druidic Clarity, and that nerf come with the trade off of having better aoe cleanse.

Anyone who has tried to make support druid work in pvp/wvw on a high level would argue that this patch is will be an improvement. And the solo builds will overall still be as good as they are, just a bit different.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[anduriell.6280]

13 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Anyone who has tried to make support druid work in pvp/wvw on a high level would argue that this patch is will be an improvement.

I don’t know who are those “anyone”, but I can tell you, everybody will feel the lack of seed of life with the glyphs. Those cleanses and heals even if marginal they were part of the support from druid. 
Druid will have 0 uses, even less than before because of the nerf to clarity cleanses, so troll builds will have less roaming capabilities. 

let’s agree to disagree, we can verify it soon enough. Although I might say I’ve been wrong about this things very few times. 

[Za Shaloc.3908]

28 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

I don’t know who are those “anyone”, but I can tell you, everybody will feel the lack of seed of life with the glyphs. Those cleanses and heals even if marginal they were part of the support from druid. 
Druid will have 0 uses, even less than before because of the nerf to clarity cleanses, so troll builds will have less roaming capabilities. 

let’s agree to disagree, we can verify it soon enough. Although I might say I’ve been wrong about this things very few times. 

 

From my perspective/experience, you never really ran the Glyphs for the baby Seeds of Life, but for the actual Glyph effects themselves. I think they are a bit underrated, but the small radius and the delay made them rather impractical. You are still gaining back a bit of AoE cleanse through the Druidic Clarity change as well as the Glyph of Alignment change, and Druid's cleanse output potential will still be on the high side, especially after the Scrapper/Engi nerfs. Also the addition of prot is really nice. I believe it was a 3s duration in PvP, so if that's to persist for WvW you'll get roughly 5s per glyph if on full Minstrel's (give or take a bit, depending on your rune/sigil/food/util choices). That's quite strong. If you run 4-5 glyphs that's some really high uptime. Will I miss the seeds? A bit, sure. But the prot will be really great to have as it's a boon that Druid can't really apply too much of very reliably or consistently in WvW.

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Za Shaloc.3908

[Za Shaloc.3908]

13 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Core ranger still has a couple of traits and skills that could be improved for support as well. 

*cries in Invigorating Bond*

[anduriell.6280]

16 minutes ago, Za Shaloc.3908 said:

you never really ran the Glyphs for the baby Seeds of Life, but for the actual Glyph effects themselves. I think they are a bit underrated, but the small radius and the delay made them rather impractical. You are still gaining back a bit of AoE cleanse through the Druidic Clarity change as well as the Glyph of Alignment change,

You seem to be talking about roaming, in zergs baby seed was the most useful skill of all because the Druid was able to bring some cleanses and healing during the 50% of doing nothing downtime. 

alignment changes are only in celestial, why would you use that when you have mom seeds in avatar. 

but anyway you will see, I am tired of discussing this next week I will bring the popcorn. 
 

Edited September 27, 2022 by anduriell.6280

[Buzzbugs.1236]

Have we forgotten that Druid already had it's healing to allies reduced by 30% in the previous patch? Look at changes to Lingering Light in that patch.

[Queez.7028]

Hmmm... perhaps I dont get the big picture.. but why should I use "Verdant Etching", when I got a nice spirit, giving me protection and alac or pets who give Protection? I like the way it was before.. as a fine cleanse, but now.. I am not quite sure how this could grade up the Druid (if you are not mostly playing wvw or pvp but open world, fractals, strikes and raids).

As someone said before.. Resolution instead of Protection would have been a good choice to handle conditions because my glyphs dont do that anymore. Now I have to say: "Ankka, Slothasor (and many other encounters).. take my Protection before killing my mates with your immense condition output." 🤨 😉

Edited October 5, 2022 by Queez.7028

[Buzzbugs.1236]

yeah, this spec is now dead to me.

The 30% decrease on healing to allies in the previous balance patch was annoying enough, but I was willing to soldier through because at least I had my other utilities and I found that I could still be an effective team support with skilled play. But now they've cut away even more and left me with nothing but some lame boon spam. Boons that could already be accessed elsewhere, or done better on other specs.

Druid is a support, how can I do that effectively when I cannot  cleanse myself and my allies from condi, or deny condi on a node for a short period of time, (glyph of the stars) which was an elite skill that actually felt impactful for a change..

This patch has taken things to the next stage and I no longer feel like Druid is a good support option any longer. It already paled in comparison to support Guardian before these horrible changes, but at least support Druid had it's own niche that made it effective in it's own way. They've successfully killed that now.

They took away condi denial (glyph of the stars) and gave us stability on a radius in it's place. A guardian can already do that and much better with stand your ground and virtue of courage. So what is the goal here? To make Druid a different flavor of guardian, but just worse in every way? Why is Druid not allowed to have it's own support identity in the meta ? what is your obsession with boons boons boons??? Don't we already have enough boons from Guardians and Ele's and everything else???

Why did Glyph of the Stars have to be nuked? Is it because it was actually an effective way to counter a heavy condi team composition? Was someone at Anet mad that Druid could do something no other spec could do? I'm sorry, but activating one of my Glyphs and getting a magical boon does not create a warm and fuzzy feeling in my tummy..

So you're saying a Necromancer can drop a condi bomb on a node in Conquest, afflicting all my team members with stacks of conditions. But Glyph of the Stars being a method to counter that was just far too potent and game breaking, so they just had to destroy the elite skill entirely by instead making it *Drum Roll Please* Grant a boon! Oh Gee, I can't wait until the next team fight where this happens and I feel completely and utterly useless in helping my team!

What am I to do with all of these great new boons Anet? Protection & Stability. I mean, my healing to allies is 30% less potent than before, and I can't cleanse or counter condi's worth a #%@%, but atleast now I can compete with support Guardian with these amazing boons. Right? RIGHT!?!

If I loved Boons so much I'd be playing Guardian, not Druid. I played Druid for it's healing and it's cleansing. I enjoyed hard countering heavy condi in PvP, that's the thing that gave me the warm and fuzzy feeling in my tummy, not this lame boon thing. Like I'm really going to feel that -%33 reduction on damage with protection, and all my allies are going to thank me for that rare and sought after Stability. Oh wait hold on, everyone already has access to those boons. Oops, sorry Druid. There's nothing special about you anymore..

ArenaNet please, please, please, consult with real actual support Druid players before making changes to this spec. So far in the last few PvP seasons I have run into maybe 1 other Druid who actually had a staff and glyphs equipped. 99% of the Druids out there are just Rangers who only select the Druid traitline so they can abuse Celestial avatar invisibility and spam immobolize (surprise surprise, you just made that easier for them with CA access changes).

I am not one of those players. I use the staff, I use all of the Glyphs, I used the +50% bonus to allied healing with lingering light (also now nerfed) and in teamplay my focus was on healing and cleansing. And so these supposed "support improvements" are impacting me the most (in a negative way). I feel as if I'm being punished for playing Druid faithfully..

You say you made these changes to keep Druid in-line with it's support role, but why haven't you touched on this humongous elephant in the room that is invisibility & immobolize spam? You should have fixed the obvious shortcomings with this specialization first before trying to "fix" things which already worked fine and fit well into the support role. Kill the cheese and buff the existing support utilities and I'd say that would have been a big step in the right direction. If you wanted to improve Druid as a support, then improve on it. Don't just gut it and try to change it into something it was never mean't to be. Because that is what you seem to be doing.

I know this is a long rant but I had to get this all out there. As someone who has been playing Druid support in PvP since HoT release this is like watching a train crash in super slow motion. But since today's patch went live I just don't think I can stomach it anymore, my playstyle is far too neutered now for me to get any enjoyment out of it. And seeing how long it's taken for them to fix the 300s cooldown traits I have absolutely no hope at all that they will ever reverse these changes to bring Druid back to where it should be where it could be set on the right track.

 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Buzzbugs.1236