The patch it should have been.

[anduriell.6280]

Here on how i would have implemented the changes, not going out of the way just minor changes to the decissions shown in the balance patch and i will touch one the ones i thing it need actual changes:

• Stoneform: This trait no longer grants Lesser Signet of Stone when dropping below 50% health. Instead, it grants Lesser Signet of Stone after using an heal skill.

Druid

Removing the condi cleanse from the trati verdant etching is a bad decission as it removes one of the sustained utilities the Druid can bring on as such teh changes to Glyphs CDs and Verdant etching must be undone.
Trying to turn Druid into Firebrand alternative it is not feasible with current design, as Druid would need a much deeper full rework. Druid can be an alternative to support Tempest (healer)  instead with condition conversion into regen (damaging conditions) and resolution (no-damaging conditions). 

• Seed of Life: Increased range from 180 to 240. Reduced blossoming time from 1.32 seconds to 0.66 seconds. This skill now activates instantly. Conversion of up to 2 in PvP and WvW. Blind is removed from the skill.
• Natural Mender:  It grants a flat amount of increased outgoing healing. This trait also now grants astral force every few seconds while not in Celestial Avatar. Current bonus from Lingering light is added to this trait. 
• Druidic Clarity: This trait now also removes conditions from nearby allies. Reduced number of conditions removed from up to 2 (one damaging and one no-damaging) every 3 seconds while the druid is in Celestial Form.
• Verdant Etching: his trait now grants protection to nearby allies and cast a seed of life instead previous effects. 
• Glyph of Alignment removed. Glyph of empowerment is brought back instead. 
• Glyph of Equality removed. Glyph of haste is bought in instead:
  • Glyph of haste (no-Celestial): Applies alacrity and short  quickness / superspeed to allies. 
  • Glyph of haste(Celestial): Applies alacrity and stability to allies. 
• Celestial Being: This trait no longer reduces pet attributes. Any condition cleansed by the druid is instead converted into a boon: Regen for damaging conditions, resolution for no damaging conditions. 
• Druidic Clarity: This trait now also removes conditions from nearby allies. Reduced number of conditions removed from 13 to 1 every 3 seconds up to 5 allies while  the Druid is in Celestial form. 
• Verdant Etching: this trait cast an Seed of life on Druids location when a glyph is used. Cooldowns of glyphs is reduced in a 20% (undo the CD reduction baseline)
• Lingering Light: This is trait is reworked. While the Druid is in combat an Astral Wisp will orbit the Druid and provide the pulsing healing. 

Soulbeast

Another sum of bad decisions taken by the dev team. Increasing the range of Leader of the Pack is a half meassure which will not change the status of the specialization in any game mode.  Locking the swap pets while merged behind a GM when it should be baseline is another weird choice which pushes ranger players into one specific build. 

Because on how Stances are designed Soulbeast is the best suited to become a Firebrand alternative, for those cases when a party does not have one available. But for that to be achievable some changes are needed.  

• Elevated Bond: This trait no longer prevents pet swapping while in combat.  You can swap pets while merged.. Traits that trigger when swapping pets no longer trigger when entering Beastmode.
• Eternal Bond:  While in beastmode if you would receive a fatal hit fall out of beastmode instead and recover some health. It now grants barrier when using a merged skill.
• Leader of the Pack: Increased range from 240 to 480. Duration of shared stances is increased to 100% duration. 

And that how i would taken this notes and have implemented them. There are some very inexplicable decisions like triggering a defensive trait in a 60-80s CD elite skills or pushing the merged petswap into a GM when it should be baseline. 

Druid needs more support back and some way to provide some sort of team sustain while not in celestial form. 

Soulbeast needs just needs that little push to be able to support their party consistently. 

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by anduriell.6280
no quickness with alacrity? Then superspeed is inline too.

[Beddo.1907]

19 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Stoneform: This trait no longer grants Lesser Signet of Stone when dropping below 50% health. Instead, it grants Lesser Signet of Stone after using an heal skill.

I think they didn't want it to be on 20-30s CD. 

23 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

• Glyph of Alignment removed. Glyph of empowerment is brought back instead. 
• Glyph of Equality removed. Glyph of haste is bought in instead:
  • Glyph of haste (no-Celestial): Applies alacrity and short  quickness to allies. 
  • Glyph of haste(Celestial): Applies alacrity and stability to allies. 

Those are against the design vision of no alac+quickness and no pure damage buffs that's still in place.

31 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Current bonus from Lingering light is added to this trait. 

50 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Celestial Being: This trait no longer reduces pet attributes. Any condition cleansed by the druid is instead converted into a boon: Regen for damaging conditions, resolution for no damaging conditions. 

Those have too much in one trait. (the conversion is a nice idea but not in baseline, especially with other cleanses in this post)

35 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Lingering Light: This is trait is reworked. While the Druid is in combat an Astral Wisp will orbit the Druid and provide the pulsing healing. 

500+ healing every second with nothing required is way too much self sustain.

Changes I agree with: Verdant Etching (the prot+seed version, I'd probably keep cleanse at 1, but leave a lightfield for a short time after burst), Druidic Clarity (you've said 2 ideas for it btw and I'm talking about the 1 non dam and 1dam cleanse) and Leader of the Pack.
The traits I didn't mention are either a no no for me.

[anduriell.6280]

On 9/17/2022 at 3:03 PM, Beddo.1907 said:

500+ healing every second with nothing required is way too much self sustain

you clearly didn’t play HoT beta, that trait didn’t heal the caster. I am not even sure the new astral wisp will heal the target either. 
But the Druid gets healed when it heals others so there is that too. 

On 9/17/2022 at 3:03 PM, Beddo.1907 said:

I think they didn't want it to be on 20-30s CD. 

Well for the effect of half the duration I think is fine to have it on half of the CD. Or fully rework the trait, you tell me that what reason there is to have that effect on entangle cast for example. 

On Other points we may have different views, but what we got now hasn’t changed any of the reasons why Druid is underwhelming and not needed or wanted. 

Soulbeast will be pushed into selfish builds, and again instead helping the forest boi to join wvw we still got nothing because of their decisions to keep the ranger down. 
 

Druid becoming “a guardian alternative” that is a funny joke…. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by anduriell.6280
forest boi, new official(?) naming for ranger

[Zaret.1450]

druid cant be an alternative to guard, but i think druid + chrono could be a decent alternative to guard + scrapper.

mesmer got its mantras buffed in area if im not wrong, and druid got better cleanses and healing in wvw, also crono and druid can bring more cc with entangle, focus and gravity, and stealth can also be covered by them.

each compo has some pros and cons, and right now i think the only way to truly say wich is better would be to try several things.

[Fungo Maligno.4081]

On 9/17/2022 at 9:05 AM, anduriell.6280 said:

Stoneform: This trait no longer grants Lesser Signet of Stone when dropping below 50% health. Instead, it grants Lesser Signet of Stone after using an heal skill.

it would make more sense for the trigger to be in the healing skill !