Solar Beam and Cosmic Ray

[Draeyon.4392]

Can we look at these 2 skills (WvW perspective).

Specifically:

 

Solar Beam - Can the target requirement be removed? Not sure why it exists but would help a bit for anyone who wants to action camera healing into their squad.

 

Cosmic Ray - can we look at increasing the radius of this skill? Always thought it was hard to hit any moving ally with it during a PvE raid, let alone a WvW fight.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

They do need to revise cosmic ray, it's the last skill for Druid that's just borderline unusable at this point.  Think they haven't as increasing radius would make it too similar to lunar impact and its spammable because it's in the 'auto attack' / 1 spot.  

Guess they could increase the radius and then rework lunar impact into a well or something since you really can't blast the light field from seed of life anymore (is there even a light field despite the tooltip now?).  The downside is you'd lose the daze on lunar impact...but you could add a short daze either at the beginning of the well active, or at the beginning of using rejuvenating tides to address that.

I don't think removing the target requirement from solar beam works though since before it healed allies it was a pure damage skill.  That is, you still need to be able to hit enemy with it to recharge CA.  

 

[Mic.1897]

Solar Beam should only do 50% damage to Sylvari

[EvilZombie.6801]

4 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

Solar Beam should only do 50% damage to Sylvari

Erm nooo solar bezm should do 2 sec burning and syvari take extra burning damage for being a talking plant

[Mic.1897]

That doesn't make any sense. Grass types resist Grass attacks.

[anduriell.6280]

12 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

Solar Beam should only do 50% damage to Sylvari

Actually it should heal and cleanse any enemy sylvari which comes in contact with instead doing damage. You know photosynthesis and all that. 

[Bunny.9834]

Would love to see Cosmic Ray just be a single target AA Heal.  

[EvilZombie.6801]

Solar beam is heat and heat is fire element... wait we talking about pokemon?

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

23 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

They do need to revise cosmic ray, it's the last skill for Druid that's just borderline unusable at this point.  Think they haven't as increasing radius would make it too similar to lunar impact and its spammable because it's in the 'auto attack' / 1 spot.  

Guess they could increase the radius and then rework lunar impact into a well or something since you really can't blast the light field from seed of life anymore (is there even a light field despite the tooltip now?).  The downside is you'd lose the daze on lunar impact...but you could add a short daze either at the beginning of the well active, or at the beginning of using rejuvenating tides to address that.

I don't think removing the target requirement from solar beam works though since before it healed allies it was a pure damage skill.  That is, you still need to be able to hit enemy with it to recharge CA.  

 

You can blast with Lunar Ray into Seed of Life, just reverse the order since SoL is instant cast, which means the light field happens instantly.

[Mell.4873]

On 10/8/2022 at 12:24 PM, Draeyon.4392 said:

Cosmic Ray - can we look at increasing the radius of this skill? Always thought it was hard to hit any moving ally with it during a PvE raid, let alone a WvW fight.

I meant natural convegence so nvm. 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Gotejjeken.1267]

9 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

You can blast with Lunar Ray into Seed of Life, just reverse the order since SoL is instant cast, which means the light field happens instantly.

 

Right, so seems you can't blast the light field anymore with lunar impact, as it disappears too fast.  Think it shakes out anyway in competitive modes since seed of life removes 2 condis now.  

[anduriell.6280]

3 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Right, so seems you can't blast the light field anymore with lunar impact, as it disappears too fast.  Think it shakes out anyway in competitive modes since seed of life removes 2 condis now. 

But this change also impacts PvE and WvW where the seed already cleansed 2 condis. The simple fact Anet has decided to remove one combo combination and you defending it  is a simple disgrace. 

There is no reason whatsoever to limit the team cleanses from the Druid. Just garbage balance decisions  

[Riba.3271]

Solar Beam should only damage 1 target and in return have twice as high damage and healing.

 

So Target cap: 3 -> 1

Damage/Healing: Twice as high

 

It just never happens that damaged allies conga line

[Zyreva.1078]

Yea no, rifle mechs are annoying enough as is, we don't need more and even harder to counter Xvs1 111111 spam builds ...

[Gotejjeken.1267]

10 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

But this change also impacts PvE and WvW where the seed already cleansed 2 condis. The simple fact Anet has decided to remove one combo combination and you defending it  is a simple disgrace. 

There is no reason whatsoever to limit the team cleanses from the Druid. Just garbage balance decisions  

 

Actually...I think we agree for once. 

I had to for once visit the wiki history page, and it seems prior to this Oct patch Seed of Life used to remove 3 conditions and then you could get an extra by blasting the seed with Lunar Impact.  

Think the reason I never noticed is because of the full clear on entering avatar, Lunar Impact was more of a quick heal / daze and out, I rarely blasted the seed as it was so slow.  

Anyway, now it removes 2 conditions and no light field left behind.  I mean sure it's faster so as to be useable now, but that is a direct nerf to cleanse.  

Edited October 9, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Levetty.1279]

11 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Yea no, rifle mechs are annoying enough as is, we don't need more and even harder to counter Xvs1 111111 spam builds ...

Is this a bot post? I have no idea what it even has to do with anything anybody said.

On 10/8/2022 at 1:09 AM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I don't think removing the target requirement from solar beam works though since before it healed allies it was a pure damage skill.  That is, you still need to be able to hit enemy with it to recharge CA. 

You used to be able to use the skill without a target and it would heal allies that you were next to but they made it require one because people were just using it without one to build up Astral Force by healing their pet. Now that Druid has passive Astral Force generation and can target allies anyway there is no need for it to require a target anymore.

 

Cosmic Ray should definitely be changed but all the ideas I have for it revolve around the fact I think Druid should have more inbuilt support and damage and more build options like other support Elite specs instead of ever skill just being an aoe heal making most of them pointless. I don't know maybe they can just increase the radius to make it better in WvW.

[anduriell.6280]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Anyway, now it removes 2 conditions and no light field left behind.  I mean sure it's faster so as to be useable now, but that is a direct nerf to cleanse.  

Not only that: the nerf to verdant etching is a big one, before this the Druid could get cleanses when casting glyphs and also blast the light field. 
that gave the Druid something to do and show for during avatar cooldown. 

players only asked the cleanses to happen when you drop the seed, like any other skill in game. 

this last nerf to druid was a garbage tier done by forest boi haters, when I’m being this frank is because it is that bad. we do really need a real forest boi main to manage this changes. 
 

Also the changes to soulbeast other garbage tier changes. Everything done from people who does not even know how the game they designed work, 

[nucklepuckk.1805]

On 10/7/2022 at 7:09 PM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Guess they could increase the radius and then rework lunar impact into a well or something since you really can't blast the light field from seed of life anymore (is there even a light field despite the tooltip now?). 

You absolutely can still blast the light field, they just changed the combo. You do 3 > 2 now instead of the old 2 > 3

[anduriell.6280]

3 hours ago, nucklepuckk.1805 said:

You absolutely can still blast the light field, they just changed the combo. You do 3 > 2 now instead of the old 2 > 3

Please share a video, i am sure you are just making this up. 

[Beddo.1907]

35 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Please share a video, i am sure you are just making this up. 

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

14 hours ago, nucklepuckk.1805 said:

You absolutely can still blast the light field, they just changed the combo. You do 3 > 2 now instead of the old 2 > 3

 

9 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

 

 

The odds of actually pulling this off in any meaningful scenario look terribly low.  I mean it literally looks frame perfect or near, because you have to time the field to hit the blast and that field only lasts a few ms at best.

It literally runs counterintuitive to the entire 'field' concept, which I don't think is acceptable and something they should be looking at for the Nov. patch.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Beddo.1907]

4 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

The odds of actually pulling this off in any meaningful scenario look terribly low.

Did it in a WvW fight without issues, so it's not harder in a realistic scenario than the old 2>3.
Just press 2 instantly after 3. I didn't even put any effort when doing that video and got it anyway.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Did it in a WvW fight without issues, so it's not harder in a realistic scenario than the old 2>3.
Just press 2 instantly after 3. I didn't even put any effort when doing that video and got it anyway.

 

Yes, and people do world record speedruns all the time without issues because they are good at frame counting.

My point is defending an obviously backward mechanic is a very bad thing for the community.  You use blast finishers to blast fields, not fields to blast finishers.  

[Soilder.3607]

16 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Yes, and people do world record speedruns all the time without issues because they are good at frame counting.

My point is defending an obviously backward mechanic is a very bad thing for the community.  You use blast finishers to blast fields, not fields to blast finishers.  

The new Seed of Life is plain better than the old one. Sure, it lost one cleanse, but it gained a larger radius, an instant cast time, a faster detonation time, and the ability to be used during other skills' casting animations. It's leagues better than it was before, and as @Beddo.1907 showed it's still combo-able with Lunar Impact. In fact, it's even easier to combo now because you can instantly cast it at the exact spot Lunar Impact will land instead of having to preemptively cast it and hope that your allies did not happen to move more than 180 units away from your Seed in the intervening two seconds.

 

 

 

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

10 minutes ago, Soilder.3607 said:

The new Seed of Life is plain better than the old one. Sure, it lost one cleanse, but it gained a larger radius, an instant cast time, a faster detonation time, and the ability to be used during other skills' casting animations. It's leagues better than it was before, and as @Beddo.1907 showed it's still combo-able with Lunar Impact. In fact, it's even easier to combo now because you can instantly cast it at the exact spot Lunar Impact will land instead of having to preemptively cast it and hope that your allies did not happen to move more than 180 units away from your Seed in the intervening two seconds.

 

 

 

 

 

I mean maybe this is why ranger is never balanced right, but I'm not sure how much clearer it can be that casting the blast before the field is awful design.

If you took the current skill and made the resulting light field last 1-2s like Smokescale smoke field, E. Wyvern lighting field, hell any normal field, there would be no issues.

The entire issue is pre-casting your blast before the actual field to get the desired effect.  It's increased APM for entirely zero reason and out of line with literally every other field I can think of.