Lower the CD on Celestial Avatar in PvP

[Zuko.7132]

Can we let druid compete with tempest please? CA needs a lower cooldown.

[Dr Meta.3158]

Lower the cooldown, lower the debilitating effects, increase the support capabilities.

[Zuko.7132]

34 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Lower the cooldown, lower the debilitating effects, increase the support capabilities.

The debilitating effects are part of the support and let you peel for your team. The daze on 3 is better support than the healing. I would lower the damage of 5 happily though in exchange for more support. Also, the auto needs a larger radius.

[Dr Meta.3158]

2 minutes ago, Zuko.7132 said:

The debilitating effects are part of the support and let you peel for your team. The daze on 3 is better support than the healing. I would lower the damage of 5 happily though in exchange for more support. Also, the auto needs a larger radius.

If you just only lower the cooldown of celestial avatar then druid becomes unstoppable, like in the past, and they'd have to nerf it into obscurity, again.

Learning from the mistakes of the past is key to a better future.

[Zuko.7132]

1 minute ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

If you just only lower the cooldown of celestial avatar then druid becomes unstoppable, like in the past, and they'd have to nerf it into obscurity, again.

Learning from the mistakes of the past is key to a better future.

That’s a fair point. So long as they don’t outright remove the debilitating effects, I’d be okay with that. Like a shave to daze 3 and lower immob on 5. However, ideally I’d like them to lower it first and see where we stand. If it went from 20 to 15, I don’t think it would need any nerfs. If it went to ten, ya probably.

[Beddo.1907]

Just yeet the CD globally and be done with it.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

13 hours ago, Zuko.7132 said:

Can we let druid compete with tempest please? CA needs a lower cooldown.

As a Ranger main and one of the oldest Druid memes in NA, I'll be honest with you and explain that specifically in the case of spvp:

12 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

If you just only lower the cooldown of celestial avatar then druid becomes unstoppable

He's right about this ^

 

The thing is with spvp, is that Druid will never work as a support and it has nothing to do with the 20s access to CA Kit. The reason why it doesn't work as a support is because all of those CA Kit skills are slow reactive skills with cast times that actually have to be aimed. They just aren't practical to use in pvp for hard heals because people move around too much and never stay in the same spot for long. Guardians & Tempests just have instant massive AoE heal/cleanse/damage mitigation effects that don't require aim. Druid will never compete with those mechanics unless it was to receive a complete overhaul to the mechanical nature of CA Kit skills.

Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow effects going from 20s CD to 10s CD would inevitably be used as super selfish sustain effects that will result in Druids that can essentially full cleanse and stealth reposition twice as often as they do now.

I mean, I main Druid, I wouldn't be opposed to having my "Catalyst Era" where I was an invincible kite machine, but be careful what you wish for because you just might get it ^^

What Druid really needs, is a real overhaul to the mechanical functionality of those CA Kit skills, as well as direct large buffing. Then the 20s wouldn't matter much.

If I was CMC, I'd start like this if we wanted to start seeing any serious Druid support builds:

1. CA Kit 1 needs to be buffed like Dragon's Tooth, where you could choose to aim it at the ground or target it directly on an ally so it will not miss when it lands. Its heal factor also needs to be significantly buffed so it is worth the time to use.
2. CA Kit 2 needs to straight up grant boons in addition to what it already does. It could use tossing out something like a 4s regen buff along with resolution or resistance or maybe both, to dampen condi damage.
3. CA Kit 3 is fine. It's a large direct ground target heal blast that makes bigger heals in water fields, and CCs opponents.
4. CA Kit 4 is just virtually useless in competitive modes. The heal coefficients are too low and the pulse locking you into a channel animation makes it so you can't even utilize the water field it grants or defend yourself during the pulse. They need to mechanically overhaul this skill so it works like a gyro where after you begin the animation, you are free to take other animations, so you can actually utilize the water field. This change alone would enable SO MUCH MORE that you could do with this skill.
5. CA Kit 5 is useless trash garbage that does nothing but invite the opponents to burst you down in the elongated animation it locks you into. The small offensive pressure & effects that it throws out aren't even close to being worth using. This skill needs to be seriously overhauled. It's been useless since day one. What they should do is for every pulse of the animation it should grant 2s or 3s of stability to the party in an AoE. The Druid should take some reduced amount of power and condi damage while in that channel, and the final pulse should be a hard AoE knockdown vs. 5 targets or possibly an AoE pull vs. 5 targets or maybe just a decent duration AoE slow like 5s. It should also be a blast finisher.

If they did some real buffs like this ^ then we could see some actual viable Druid Support builds. For example using these changes, you could begin supporting with CA Kit 2, blast the CA Kit 2 field for more cleanse with CA Kit 3, then target an ally with CA Kit 1 and follow him with new targeting as to ensure these casts actually land, then if you get focused, you could begin the channel of CA Kit 4 and then defensively defend yourself with CA Kit 5 animation while still channeling CA Kit 4, and the blast off CA Kit 5 would work in the water field of CA Kit 4. <- That would be support that could actually stay in a team fight and get something done.

Some people who don't main Ranger may look at these buffs and think "that's a lot" but I'm telling you it's not. Druid seriously needs like big fat buffing to those CA Kit skills. Those skills really are virtually completely useless the way they are now.

The beautiful thing about these suggestions is that they would barely enhance DPS oriented builds because DPS oriented builds want to enter and leave CA Kit as quickly as possible, not linger in it. Generally they want to enter CA Kit and use CA Kit 3 blast on CA Kit 2 cleanse field and leave CA Kit. This is to cycle the Druidic Clarity & Celestial Shadow effects as often as possible while preserving as much CA Energy as they can so it cycles around faster. They do not want to linger in the CA Kit and burn CA Energy on support effects that have little impact due to not investing into heal stats or boon durations. On the other hand, these changes would enable viable Druid Support builds, which was the intention of its design to begin with.

In spvp, we'd probably see Avatar & Sage based builds show up with very low damage but actual support that was viable. In wvw we'd see a lot of Celestial variants showing up that had decent damage output and support that was actually viable when set next to Tempests & Firebrands & Mechs ect ect. In pve this wouldn't change anything other than maybe allowing a couple more potential blasts in water fields, but it would come with the penalty that if you stay in CA Kit long enough to do that, it's going to take longer to recycle usage and delay your next heal rotation, which would be balanced imo.

I wish Arenanet would listen to feedback like this more often, coming from players who really understand these classes.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

14 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

If you just only lower the cooldown of celestial avatar then druid becomes unstoppable, like in the past, and they'd have to nerf it into obscurity, again.

Learning from the mistakes of the past is key to a better future.

 

Not sure I'd agree with this, as we've already had nerfs on Druidic Clairity and other cleanse tools such as Sharpening Stone (yes, leaving the CD reduction untouched is a nerf).  

CA down to 10s really does nothing but give some extra stealth access as ancient seeds triggers every 20s in sPvP anyway, and you are typically only using CA form for either group triggering ancient seeds (through CA #3) or kiting (with Celestial Shadow).

I've had some modicum of success with support builds in PvP based around staff and sw/torch with glyph of stars and such.  The problem is you need a team to listen and 90% of them don't in soloq so I'd inevitably just run the condi/immob node bunker / duelist / stall machine.  

 

[Lazze.9870]

On 3/11/2023 at 4:56 PM, Dr Meta.3158 said:

If you just only lower the cooldown of celestial avatar then druid becomes unstoppable, like in the past, and they'd have to nerf it into obscurity, again.

The reason it was unstoppable was because of Celestial Shadow and Druidic Clarity. The latter has already been nerfed in terms of personal sustain.

What they should do is the same as they should have done years ago. Keep the cooldown and address Celestial Shadow properly.

On 3/12/2023 at 6:11 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

The thing is with spvp, is that Druid will never work as a support and it has nothing to do with the 20s access to CA Kit.

If we're talking about "working as a support" in pvp, this has everything to do with it in its current state.

Yes, CA1 is complete garbage and desperetely needs a change as well, but it's not a detriment for support druid to be functional. The 20 second avatar cooldown is. It ruins the entire flow of the spec when played as a healer/support.

Quote

In wvw we'd see a lot of Celestial variants showing up that had decent damage output and support that was actually viable when set next to Tempests & Firebrands & Mechs ect ect. 

Druid is already a "viable" support in WvW. Why? Because it got the same buffs but isn't hampered by a 20 second cooldown to its healing mechanic.

And as far as mentioning mechs, no idea what you've been smoking. Firebrands are also irrelevant, they are literal stab bots. Tempest, Druid, Scrapper and Vindicator are your healer/cleanser options.

If Anet want Druid to properly compete with Tempest instead of being a decent off-meta pick in WvW, it needs tweaks to make some of its support less stationairy. Again, CA1 is kitten. Make it a short range cone, and you're one step closer.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Lazze.9870

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

10 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

If we're talking about "working as a support" in pvp, this has everything to do with it in its current state.

Yes, CA1 is complete garbage and desperetely needs a change as well, but it's not a detriment for support druid to be functional. The 20 second avatar cooldown is. It ruins the entire flow of the spec when played as a healer/support.

Those skills in CA Kit are actually so bad that even if it had 0s ICD like an engi kit and you could sit in it 100% of the time, you would actually die faster sitting in the CA Kit than not being in it at all. This is because it removes all your offensive pressure while in the kit, the skills require aim, the skills take too long to cast, the healing is so low that incoming damage is like 10x higher per second than what you're healing per second, and there is nothing actively defensive in the kit or able to mitigate damage in any way. It's just supposed burst heals that heal less than 0 heal stat players leaping & blasting water fields. I mean seriously, as it is, it's better to offense an enemy who is chasing your team mate than it is to attempt to go into CA Kit and heal your team mate. The damage you'll deal to the opponent is far larger than any heals you can give the team mate, and this is considering you can even land the heals because the team mate will be moving around all over the place while he kites.

That 20s ICD has nothing to do with it. Those skills need overhaul/buffs.

Until there are buffs to those skills, the only thing CA Kit is good for is enter to get Druidic Clarity, blast #3 in #2, deactivate to get Celestial Shadow. Staying in CA Kit any longer than that greatly diminishes your efficiency with Druid play.

11 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Druid is already a "viable" support in WvW. Why? Because it got the same buffs but isn't hampered by a 20 second cooldown to its healing mechanic.

Again, that has nothing to do with the 20s ICD. Even your Staff 5 water field is a 25s ICD and this is largely the primer for any real burst healing support you can land, so you'll be waiting that 25s anyway before doing any real support. Trying to spam low CD CA Kit 1 & 2 on people isn't doing squat. Having 10s ICD in wvw is just selfish sustain my dude, allowing you to proc DC and CS twice as often. 20s to 10s is doing virtually nothing to enhance the actual numeric heal values you're pumping out because you'll always still be waiting for water field CDs anyway. All the 10s CD is doing is granting you an "in between" extra proc of DC and CS between the cycles of the actual heal centered around the Staff 5 water field that is a 25s CD. The "in between" phase will also allow you an extra #3 into #2 cleanse and small heal, that's about it. But you won't have time and reason to use other skills that require long channels because all it does is burn our CA Energy out and you'll be waiting longer to do real heal phase.

It only feels like it's a viable support in wvw is because the aimed skills have an easier time hitting targets when 20+ dudes are stacked on top of each other running in a zerg. The truth though, is that it "feels" like it's working when you're rolling 20 people over 5 people and the zerg can stay tight on itself. Then when an actual fight shows up, a 20v20, and things get disjointed and players are all over the place, the same exact problem occurs, the long cast aim required skills are too impractical to land on players when they are in situations where they have to keep kiting. When things get difficult and sweaty, Druid Support is bad and is outshined in every mentionable way by other supports.

For all these reasons, Druid Support is always just best used as selfish sustain and if & when players are near you when using that selfish sustain, then kudos, they get some extra heal. It's unfortunate but it's true.

Until they, if they ever mechanically rework or buff this stuff, Druid's most efficient form will always remain as a selfish sustain roamer that has half-support when it is convenient to land.

[Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341]

On 3/11/2023 at 2:28 PM, Zuko.7132 said:

Can we let druid compete with tempest please? CA needs a lower cooldown.

I agree. 

The CD should be reduced to 10s, after the nerf to druidic clarity, it won't be overpowered.

However, I think that druidic clairty should cleanse 6 conditions for both sPVP and WVW (but I cannot see them changing that), instead of 3. Druid needs sustain to get kills, its power scaling is very weak, and even condition builds suffer from projectile hate. 

I would love a dueling staff, but that may be asking for too much so I will just stick with CA back to 10s 🙂

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

On 3/12/2023 at 1:11 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

As a Ranger main and one of the oldest Druid memes in NA, I'll be honest with you and explain that specifically in the case of spvp:

 

Hello fellow oldest druid meme xD (mained ranger before HoT then HoT mained DPS druid since)

 

But yes, reduction in CA cooldown w/o compensating elsewhere would make it OP (one that I think we dont need)

Edited April 4, 2023 by Bigpapasmurf.5623