druid need overall change asap

[BadSanta.6527]

so i was doing strike misson lately and i wanted to play most of the time druid , but the major problome is that no group wanted adruid , just dps so i had to choose soulbeast and to be honst i get why , druid can heal and some what alac , but if you take mech or fb the offer much more to the group in term of support. the major problome in my opino ley in the celestic avatr comper to the mec and the tombes is not a real fight 

[Beddo.1907]

The issue is our boons being tied to all utility slots filled by spirits and some fights are just unsuited for it.

There is a lot of aoe that kills the spirits, you are teleported/zip lined and spirits despawn, you need to move long distances or constantly move around the arena.

[zeyeti.8347]

I play druid a lot , same as you i really don't like alacrity bend to spirits , make it a very static support .

Without that it would be really fun , could bind it to glyphs , they are fast , you can change glyphs to adapt on each fight for stabilty , cc , more healing , push , condi cleanse . But by doing that you remove the possibility for untamed to play alacrity/dps (not that i think a lot of ppl will complain as untamed is a very rare sight )

The rest is pretty good to me , very long range healing , adaptation with 2 pets , huge cc , mobility , the only annoying part is spirits who take 3/5 of your utilitys , so unfun to play i don't even remind what some spirits actually do as i use them only for alacrity uptime...

[Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341]

Some things I would like to see with Druid;

sPVP: CA back down to 10 seconds (after the nerf to Druidic clarity, it won't be overpowered)

Staff 4 reworked to make it more effective.

CA 5 reworked so you don't have to stay still but can move whilst using it. 

Also give CA5 at-least 1 more second of stability, stability is hard to come by on Druid, so any extra would certainity help. 

Some time ago there was a focus on making professions like warrior to have the ability to be used for support and thus have options for power and support builds, why not apply the same type of reasoning to Druid and allow Druid to have the ability to have the opportunity  for power builds?

Power scaling is very weak on Druid, increase the power scaling for the staff, or create a dueling staff instead of having to fight with a tickle beam. 

Rework glyths to give them things like shields, aegis or even give glyth of equality stability in sPVP or WvW. 

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341

[PolarBear.3961]

The problem is the druid is a healer and nothing else. Id love for an OPTION in the traitline to change celestial avatar into a dps form and change the staff skills to dmg aswell. Basically he loses healing and gets dps and the other way around.

[Beddo.1907]

1 hour ago, PolarBear.3961 said:

The problem is the druid is a healer and nothing else. Id love for an OPTION in the traitline to change celestial avatar into a dps form and change the staff skills to dmg aswell. Basically he loses healing and gets dps and the other way around.

Half right.
It's literally a "healer" as in it can mostly heal, compared to other specs that vomit boons and utility on top of slight above just enough healing.
DPS is one thing, but Druid lacks support as a support spec and what it has is inconsistent or a pointless overkill.

[Dr Meta.3158]

Druid is better as a duelist than a support. It needs changes to be more supportive and less DPS not the other way around.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

13 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Druid is better as a duelist than a support. It needs changes to be more supportive and less DPS not the other way around.

No thanks.  Avatar form, staff, spirits, and pets are too clunky to make a proper support; they need to just double down on enhancing the dueling capabilities.

Bringing sharpening stone CD down (and entangle in PvE), reducing CA form to 10s in PvP and making Glyph of Stars match other skills of this type (it needs to pulse / heal allies way faster) are pretty much all they need to do with Druid at this point.  

Druid (much like Untamed) isn't really a PvE spec, as both were designed with competitive in mind.  I'd personally rather we keep it that way and keep Soulbeast for PvE usage.   In that light, at least Druid is pretty fine in competitive right now, and would be pretty much set with the above changes.  

Edited April 10, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Druid (much like Untamed) isn't really a PvE spec, as both were designed with competitive in mind.

Druid is the ranger spec that screams "pve" the most. It's primarily designed as healer/support, yet has never been the go to support in pvp or wvw, meanwhile it was THE meta support in pve for the majority of it's lifetime. And even now it's mostly spirits/core aspects that are holding it back in PvE, not the druid kit itself, which is perfectly desigend for pve. Meanwhile it required completely busted pets and a few op traits (druidic clarity, celestial shadow, ancient seeds) to hard carry the spec in pvp and ever since those things toned down, it hasn't been relevant, because the main druid mechanic itself - celestial avatar - sucks in pvp combat. Not saying druid is bad, it's pretty ok right now in both spvp and WvW, but still far from optimal and certainly not designed with competitive in mind.

That's not to say it should be pve or healer only, it's just what it's design points at.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Gotejjeken.1267]

9 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Druid is the ranger spec that screams "pve" the most. It's primarily designed as healer/support, yet has never been the go to support in pvp or wvw, meanwhile it was THE meta support in pve for the majority of it's lifetime. And even now it's mostly spirits/core aspects that are holding it back in PvE, not the druid kit itself, which is perfectly desigend for pve. Meanwhile it required completely busted pets and a few op traits (druidic clarity, celestial shadow, ancient seeds) to hard carry the spec in pvp and ever since those things toned down, it hasn't been relevant, because the main druid mechanic itself - celestial avatar - sucks in pvp combat. Not saying druid is bad, it's pretty ok right now in both spvp and WvW, but still far from optimal and certainly not designed with competitive in mind.

That's not to say it should be pve or healer only, it's just what it's design points at.

 

I think it depends on how you play it.  One could argue that it was practically the only support when it was designed, but unlike say firebrand, it wasn't designed to run minstrel and support forever. 

All of the Druid tools are given duelist ability, right down to staff which is the best kiting weapon ranger has.  To that vein I'd agree CA is terrible for support and great for dueling as you can get in/out of it fairly quickly.  Staying in CA for a long  time is a death sentence for sure.  

But yeah, whatever direction they want to go with it, they need to fix the pet interaction.  Knowing how they balance though, if they fix the pet to live longer they will make the spec pure support, which I'd personally be done with the game at that point as its been my goto competitive spec forever.  

[JPUlisses.8756]

On 4/10/2023 at 8:34 AM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

No thanks.  Avatar form, staff, spirits, and pets are too clunky to make a proper support; they need to just double down on enhancing the dueling capabilities.

Bringing sharpening stone CD down (and entangle in PvE), reducing CA form to 10s in PvP and making Glyph of Stars match other skills of this type (it needs to pulse / heal allies way faster) are pretty much all they need to do with Druid at this point.  

Druid (much like Untamed) isn't really a PvE spec, as both were designed with competitive in mind.  I'd personally rather we keep it that way and keep Soulbeast for PvE usage.   In that light, at least Druid is pretty fine in competitive right now, and would be pretty much set with the above changes.  

God no yikes!

[JPUlisses.8756]

I think druid is good it is just tempest and firebrand are better in WvW/PvP

 

Same for pve which firebrand is also better along with mechanist and tempest again.

 

If they didn't exist druid would be picked.

 

If they added quickness to druid or more alac things would change, maybe.

Edited April 13, 2023 by JPUlisses.8756

[Gotejjeken.1267]

5 hours ago, JPUlisses.8756 said:

God no yikes!

 

I'm not the confused reaction, but I can say for the first time on these forums I am actually confused at a response 😂.

[Acyk.9671]

druid was made more of a support because other especs can take on duellist roles 

[ventress.4879]

Druid like most healing focused specs are very hard to play and play with. 

You can very easily provide Alacrity and Heal in a PvE or PvP setting but I doupt you will find anyone to capitalise on it. CA is amazing and you can be build around the long cooldown but again I doupt anyone does. 

Most people play it as a Duelist even in PvE since it can survive and provide alot of CC and roots. The best Druids just counter high burst builds like Theif and Mesmer. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by ventress.4879

[Dadnir.5038]

Druid, itself, have 2 distinct roles: control and support.

The thing is that both control and support roles have been nerfed to the ground due to abuse in competitive modes.

Alacrity itself is an issue related to core ranger and only related to druid due to the role compression needed for the optimisation of each raid member in PvE.

Ideally, Nature vengeance get yet another rework (that would hopefully leave spirits less of a chore to use) and it's alacrity is moved to Verdant etching. It would solve both present and future issues by leaving some room for an eventual Quickness e-spec all while making Heal alac druid less cluncky and thus more popular.

[Zyreva.1078]

48 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Ideally, Nature vengeance get yet another rework (that would hopefully leave spirits less of a chore to use) and it's alacrity is moved to Verdant etching. It would solve both present and future issues by leaving some room for an eventual Quickness e-spec all while making Heal alac druid less cluncky and thus more popular.

Moving alac to glyphs doesn't fix the stupid "fill your skillbar with skill type X and press your buttons on cd" nonsense. And since most glyphs aren't skills that are very useful when pressed on cd, it wouldn't really help druid at all that much - even make it worse as support potentially, due to less boons overall. I'd rather see alac tied to a single skill - could still be a traited spirit, they just need to improve spirit survivability - so there is more room for actual utility and skill expression.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Moving alac to glyphs doesn't fix the stupid "fill your skillbar with skill type X and press your buttons on cd" nonsense. And since most glyphs aren't skills that are very useful when pressed on cd, it wouldn't really help druid at all that much - even make it worse as support potentially, due to less boons overall. I'd rather see alac tied to a single skill - could still be a traited spirit, they just need to improve spirit survivability - so there is more room for actual utility and skill expression.

Ah, I see that you want to play a renegade.

[Zyreva.1078]

That's totally what i said ...

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

On 4/15/2023 at 12:31 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

Ah, I see that you want to play a renegade.

At least renegade has a skill that gives alacrity that isn't tied to your utility skills.

 

The reason why mechanist, another example of a utility-less alacrity giver, can be so strong at times is alacrity is tied to the mech, therefore your utility skills are free to mix and match. Same with tempest, but tempest needs some other work to fix some design flaws (such as wanting to both finish an overload and wanting to quickly swap back and forth between attunements, you can't do both, point still stands).

 

Giving the "key boon" to your f1-f4 (or a new button) is better for balance. You can plan around every "x spec" having it, and you can let players use their utility skills as utility beyond keeping up one boon.

 

I honestly wouldn't mind seeing alacrity being baseline on druid- when you use a beast skill, pulse alacrity from the druid. This would also help force Anet to buff the cooldowns on many pet F2s, one of the easiest ways to buff ranger pets (which they sorely need). Make it something like fury or swiftness in competitive modes if they don't want druid giving alac there.

 

You could free up your utility skills, meaning if you want the water field from healing spring, or glyph of unity (for the strong repeated heals) AND glyph of Equality (for stunbreak/stab/CC), you finally could. You could technically run 0 spirits if you wanted, which would be nice because they're a mess right now and need some reworking (too easy to give boons with but too unfun to use and you can't actually use their minor utility from the active without wasting alacrity or dropping uptime).

[Infinity.2876]

Some Ideas of changes would be to add meaningful boons to avatar.

And a good amount of Qol updates for staff.

 

Avatar:

Spoiler

cosmic ray: deals damage to enemies as well.

seeds of life: aegis

lunar impact: damage enemies as well

rejuvenating tides: vigor

Staff:

Spoiler

sublime conversion: wall should be thicker

solar beam: should go through target as well

glyphs:

Spoiler

verdant etching (technically a trait): instead of granting protection when you cast a glyph it should grant boons to nearby allies based on the glyph.

for the following added effects:

Goe: stab

Goa: resolution

Gott: might

Gou: aegis

Gots: Protection