First Impression: Alacrity Druid is too sweaty & A few bugs

[Ranys.4028]

Druid has the potential to be a very strong and adaptable support, but the math just doesn't work out right now.
If the team takes too little damage we will hardly be able to get back into CA on time to keep up alac, but even if that wasn't a problem, we have to do a very precise rotation in CA to even get good alac stacking. We will hardly even be able to react to mechanics in the fight without dropping alac.
We're forced to have 100% boon duration to get anywhere.
If we had just half a second more baseline, it would already relax the situation a lot. Or if our glyphs in CA form also applied GotL. Anything at all to make it less sweaty.
We'll be forced to go into CA a lot for alac, even if we want to keep it available for something a few moments later.

I was looking forward to dropping some boon-duration this patch, but instead I actually had to increase it to make sure I'm on 100% and I still don't know if it will be enough.

Bugs: New Invigorating Bond is Great, but it's buggy, not every pet gets it.
Jacaranda + Rock Gazelle + Iboga: tooltip doesn't show it, but it actually applies here.
Siege Turtle: Doesn't apply, doesn't show on tooltip. I assume this ability is different on some level because of instant cast, but especially this ability not working together with this trait is extremely sad for protection up-time.
I didn't test every pet, but the core pets seem fine.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Ranys.4028

[Mixchimmer.7230]

Agreed.  I also really dislike how it makes you less reactive.

I feel like I have to spam CA abilities off cooldown to upkeep alacrity so they might be on cooldown when I ACTUALLY need them.

HFB and HAM don't have this problem, so why does Druid?  They get to provide their boon with little opportunity cost.

[Lexi.1398]

I agree, the fact it gets worse when your team gets better really sucks (less CA gen). Natural mender buff is not even close to accounting for the loss of spirits, and mind that not everywhere has consistent damage sources you can heal (for example the raid encounter where druid's kit shines brightest, qtp), also in strikes/raids/really any group content another healer existing in the group can have serious consequences for your ability to generate CA (depending on the healer + group + content).

I also noticed that putting might on CA 4/5 was not enough to account for the lost might from gotl either, also no more might on frost spirit.

Now CA generation NEEDS to be present because you have very little allowance to delay CA skills - also, if say, anything delays CA gen - like a boss going invuln and taking away your ability to do damage + the group's ability to take damage, you drop alac. Also if a mechanic delays your ability to enter CA, alac's going to drop.

 

Overall, i feel like these changes are a massive drop in useability for druid, its flexibility has taken a massive drive, and while new spirits are...useful, on occasion, they are definitely not worth this.

[Aylpse.6280]

Yeah this is bad. I was hoping Druid would get buffed, but this ended up a nerf and took away class flavor on top of it. And to think, all the confused reactions I got when I expressed concern. Perhaps over the wrong things, but the class is still going to suffer from this patch regardless.

[VulcanPyroman.8571]

I did a very brief check, but yeah good luck trying to keep 100% alac uptime, even with full harrier. Give me back my old spirits that was way better than this. They actually made it worse.

[Beddo.1907]

I think the Alac duration is ok on paper, since I can pull off ~26s spare after CA expires, which is plenty of time to get the next CA. The issue I have however is 3 and 4 breaking the flow with the cast times and being out for 15s of combat.
I'd change the duration to be different on skills so on zero BD 1/2 has 1,5s, 3 has 3s and 4/5 has 2s. This way we should be able to cancel CA with good enough alac stacked and focus on other things. 

[anduriell.6280]

6 minutes ago, VulcanPyroman.8571 said:

I did a very brief check, but yeah good luck trying to keep 100% alac uptime, even with full harrier. Give me back my old spirits that was way better than this. They actually made it worse.

yeah because they managed to get an horrible spirit design and make it even worse. That only can be done in Anet games. 

[nucklepuckk.1805]

It's bad. I said it was bad in the preview thread.

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

39 minutes ago, Lexi.1398 said:

also no more might on frost spirit.

Looks like Sun Spirit grants 8 might now instead.

[Halbarz.3854]

Honestly whoever made these changes must hate rangers ... these spirit changes are not fun at all! These should be reversed asap.
Was the alac upkeep to easy before? Yes --> But there were better ways to address it. 

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

Spirits were poopy awful boring to play before. They were essentially useless in anything that wasn't raids / strikes.
Literally no one found spirits fun to play before. The only reason people now are asking for it to be reverted is because it was extremely easy to do alacrity on them, not because people are passionate about old spirit gameplay.

[Strider.7849]

1 hour ago, Ranys.4028 said:

Druid has the potential to be a very strong and adaptable support, but the math just doesn't work out right now.
If the team takes too little damage we will hardly be able to get back into CA on time to keep up alac, but even if that wasn't a problem, we have to do a very precise rotation in CA to even get good alac stacking. We will hardly even be able to react to mechanics in the fight without dropping alac.
We're forced to have 100% boon duration to get anywhere.
If we had just half a second more baseline, it would already relax the situation a lot. Or if our glyphs in CA form also applied GotL. Anything at all to make it less sweaty.
We'll be forced to go into CA a lot for alac, even if we want to keep it available for something a few moments later.

I was looking forward to dropping some boon-duration this patch, but instead I actually had to increase it to make sure I'm on 100% and I still don't know if it will be enough.

Bugs: New Invigorating Bond is Great, but it's buggy, not every pet gets it.
Jacaranda + Rock Gazelle + Iboga: tooltip doesn't show it, but it actually applies here.
Siege Turtle: Doesn't apply, doesn't show on tooltip. I assume this ability is different on some level because of instant cast, but especially this ability not working together with this trait is extremely sad for protection up-time.
I didn't test every pet, but the core pets seem fine.

Just did a harvest temple run with another druid alac heal. Even with 100% boon duration it's very hard to upkeep alac if you're not spamming #1. As bad as spirits were before it felt even better than the current version of druid we have. Having to upkeep alac through CA means that you're sometimes locked out of healing effectively because you've just spent CA to keep up alac. Hope the team takes the feedback in this thread because it's really bad right now.

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

23 minutes ago, AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

Spirits were poopy awful boring to play before. They were essentially useless in anything that wasn't raids / strikes.
Literally no one found spirits fun to play before. The only reason people now are asking for it to be reverted is because it was extremely easy to do alacrity on them, not because people are passionate about old spirit gameplay.

spirits wouldnt have had the backlash if they just functioned, didnt die to random kitten, didnt gain debuffs, didnt despawn due to distance or ziplines or whatever. there was real skill in timing your spirits for ppl being outside of group, timing for new phases and mechanics. now its just straight up worse

prot+regen randomly reshuffled for no reason, might is low, alac cant be stacked and prepared, and worst of all they tied your most important boon to your main healing kit.

 

a healer on 100%bd shouldnt be struggling this much

Edited June 27, 2023 by Incurve Giidis.7829

[Halbarz.3854]

Spirits pre-patch were boring as well but there are different ways to address that.. Just did a strike mission and honestly there is little satisfaction in playing it how it is right now. 

 

[Vyreck.3510]

25 minutes ago, AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

Spirits were poopy awful boring to play before. They were essentially useless in anything that wasn't raids / strikes.
Literally no one found spirits fun to play before. The only reason people now are asking for it to be reverted is because it was extremely easy to do alacrity on them, not because people are passionate about old spirit gameplay.

Or because we know nobody is going to let a support into the team that can't manage more than like 30-60% boon uptime reliably?

[Celeste.9135]

Druid has been one of my mains since HOT, so disappointed with this ruined version in the patch today. Every part of the notes that worried me is actually somehow even worse in how it feels to play. I cannot believe that a real human being made these changes and tested them in actual content and thought, this is fine, this is fun, this is balanced and shipped it. Like I've said about Scourge if the follow up patch in 3 weeks does not adequately address the issues and mistakes introduced with this patch it is likely that I will not purchase the upcoming expansion and be done with GW2. 

Edited June 27, 2023 by Celeste.9135

[Joncal.9623]

How is this alac change BETTER than spirits? We traded 3-4 utility slots (+ GM trait)  for 1 GM trait that plays out the same way we did with spirits, only sweatier?

Even with 100% boon uptime  (+ full harrier) the alac buff is too short- and yes, that's with constant CA spam. 😒

Edited June 27, 2023 by Joncal.9623

[Bluberi Len.8342]

Anet, I thought we were supposed to get reduced APM, not increase it... I needed FOUR entities to actually heal to get even remotely close to full alac uptime. FOUR - myself, my pet, tempest friend, tempest friend's air elemental. Floor damage pulse moderate.
Also if we're supposed to spam CA skills to keep alac uptime, CAN WE STOP HAVING 2 CHANNEL SKILLS one of which just cancels if you move?

[Swynwraig.4628]

Much as the stationary spirit banners were a pain for mobile fights this new druid is very unchill.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

I just tried pve heal druid and yeah, it's just broken and useless now.

They chopped like 75% of the boon durations it once had, completely out of the picture.

These changes were just simply bad and did nothing but massively nerf Druid, even in pve.

[Tiviana.2650]

7 hours ago, Celeste.9135 said:

I cannot believe that a real human being made these changes and tested them in actual content and thought, this is fine

I blame AI, no real humans make decisions anymore.. and they didnt even have to activate skynet! 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Yeah, I brought it up previously somewhere but they basically took spirits and made them worse totems.  That's a really low bar actually.

As for Druid, it was obvious to any of us that played Druid that locking alac to the CA skills was the worst design possible.  Even if you are of the opinion that locking alac to Druid itself makes sense, there really is no way binding the generation to the skill use makes sense.  

The only way it works is if they made it pulse alac while you were in avatar form.  Then you could at least support how you need and just get the alac since they are so intent on keeping it in the game.  

Still utterly hate the idea and think they should have left spirits alone and just fixed it so they can't be damaged.  

[Swynwraig.4628]

I was just thinking that I quit WoW over the very bad taste left after some poorly conceived druid nerfs there - and when I started GW2 a bit later my druid's name was inherited by my ranger. After ten years I finally give druid a decent go and a month later this happens.

At least here we're probably not going to get warrior players piping up about how druids needed nerfing.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

The best case would have probably just been to have the Druid grant Alacrity whenever they grant Regen.

That would fit how the boon generation has been going with other classes and the Druid can overprovide Regen.

[Mewsha.3561]

12 hours ago, Ranys.4028 said:

I was looking forward to dropping some boon-duration this patch, but instead I actually had to increase it to make sure I'm on 100% and I still don't know if it will be enough.

Speaking with full ascended Harriers gear/trinkets, it does nothing to help the situation. Even in an ideal situation where you're not taking damage and focusing entirely on the tight rotation for alacrity, that's a tall order. Druid simply does not provide enough alacrity this patch as a spec designed for alacrity healing. That's a failure on their part.

I don't want to be mean, but this is such an unnecessarily clunky and awful change to include in the final version of the patch. I feel like Anet needs real playtesters or something because it's so painfully obviously what the devs do and do not play.