Don't you think Heal Druid needs a little shaving with the heal and cleanse? [Merged]

[latlat.4516]

13 hours ago, Bastrii.3047 said:

Druid is not broken in output. Basing balancing decisions around non-essential numbers is how you butcher a spec. The overwhelming majority of heals that Druid produces is from passive healing through Regeneration. If you remove Regeneration from whatever healing numbers you have for all professions churning out heals, the healing difference is noticeable. But other professions provide consistent damage negation, auras, and barrier to compensate for this. If you nerfed Druid's healing potential to match any other profession, then their viability plummets dramatically.

Regeneration is not a make-all-break-all boon. In PvE, PvP, and WvW, regeneration will not save you if you have 2000 HP left. You should realize that actual health numbers are not as essential as how many actual hits you can take before you are dead.

If you have 22,000 HP, that could be a few dozen hits or several depending on the enemy's output. In raids and PvE, this is usually 3-6 hits, in PvP and WvW, it's better to track this as actual survival time due to attack speed variations and how professions operate/how conditions work. Regeneration does not restore a hit every second in PvE. It takes several seconds for a player to restore enough health through regeneration alone to negate an extra hit. In PvP and WvW, Regeneration may give you an extra 0.1 second alive every second it's active. Considering how most time to down is under several seconds without dodging or defensive play, this is entirely negligible healing. If you are being focused without defensive abilities, your health bar could vanish in as little as four seconds. An extra 0.4 seconds will not save you.

But boons like Protection give you an effective +33% flat health against Power damage, and Resolution grants the same effect for Condition Damage. Barrier is also affective health. Blocking through Aegis is affective health. Blocking through actual blocking is affective health. Other specs offer these in heaps and spades. Druid does not. Druid offers healing. Not barrier regeneration. Not resolution. They have great condi cleanse, but they also can't really reduce condi damage otherwise.

Druid is built around raw numbers. Removing the raw numbers aspect would be similar to removing Barrier generation from Scourge. You would be destroying the niche of the class without cause. Players have a misconception on what provides actual survival to a player, and we don't have tools to really show survival.

If you want to see the actual effectiveness of a healing spec, we need better tools to see this in-game. We need to be able to track effective damage reduction and time until death, not raw healing numbers. One of the only ways we can track actual effective healing output is through damage field testing on the Raid Golem, and the numbers and cooldowns aren't the same in this scenario. So we don't have actual tools to track survival in-game. Add ons are also ineffective for tracking survival, as they only provide raw data.

If we want to check actual survival rate, we would need a couple people to painstakingly get together on WvW, and have them wail on someone while a healer tries to keep them alive. The healer would need to be in actual gear set ups and know what they're doing. The player should be in average gear and an adventurer profession. The other players should have similar, average DPS outputs in WvW.

To perform the test, you would need at least 3 enemy attackers, one player on the healer's team to serve as a target dummy, and one person who has access to all support specs - or multiple people with access to all support specs, and knowledge on how to use them. You would need to make sure that the enemy players fight with the same rotation each and every time. You would also need a scenario where there is at least five allied players clumped together to test group healing and survival. This would be the only way to test actual healing effectiveness. Any other tool, calculator, or other method would no yield useful results. You need a similar scenario every time.

While you are mostly right in what you are saying here, some corrections though :

- the first healing spot for druid is not regen, it's glyph of the stars (even in normal version). If you play with karakosa and stone spirit, it's in  the third  position. And if you combine all AC abilities together, it's even the fourth spot. 

- druid has a bit of utility outside of raw numbers nonetheless, since it has better stealth save than scrapper, and for smaller scaled content can stop stealth save *on target* with sic'em (which one of the 3 abilities in the game able to do this, albeit the least powerfull of those 3,  but the only one on a viable support class)

- you don't test actual survivability in your scenario, even less in the current meta. The question behind survivability is not so much a question of "time before downstate" than a question of leeway. No support in the game have the ability to counter a bomb. It was not the case during the herald/scourge Era, nor during the zerker era and much less the case in the holosmith meta we have now. What you should mesure is the ability for your dps to be able to evade the bombing. All other damage is litteraly irrelevant, and if It were to kill someone is more indicative of the level of the support player than anything else. 

That's even the reason I also said you are mostly right. The main aspect you should look to see if a class is "broken" or not support-wise is its ability to provide resistance, aegis, stability, stealth, quickness and alacrity in real situations. 

 

While you can say that "health is a timer" in most mmos where the ratio damage/health of players is being pushed towards the health, it's not really relevant in GW2. Any average players can reach numbers where they can kill any class in less than 4 seconds, and if their target is being healed I guess it can go up to 10 seconds at most. And that's only using mean numbers you would find with something like a ranger barrage - which is a known bad profiled damage skill. Most of the time, you will find yourself against an holosmith's overdrive or a zerker's greatsword burst that will just one-shot you. No timer there, you just didn't dodge when you should have. This is the real reason druid is not as op as arc dps shows. 

[Jski.6180]

1 hour ago, latlat.4516 said:

While you are mostly right in what you are saying here, some corrections though :

- the first healing spot for druid is not regen, it's glyph of the stars (even in normal version). If you play with karakosa and stone spirit, it's in  the third  position. And if you combine all AC abilities together, it's even the fourth spot. 

- druid has a bit of utility outside of raw numbers nonetheless, since it has better stealth save than scrapper, and for smaller scaled content can stop stealth save *on target* with sic'em (which one of the 3 abilities in the game able to do this, albeit the least powerfull of those 3,  but the only one on a viable support class)

- you don't test actual survivability in your scenario, even less in the current meta. The question behind survivability is not so much a question of "time before downstate" than a question of leeway. No support in the game have the ability to counter a bomb. It was not the case during the herald/scourge Era, nor during the zerker era and much less the case in the holosmith meta we have now. What you should mesure is the ability for your dps to be able to evade the bombing. All other damage is litteraly irrelevant, and if It were to kill someone is more indicative of the level of the support player than anything else. 

That's even the reason I also said you are mostly right. The main aspect you should look to see if a class is "broken" or not support-wise is its ability to provide resistance, aegis, stability, stealth, quickness and alacrity in real situations. 

 

While you can say that "health is a timer" in most mmos where the ratio damage/health of players is being pushed towards the health, it's not really relevant in GW2. Any average players can reach numbers where they can kill any class in less than 4 seconds, and if their target is being healed I guess it can go up to 10 seconds at most. And that's only using mean numbers you would find with something like a ranger barrage - which is a known bad profiled damage skill. Most of the time, you will find yourself against an holosmith's overdrive or a zerker's greatsword burst that will just one-shot you. No timer there, you just didn't dodge when you should have. This is the real reason druid is not as op as arc dps shows. 

Rez skills often do mess up the healing charts as they are % heals base off of hp bar that are x3? the base hp of that given class. Tempest glyph and necro aoe rez skills push them to the top of the healing charts even though its fake healing over all (same with transformation of vaper form on ele or any thing that "heals" transforms.)

Druid can allways heal and its more then likely going to be the top in heal even with out the rez effect. Tempest the weak healing class simply has nothing that druid cant do better now at least scraper can now barrier support a lot better. This is an issues of tempest needing an massive support buff then an druid needing an support nerf.

[Mell.4873]

5 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Rez skills often do mess up the healing charts as they are % heals base off of hp bar that are x3? the base hp of that given class. Tempest glyph and necro aoe rez skills push them to the top of the healing charts even though its fake healing over all (same with transformation of vaper form on ele or any thing that "heals" transforms.)

Druid can allways heal and its more then likely going to be the top in heal even with out the rez effect. Tempest the weak healing class simply has nothing that druid cant do better now at least scraper can now barrier support a lot better. This is an issues of tempest needing an massive support buff then an druid needing an support nerf.

Makes sense Druid in particular had an amazing AoE resurrection and fairly good use for the pet with Search and Rescue. 

[kiwituatara.6053]

Guardians been wvw blob meta for 12 yrs. Ranger finally get one build in the spotlight after years of practically 0 blob builds and people are yelling for nerfs already? lol

[Mell.4873]

17 hours ago, kiwituatara.6053 said:

Guardians been wvw blob meta for 12 yrs. Ranger finally get one build in the spotlight after years of practically 0 blob builds and people are yelling for nerfs already? lol

True it is a bit silly, I still remember when Druid could only build CA via healing alone. That was a nightmare system even if it had the same healing output. 

Right now Druid is in a good spot with maybe its only annoying element is you have no idea what Druid someone is playing. I mean I get put in a 5 man WvW squad for Alacrity and I don't even run it. 

Edited February 5 by Mell.4873

[zeyeti.8347]

I don't like the druid with the alacrity rework forcing you to use CA for alac uptime and not for actual healing , could heal people afar being kite , but now if you do that the alac uptime on the main group is gonna suffer , but people seems to enjoy it this way , so it's more of a personal taste about me , but a nerf ? it's fine the way it is (i don't like it personnaly , but not every spec has to suit mine or your own taste) , but it is far from being the best condi cleanse of the game , or the best downtime saver , many healers have their own pros and cons , for condi cleanse i think nothing beat the hscg with a condi cleanse on 3 sec cd , and barrier cleansing 1 condi , making it maybe a 1sec condi cleanse all time , fb still  the god of fractals with aegis and stab , druid has his insane long range godlike healing output , herald can stab like no tomorrow ... and htemp ... well it's htemp ... the only thing that should be changed on druid is his condi dps mechanic , it's pretty hard to fill yoru celestial power with no healing output and your regen not counting cause your main healer has better regen power and output , so something like Eclipse should just switch the damage filling CA from 0.75% to 1.5% and vice versa for healing , after all if you take eclipse it's for damage , not for healing , would help condi having right uptime on CA.

Also would help if Op specify in which mode he is actually speaking , pvp , wvw and pve are very differents in the term of meta and how you actually play. My take was on pve mostly endgame.

 

[EnderzShadow.2506]

On 1/18/2024 at 9:09 PM, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

And that Group Revive (GoTS) comes with insane amount of healing/cleanses as well on top of Stab. 

...as well on top of Stab.

huh? This has been addressed. I don't believe you read the numerous rebuttals to your argument. Maybe you learn something from this? /shrug. Probably not as you've already ignored what has been thoroughly explained.



props to Soilder.3607 for explaining without malice.

[Passerbye.6291]

On 1/19/2024 at 6:08 PM, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

I've heard Support Druid is also overperforming in High Level PvE contents. This maybe a potential issue that devs can also check on. 

Lol. After seeing your profile picture, your original post sounds more like "I have no idea how to play firebrand, but I'm too proud to admit it, so I default to thinking other classes are OP".
Firebrand has absolutely no lack of cleanses in WvW or PvE, it feels that way because you do all the stab and aegis you can on FB, which leaves little room to using the cleanses you have access to. If you play HFB like a main healer and not a stab bot in WvW, you can cleanse even more than a druid, the sheer amount of light fields you create alone are going to be more cleanses in volume than what a druid can achieve, let alone the insane amount of cleanses you have access to through utilities and your f2 tome. Not to mention the ability to provide high resistance uptime, if you so wish.

The sheer healing output of HFB is indeed lower than some other options, and for good reason, this is a class with high amounts of aegis available to it, you are more of a preventive healer than a reactive one, which is what druid is in WvW, hence the big heals in CA followed by downtime.  All these are irrelevant however, because firebrand has stupid amounts of stab available to it and only one of those is a ground aoe, so your stab, for the most part, moves with you, which is what makes it a better stab than dwarf pavement, despite its capability to stab way more than 5 people.

Coming to PvE, if you think druid is in any capacity a better healer than HFB, you are either not doing any proper endgame content, or you are simply unable to play HFB well. HFB in PvE has more than enough healing to outheal any mechanic that can be healed through, as well as an ungodly amount of tools to deny mechanics, be it through projectile hate, with which you can reach 100% uptime if you so wish by alternating F3-3 and wall of reflection, way more sources of aegis than any other class in the game, permanent stability if needed, and redundant amounts of cleanses. Every whirl/projectile/blast finisher done into your light fields provides cleanses, this is the main reason you'll see virtuosos have a lot of cleanses in any given run with a firebrand. Your F2 2 and 6 are massive cleanses, 2 being on a really short cooldown and healing an absurd amount of health as well when actually cleansing conditions. Your staff 2 cast into your staff 3 is also another cleanse due to it being a blast finisher. On top of all this, depending on your trait choices, namely picking the top trait at the end of the firebrand traitline allows you to have 100% resistance uptime, entirely ignoring any condi other than the damage ones. 

TLDR: If you are having issues as firebrand with cleanses in WvW or PvE, it is either because you are fulfilling a different role, often stab generation in WvW, or aren't good enough to play the class well. 
Your healing output in WvW is indeed lower than some other healers, but it is a trade off for all the insane utility your character brings, if anything, we need more of this and not less. I'd rather have different classes have different strengths instead of anet buffing FB out of the stratosphere every chance they get. Every change to HFB has been an objective buff for what feels like forever now, even when bad FB players couldn't see it and cried about it, tome and mantra changes for instance.
In PvE, you should have absolutely no problem outhealing any damage that isn't meant to wipe your group, if you are unable to do so, I'd recommend reading up some guides on how to play the class.

Edited February 16 by Passerbye.6291

[anduriell.6280]

On 2/2/2024 at 11:12 PM, Mell.4873 said:

Makes sense Druid in particular had an amazing AoE resurrection and fairly good use for the pet with Search and Rescue. 

I do agree with this and that doesn’t happen very often.

But all glyphs should be pbaoe around the Druid by using the tether mechanic so the tethers became a the signature mechanic for the Druid with the CA. Tethers are different from pulsing AoEs in the sense they have an activation range and a leash range which breaks when it is exceeded. 
 

S&R should be the elite skill instead the rampage as one (or however is named now). That skill should be the team support signature for the other specializations. But again it would need the range increased, even if it causes issues on pvp. 
 

 

[PrinceValentine.9320]

The upcoming changes for Druid are quite good. It is appreciated that Devs are reading and analyzing feedback given here on this site. Big Kudos!!!

Edited February 18 by PrinceValentine.9320

[Passerbye.6291]

6 hours ago, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

The upcoming changes for Druid are quite good. It is appreciated that Devs are reading and analyzing feedback given here on this site. 

Prepare yourself to make the same thread with herald next