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Playing Druid in PvP has never been this unfun


EgyptRaider.3946

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As someone who's been maining Druid since the start of HoT, already planning it before the launch of the game, I've been with the class in both its most OP phases in life as UP. Mostly I've been fine with its downward trend the last year or so, it was def not meta anymore, but competent enough to enjoy the matches. Many of its nerfs also made quite some since, like the Grace of the Land / Lingering Lights split. Now, however, I feel that Druid has been pushed in a direction that just isn't fun anymore.

The last week playing druid in pvp was a dread because of the pet nerf. Damage has sunk to the ground, even though Druid's survivability and supporting powers are still not up par with FB, and pets have become useless as they are suddenly dead half of the game. The Druid's identity has always been relatively stuck between side-noder and group supporter, and now, that identity crisis has only deepened with Druid's being given abilities for both roles, but currently shining in neither of the two. I had some hope for Glyph of the Stars, and the 'rework' of Gylphs as a compensation, but that has pretty much fallen flat. The cooldown of Glyph of the Stars is waaaaaay too long, making the CA-required rez only viable like once every match (if you're lucky), and the non-CA version is hardly worth the effort of such a long channel/cooldown. Going for a Glyph build in general still not a viable option for the skills are still too weak compared to the survival and shouts skill-lines and all the traits that accompany them.

Druid already had many trade-offs and the pet nerf feels unwarrented, unnecassary and most of all not fun. Pets are the main gimic of Rangers; having them be dead half a match just isn't a way to market the Druid's play style.

Half a year ago, I already posted a plea to buff Druid in one way or another, since the continuous nerves on CA (especially the Cooldown) and staff were taking its toll, especially in comparison to the powercreep other specs were going through since the launch of PoF. This... this feels like the final nail in the coffin, and I hate the idea of having to say goodbye to my Druid in PvP, but at this point playing the spec just isn't giving me the enjoyment anymore it has always given me in the past three years...

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Like you, I have a very strong preference to the druid. The entire class-fantasy is pretty much ideal to me and I have done my very best to stick with my druid despite everything.

I even ran druid in my open world build for months before admitting defeat and speccing back to core ranger for open world purposes. I also tried every single build I could find (and come up with myself) in sPvP and WvW without much progress - sPvP worked decently enough, but WvW ... Well yeah, everybody who has played any kind of ranger in WvW knows exactly how it went.

I was also kinda shocked at the pet nerf as it was extremely uncalled for - pets were already disliked in general for PvP purposes (which is why the soul beast is much more popular in both WvW and sPvP)... And in PvE content, druid were already the absolutely lowest damage dealer spec-wise even if they went for 100% power or condi build. It just really does not make any kind of sense gameplay-wise. AND, their excuse lore-wise just left me baffled: "as their focus on celestial magics means less time strengthening the bond with their pets." ... What the honest truck do they even mean? A ranger spending more time bonding with nature (and celestial magic) is supposed to have a WEAKER bond with their pets!? Might just be me but in my book ANYTHING that is called a "druid" should not be LESS connected to anything regarding nature than a regular ranger...

Obviously, historically (as in irl) druids can mean a lot of things depending on which part of history you look at... But if Anet intended their druids to simply be the "scholar"-type thenA ) Why give it to rangers and not elementalists?B ) Why portrait druids in the fantasy druid theme, having a tree straff and nature themed abilities like "SEED of Life", "NATURAL Convergence", "VINE Surge" and so on?

... I am actually more mad about this "explanation" than the actual nerf...

I sincerely hope they intend on fixing this because currently, I cannot think of a spec that is unplayable in all parts of the game but 2 modes (raiding + fractals) - I mean, druid is not even very viable in open world - there is no way you'll ever be able to get a druid to deal as much damage as a core ranger or SB (and to be fair, SBs even brings more utility in terms of self-buffs and low-CD ress for pets by unmerging).

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Yeah, well said! The theme of the Druid of combining nature and celestial power was what made it so beautiful. Hell, the ascended staff Yggdrasil showed it off perfectly: in becoming one with nature, you become one with the universe, which is represented by having all the animal pets in the tree. If anything: something with pets should happen while in CA, like them also taking on the stellar infusion.

I'm all fine with trade-offs (like when they decreased healing potential and allowed you to rebuff it through Lingering Lights), but first give the Druid enough power to make trade-offs be waranted, and then actually have a good trade-offs that's not focused on decreasing the overall stat balance of the player. It's lazy and plain hurtful.

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Druid really needs an overall but for this thread I will focus on the pet mechanic only. I like the trade-off vision they have, It should be an opportunity to re-visit the elite specializations and make renovations. If they will do it right we will end up with 3 playable arch-types with each class(and that's before a future expansion). With ranger class as a whole, rangers have greater problem compared to other classes, if you ask me, as the pet mechanic was always the most ambitious and hardest to balance. At launch, pet self survivability was a big thing. They tried to make risk-reward balance system between the pets(tanky/utility pets and dps pets). Hot/POF pets completely destroyed that balance(that was not that good in the first place). Also rangers used to have several self heal traits and defensive traits for pets(most of them does not exist anymore). It seems that A.net moved away from this aspect of the game when they made pets death almost impossible in PVE and when Soulbeast got a walk around the pet death mechanic. For me, this is A,net way of acknowledging that this is an obsolete mechanic in its current state. But Rangers and druids never got a solution for PVP in especially in WVW(where pets will not survive more than 5-10 sec in combat). Thing is, pet death is a cool mechanic that I don't want to see going away, it is also very fantasy based system(bound, grief etc..). I think this aspect of the pet could be one of the main mechanical indicator when it comes to mechanical trade-offs for the ranger class.

For example -(Rough ideas)

Ranger - swift revive - No 60 sec revive down time if you swap pet while current pet is dead. So you will always have the 20 sec(16 sec when traited) swap option.

Druid - celestial pet - pet's stats are 20% weaker, While in CA the pet transcend to its celestial spirit form. While in this form pets are immune to all damage(I would love the F2 skill to be replaced while CA with a unique F2 which could even be the same for all pets to not make things over complicated, but I don't want to be greedy).

Soulbeast - Merged revive - Soulbesat have access to one pet only, merging with the pet will revive it in case of pet death.

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@LughLongArm.5460 said:

For example -(Rough ideas)

Ranger - swift revive - No 60 sec revive down time if you swap pet while current pet is dead. So you will always have the 20 sec(16 sec when traited) swap option.

Druid - celestial pet - pet's stats are 20% weaker, While in CA the pet transcend to its celestial spirit form. While in this form pets are immune to all damage(I would love the F2 skill to be replaced while CA with a unique F2 which could even be the same for all pets to not make things over complicated, but I don't want to be greedy).

Soulbeast - Merged revive - Soulbesat have access to one pet only, merging with the pet will revive it in case of pet death.

Awesome suggestions! Soulbeast can probably still be as they are. But the idea of giving core ranger a revive skill on high CD and giving the Druid pets some special buff while in CA, now that's cool (especially if they will get the same celestial infusion as the player themselves)! I think it would not only give core ranger a new niche, but in the case of the Druid actually bring forth a synergy between their mechanic and their pets which has been absent since launch, this would def solve it in my eyes, and make the stat reduction a bit better to swallow.

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@Lazze.9870 said:

@DanAlcedo.3281 said:This alone would make druide viable in WvW.

Still unwanted. Just like stance share soulbeast is viable, but not wanted.

Besides, other than nerfing Ancestral Grace, they're not gonna touch the staff. They're happy with how extremely boring it is.

Its not wanted because both druid and soulbeast habe terrible weapon choices.

If Soulbeast had Rev Hammer it would see alot of play.

Stances are amazing but without a good weapon....

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@DanAlcedo.3281 said:

@DanAlcedo.3281 said:This alone would make druide viable in WvW.

Still unwanted. Just like stance share soulbeast is viable, but not wanted.

Besides, other than nerfing Ancestral Grace, they're not gonna touch the staff. They're happy with how extremely boring it is.

Its not wanted because both druid and soulbeast habe terrible weapon choices.

If Soulbeast had Rev Hammer it would see alot of play.

Stances are amazing but without a good weapon....

Well, the meta being rev hammers and necro spam isn't exactly fun to begin with.

The weapons, while not optimal, aren't terrible. They're terrible in the current meta.

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to be honst druid was never fun ... ranger was fun but when all the other class got all sort of new amazing mechanisams and skiils ( idont talk about power just pure joy) , and even it is the same problom with soul beast ranger is in adeep problome and idont want to imagine what will happend in the next expantion

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@ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:IMO, druid is not suppose to be tanky and doing damage at the same time.. it's either tanky hard to get killed or squishy but does nasty pew pew

Druid is neither of those lel

At this stage it's a pocket healer on most scenarios.

A Druid whose taken damage oriented traits has always been capable of doing a lot of damage, not as much as a full damage core ranger or Soulbeast since it sacrifices a 3rd damage traitline for support/utility, but still a lot of damage.

It’s kinda the whole reason why people ran DPS Druids in PvE, and why Anet nerfed the base healing of Druid and buffed coefficients, because it was very common with little tradeoff.

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It's really just time for an entire overhaul of Druid. The spec lacked an identity when it was introduced (Core was a sustainable 1v1er, Druid was a sustainable 1v1er - PvP standpoint), and has been repeatedly nerfed because of how it performed at the role to the point where no matter how many numbers changes it gets to half-implemented role concepts, it's nowhere the scope or weight of change to make Druid desirable over other Ranger specs and other classes (outside of Raids).

There's a million of these that have a million good ideas so I'm just going to add to the pool here; Druid rework:

Staff

  1. Guardian treatment: replace this with the current 2 skill. New auto casts at the rate of Necro staff auto, sending an orb that passes through allies and healing them before attaching to the target for a brief time and healing allies that contact the orb. Total animation for Necro staff and therefore this attack is a hair longer than 1.25 seconds, so orb should persist on the target for 1 second. Alter damage/healing to compensate. This attack can be cast without a target; doing so will leave it unable to attach to enemies it contacts.
  2. New skill. "Steal" the Rev offhand sword 4 animation. This skill heals the player and allies in a wave, while damaging and weakening enemies. 5 total hits/heals, maybe ~200 damage and healing per @ 0.5 coefficient healing and adjust from there.
  3. The current iteration is actually fine. Maybe add a smaller area healing component to the travel path to heal allies you pass through and/or a blind to the end of the skill.
  4. New skill. 1200 ranged cast AoE, 240 radius. Immobilize enemies on initial cast, then pulses respectable damage and bleeds/cripple. Pulses grant allies in the AoE 1s of Resistance per pulse.
  5. In addition to its current functionality - allies passing through it are healed a small amount and gain regeneration (2-4s range) (Make this work like Mesmer focus 4). Enemies passing through it are damaged slightly and chilled.

Celestial FormNormalized the cooldown to 15 seconds across all gamemodes.

  1. Reworked to mimic Firebrand tome 1 skills. Start with healing @ 300 base with 0.5 scale coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  2. New skill/functionality. Applies a unique "Seed of Life" effect, lasts for 2 seconds, 240 AoE radius, 1200 range. 2 second cooldown. On initial cast, does nothing. When the effect ends, heal and remove 2 conditions. Taking damage ends the effect, receiving the effect from another source ends the current effect and replaces it with the new. If it is prematurely ended in either way, the conditions removed and healing received are halved. Start with healing @ 1200 base with 0.4 coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  3. This skill is fine as is.
  4. In addition to the current effect, each pulse also provides 1s protection per pulse.
  5. This skill can now be cast while moving. The stability is now applied per pulse, and as an AoE effect.

Glyphs

  1. Glyph of Rejuvenation - this skill is probably okay now but may need more number tweaks.
  2. Glyph of the Tides - reverse the current Normal and Celestial form effects so that it pulls normally, pushes in Celestial Form.
  3. Glyph of Equality - Normal: added effect - breaking a stun with this skill causes the skill to stun instead of daze. Celestial: Fine as is.
  4. Glyph of Unity - Normal: Added effect - Gain Protection on cast for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered enemy. Celestial: Added effect - gain regeneration for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered ally.
  5. Glyph of Alignment - Normal: New effect - Deal damage in an area, immobilizing enemies and copying 3 conditions from yourself to enemies hit by the attack. Celestial: Fine as is.
  6. Glyph of the Stars - Both versions: Remove ranged component. The player now channels this skill. Reduced the channel duration to 5 seconds. Condense the effect into that time frame. Normal : Fine as is. Celestial: added effect - Astral Force drains 50% slower while channeling this skill.

Traits

  • Staff proficiency and Celestial Being fine as is
  • Druidic Clarity: Removed the stunbreak component. Changed the effect to be "Entering Celestial Form removes 3 conditions."
  • Cultivated Synergy: Fine as is.
  • Primal Echoes: Swapping weapons casts Lesser Glyph of Equality - the Normal version of the glyph with no stunbreak component. Reduces the recharge of Staff skills.
  • Live Vicariously: Fine as is.
  • Celestial Shadow: Replaced with Celestial Shephard (or whatever name): Entering Celestial Form provides 3 stacks of Stability for 5 seconds, 240 effect radius.
  • Verdant Etching: Fine as is - it casts the new form of the skill explained above on Glyph use.
  • Natural Stride: Fine as is.
  • Natural Mender: Reduce stacks to 5, increase outgoing healing percentage to 4%. Added effect - reduce damage received by 1% (per stack).
  • Grace of the Land: Fine as is.
  • Lingering Light: Outgoing healing is increased by 20% and Astral Force drains 20% slower in Celestial Form. Swap the trait position with Grace of the Land (this is a minor OCD type thing - doing this will make top row enter/celestial form effects, middle row skill modifying effects, and bottom row conditional/combat effects).
  • Ancient Seeds: Replaced with Ancient Magic: Enemies you or your pet inflict with movement impairing conditions are also inflicted with Weakness (short duration, ~2 seconds, no ICD, adjust from there).

Essentially, give Druid the ability to group support on a level that compares with the other supports in the game while reducing any emphasis it may have had on dueling/pushing kills.

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After today's Twilight Oasis, time to say goodbye to Druid I mained for years. Can't do anything anymore, a FB took the healing and everything went smooth like a knife through butter. Not that I don't know how to play it but Anet basically killed the specialization in favor of promoting PoF healers. Well done.

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@BadSanta.6527 said:To be honest, Druid was never fun. Ranger was fun but when all the other class got all sort of new amazing mechanisms and skills (I don't talk about power just pure joy). Now it's the same problem with soul beast ranger. It's a deep problem now and I don't want to imagine what will happen in the next expansion. /fixt

Druid was a blast in PvP. Stealth stomps, rezzes, tanking a point vs 4 and pulling off some amazing CC and Heals.I could go far, consistently take the point and kill the Lord.

Other classes and what they had at the time...Reaperwhatever ele had mehDragon HunterScrapperMonkey ThiefChronoWhatever warrior had (Angry Rampage)

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@EgyptRaider.3946

Druid was always a hybrid play style of sorts and it's no different now.

I still have a lot of fun on Druid. But I realize it's been nerfed many times (dmg, heals, pet etc)

But I still have fun supporting the team at mid, stalling points and interupting stomps with cc, stealth and dmg.But, I am not playing a full support healing Druid. If you are trying to do that, you will have less fun and success.

I don't always use it either. If the team has enough support, well--I'll use another of my Rangers for dmg.I don't expect it to excel at every matchup and that's why I swap classes before games start.

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@"jcbroe.4329" said:It's really just time for an entire overhaul of Druid. The spec lacked an identity when it was introduced (Core was a sustainable 1v1er, Druid was a sustainable 1v1er - PvP standpoint), and has been repeatedly nerfed because of how it performed at the role to the point where no matter how many numbers changes it gets to half-implemented role concepts, it's nowhere the scope or weight of change to make Druid desirable over other Ranger specs and other classes (outside of Raids).

There's a million of these that have a million good ideas so I'm just going to add to the pool here; Druid rework:

Staff

  1. Guardian treatment: replace this with the current 2 skill. New auto casts at the rate of Necro staff auto, sending an orb that passes through allies and healing them before attaching to the target for a brief time and healing allies that contact the orb. Total animation for Necro staff and therefore this attack is a hair longer than 1.25 seconds, so orb should persist on the target for 1 second. Alter damage/healing to compensate. This attack can be cast without a target; doing so will leave it unable to attach to enemies it contacts.
  2. New skill. "Steal" the Rev offhand sword 4 animation. This skill heals the player and allies in a wave, while damaging and weakening enemies. 5 total hits/heals, maybe ~200 damage and healing per @ 0.5 coefficient healing and adjust from there.
  3. The current iteration is actually fine. Maybe add a smaller area healing component to the travel path to heal allies you pass through and/or a blind to the end of the skill.
  4. New skill. 1200 ranged cast AoE, 240 radius. Immobilize enemies on initial cast, then pulses respectable damage and bleeds/cripple. Pulses grant allies in the AoE 1s of Resistance per pulse.
  5. In addition to its current functionality - allies passing through it are healed a small amount and gain regeneration (2-4s range) (Make this work like Mesmer focus 4). Enemies passing through it are damaged slightly and chilled.

Celestial FormNormalized the cooldown to 15 seconds across all gamemodes.

  1. Reworked to mimic Firebrand tome 1 skills. Start with healing @ 300 base with 0.5 scale coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  2. New skill/functionality. Applies a unique "Seed of Life" effect, lasts for 2 seconds, 240 AoE radius, 1200 range. 2 second cooldown. On initial cast, does nothing. When the effect ends, heal and remove 2 conditions. Taking damage ends the effect, receiving the effect from another source ends the current effect and replaces it with the new. If it is prematurely ended in either way, the conditions removed and healing received are halved. Start with healing @ 1200 base with 0.4 coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  3. This skill is fine as is.
  4. In addition to the current effect, each pulse also provides 1s protection per pulse.
  5. This skill can now be cast while moving. The stability is now applied per pulse, and as an AoE effect.

Glyphs

  1. Glyph of Rejuvenation - this skill is probably okay now but may need more number tweaks.
  2. Glyph of the Tides - reverse the current Normal and Celestial form effects so that it pulls normally, pushes in Celestial Form.
  3. Glyph of Equality - Normal: added effect - breaking a stun with this skill causes the skill to stun instead of daze. Celestial: Fine as is.
  4. Glyph of Unity - Normal: Added effect - Gain Protection on cast for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered enemy. Celestial: Added effect - gain regeneration for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered ally.
  5. Glyph of Alignment - Normal: New effect - Deal damage in an area, immobilizing enemies and copying 3 conditions from yourself to enemies hit by the attack. Celestial: Fine as is.
  6. Glyph of the Stars - Both versions: Remove ranged component. The player now channels this skill. Reduced the channel duration to 5 seconds. Condense the effect into that time frame. Normal : Fine as is. Celestial: added effect - Astral Force drains 50% slower while channeling this skill.

Traits

  • Staff proficiency and Celestial Being fine as is
  • Druidic Clarity: Removed the stunbreak component. Changed the effect to be "Entering Celestial Form removes 3 conditions."
  • Cultivated Synergy: Fine as is.
  • Primal Echoes: Swapping weapons casts Lesser Glyph of Equality - the Normal version of the glyph with no stunbreak component. Reduces the recharge of Staff skills.
  • Live Vicariously: Fine as is.
  • Celestial Shadow: Replaced with Celestial Shephard (or whatever name): Entering Celestial Form provides 3 stacks of Stability for 5 seconds, 240 effect radius.
  • Verdant Etching: Fine as is - it casts the new form of the skill explained above on Glyph use.
  • Natural Stride: Fine as is.
  • Natural Mender: Reduce stacks to 5, increase outgoing healing percentage to 4%. Added effect - reduce damage received by 1% (per stack).
  • Grace of the Land: Fine as is.
  • Lingering Light: Outgoing healing is increased by 20% and Astral Force drains 20% slower in Celestial Form. Swap the trait position with Grace of the Land (this is a minor OCD type thing - doing this will make top row enter/celestial form effects, middle row skill modifying effects, and bottom row conditional/combat effects).
  • Ancient Seeds: Replaced with Ancient Magic: Enemies you or your pet inflict with movement impairing conditions are also inflicted with Weakness (short duration, ~2 seconds, no ICD, adjust from there).

Essentially, give Druid the ability to group support on a level that compares with the other supports in the game while reducing any emphasis it may have had on dueling/pushing kills.

WoW @"jcbroe.4329" , You put a lot of thought into this. This is probably one of the best full druid overall I have seen. Very delicate approach, the staff trait change for example is so logical, I have no idea how they haven't implanted that yet. Only issue i have is that still druid will not have any option to build offensively , you added some effects rangers have access to from different sources like more protraction, more weakness etc... Glyphs will still be hard to use due to cast time so I don't think your improvements will be enough to make them viable in pvp/wvw. I think the only way to make offensive druid balanced and usable is to give it some/more synergy with ranger offensive trait lines(mostly MM and Skirmishing) . Getting druid off WS and NM with your suggestions to DC and CS will make them squishy enough to justify some offensive capabilities. The most obvious option is something to do with "daze" element of the druid. It could be either implemented directly to the druid traitline or the offensive traitlines themselves or/and to the staff weapon skills(I hope your version of staff 2 should do nice damage). I also think the glyhps in CA mode need something special. CA is a special mode, you need some reason to save the glyphs CD for while you are in CA. One Idea I had is that each glyph should empower one CA ability. For example glyph of tides was made this way for a reason. Devs imagined players using it while in CA + CA 5. But this was back in the days zerk rangers could benefit from druid healing powers and CA did fair damage. With current state of the game players don't even bother to get away from CA 5. So what if for example glyph of tides will stay the same but while in CA will empower the CA 5 by 100% for the next 5 sec. Each glyph will some effect to empower one CA skill(only the elite will not have this effect). Also some traits you have not touched could use a second review if you ask me. Also something to help with pet survivability to compensate for the stats nerf. I suggested to give pets damage immunity while in CA form.

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@EnderzShadow.2506 said:Other classes and what they had at the time...Reaperwhatever ele had mehDragon HunterScrapperMonkey ThiefChronoWhatever warrior had (Angry Rampage)

Ele had tempest, which was main support class. So Druid allways had another class that was better at supporting, yet Anet tries to make Druid still a support class (see last patch). It makes no sense.

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@HeadCrowned.6834 said:

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:Other classes and what they had at the time...Reaperwhatever ele had mehDragon HunterScrapperMonkey ThiefChronoWhatever warrior had (Angry Rampage)

Ele had tempest, which was main support class. So Druid allways had another class that was better at supporting, yet Anet tries to make Druid still a support class (see last patch). It makes no sense.

Oh, I agree....or rather I don't. Are we talking the Nerfed Druid or the Druid whereby I could tank against 4 people and knock them around and heal my teammates, get away from the fight. Druids early on were absolutely amazing and very strong.

I was referring to the Op's statement that Druids weren't fun.And I never found any of the other classes as fun.I still find druid fun.

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@LughLongArm.5460 said:

@"jcbroe.4329" said:It's really just time for an entire overhaul of Druid. The spec lacked an identity when it was introduced (Core was a sustainable 1v1er, Druid was a sustainable 1v1er - PvP standpoint), and has been repeatedly nerfed because of how it performed at the role to the point where no matter how many numbers changes it gets to half-implemented role concepts, it's nowhere the scope or weight of change to make Druid desirable over other Ranger specs and other classes (outside of Raids).

There's a million of these that have a million good ideas so I'm just going to add to the pool here; Druid rework:

Staff
  1. Guardian treatment: replace this with the current 2 skill. New auto casts at the rate of Necro staff auto, sending an orb that passes through allies and healing them before attaching to the target for a brief time and healing allies that contact the orb. Total animation for Necro staff and therefore this attack is a hair longer than 1.25 seconds, so orb should persist on the target for 1 second. Alter damage/healing to compensate. This attack can be cast without a target; doing so will leave it unable to attach to enemies it contacts.
  2. New skill. "Steal" the Rev offhand sword 4 animation. This skill heals the player and allies in a wave, while damaging and weakening enemies. 5 total hits/heals, maybe ~200 damage and healing per @ 0.5 coefficient healing and adjust from there.
  3. The current iteration is actually fine. Maybe add a smaller area healing component to the travel path to heal allies you pass through and/or a blind to the end of the skill.
  4. New skill. 1200 ranged cast AoE, 240 radius. Immobilize enemies on initial cast, then pulses respectable damage and bleeds/cripple. Pulses grant allies in the AoE 1s of Resistance per pulse.
  5. In addition to its current functionality - allies passing through it are healed a small amount and gain regeneration (2-4s range) (Make this work like Mesmer focus 4). Enemies passing through it are damaged slightly and chilled.

Celestial Form
Normalized the cooldown to 15 seconds across all gamemodes.
  1. Reworked to mimic Firebrand tome 1 skills. Start with healing @ 300 base with 0.5 scale coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  2. New skill/functionality. Applies a unique "Seed of Life" effect, lasts for 2 seconds, 240 AoE radius, 1200 range. 2 second cooldown. On initial cast, does nothing. When the effect ends, heal and remove 2 conditions. Taking damage ends the effect, receiving the effect from another source ends the current effect and replaces it with the new. If it is prematurely ended in either way, the conditions removed and healing received are halved. Start with healing @ 1200 base with 0.4 coefficient, adjust accordingly.
  3. This skill is fine as is.
  4. In addition to the current effect, each pulse also provides 1s protection per pulse.
  5. This skill can now be cast while moving. The stability is now applied per pulse, and as an AoE effect.

Glyphs
  1. Glyph of Rejuvenation - this skill is probably okay now but may need more number tweaks.
  2. Glyph of the Tides - reverse the current Normal and Celestial form effects so that it pulls normally, pushes in Celestial Form.
  3. Glyph of Equality - Normal: added effect - breaking a stun with this skill causes the skill to stun instead of daze. Celestial: Fine as is.
  4. Glyph of Unity - Normal: Added effect - Gain Protection on cast for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered enemy. Celestial: Added effect - gain regeneration for 4 seconds plus 1 additional second for each tethered ally.
  5. Glyph of Alignment - Normal: New effect - Deal damage in an area, immobilizing enemies and copying 3 conditions from yourself to enemies hit by the attack. Celestial: Fine as is.
  6. Glyph of the Stars - Both versions: Remove ranged component. The player now channels this skill. Reduced the channel duration to 5 seconds. Condense the effect into that time frame. Normal : Fine as is. Celestial: added effect - Astral Force drains 50% slower while channeling this skill.

Traits
  • Staff proficiency and Celestial Being fine as is
  • Druidic Clarity: Removed the stunbreak component. Changed the effect to be "Entering Celestial Form removes 3 conditions."
  • Cultivated Synergy: Fine as is.
  • Primal Echoes: Swapping weapons casts Lesser Glyph of Equality - the Normal version of the glyph with no stunbreak component. Reduces the recharge of Staff skills.
  • Live Vicariously: Fine as is.
  • Celestial Shadow: Replaced with Celestial Shephard (or whatever name): Entering Celestial Form provides 3 stacks of Stability for 5 seconds, 240 effect radius.
  • Verdant Etching: Fine as is - it casts the new form of the skill explained above on Glyph use.
  • Natural Stride: Fine as is.
  • Natural Mender: Reduce stacks to 5, increase outgoing healing percentage to 4%. Added effect - reduce damage received by 1% (per stack).
  • Grace of the Land: Fine as is.
  • Lingering Light: Outgoing healing is increased by 20% and Astral Force drains 20% slower in Celestial Form. Swap the trait position with Grace of the Land (this is a minor OCD type thing - doing this will make top row enter/celestial form effects, middle row skill modifying effects, and bottom row conditional/combat effects).
  • Ancient Seeds: Replaced with Ancient Magic: Enemies you or your pet inflict with movement impairing conditions are also inflicted with Weakness (short duration, ~2 seconds, no ICD, adjust from there).

Essentially, give Druid the ability to group support on a level that compares with the other supports in the game while reducing any emphasis it may have had on dueling/pushing kills.

WoW @"jcbroe.4329" , You put a lot of thought into this. This is probably one of the best full druid overall I have seen. Very delicate approach, the staff trait change for example is so logical, I have no idea how they haven't implanted that yet. Only issue i have is that still druid will not have any option to build offensively , you added some effects rangers have access to from different sources like more protraction, more weakness etc... Glyphs will still be hard to use due to cast time so I don't think your improvements will be enough to make them viable in pvp/wvw. I think the only way to make offensive druid balanced and usable is to give it some/more synergy with ranger offensive trait lines(mostly MM and Skirmishing) . Getting druid off WS and NM with your suggestions to DC and CS will make them squishy enough to justify some offensive capabilities. The most obvious option is something to do with "daze" element of the druid. It could be either implemented directly to the druid traitline or the offensive traitlines themselves or/and to the staff weapon skills(I hope your version of staff 2 should do nice damage). I also think the glyhps in CA mode need something special. CA is a special mode, you need some reason to save the glyphs CD for while you are in CA. One Idea I had is that each glyph should empower one CA ability. For example glyph of tides was made this way for a reason. Devs imagined players using it while in CA + CA 5. But this was back in the days zerk rangers could benefit from druid healing powers and CA did fair damage. With current state of the game players don't even bother to get away from CA 5. So what if for example glyph of tides will stay the same but while in CA will empower the CA 5 by 100% for the next 5 sec. Each glyph will some effect to empower one CA skill(only the elite will not have this effect). Also some traits you have not touched could use a second review if you ask me. Also something to help with pet survivability to compensate for the stats nerf. I suggested to give pets damage immunity while in CA form.

I just want to say before I start textwalling that I like your ideas a lot.

Also that I was only trying to introduce a theme/direction - not a manual or "necessary" list of "absolutes", but a nudge in....well, any direction but the lack of one the spec currently has.

Most importantly, from my own hands on gameplay and experience over the years, what I really want is for Druid to be PvP/WvW support tier viable. Not collateral healer, smallscale duelist with healing, or etc, but peak Tempest, current Firebrand level support. To do that, it needs the tools to compete with the support that other classes bring, the tools to "zerg", and the AoE to CC, damage utility, tag, cleave, etc.

Druid is just so miserable to play right now because it's eaten SO MANY nerfs because it could win duels. After playing almost exclusively WvW support Firebrand (when I'm not PvPing) for the last almost 2 years, AND playing Soulbeast/Core in PvP throughout that time, Druid needs to give up being this weird, nonfunctional hybrid spot between the 2 and either go one way or the other.

All of that said, moving away from Druid for just a second, Core traitlines/skills need in some cases just as much work to update their functionality and viability too. Marksmanship and Skirmishing are as much a culprit as why people don't run them as elite specs are - the first 2 columns and the minor traits of both traitlines are actual garbage compared to almost every other trait selection in the game, and on top of that, people are going to gravitate towards picking the specializations that affect the cooldowns of their skills/utilities.

Ignoring the outliers, here is the "awful utilities" list:

  • Traps
  • Signets
  • Spirits (for PvP/WvW)
  • Glyphs
  • Stances

Here's the outliers list:

  • Signet of Stone
  • Dolyak Stance

Here's the usable skills list:

  • Shouts
  • Survival

See every "meta" PvP/WvW build since the removal of moving spirits as a reference for how this has affected build diversity.

So obviously I don't care too much about "arguing" what "needs" to happen with Druid; I'll take anything. I just desperately, desperately want some new (viable/optimal) way to play the class that isn't Shouts/Survival + cooldown traitline(s) +- outlier skill +- elite spec playing as a duel, +1 damage, roamer. And Druid has everything it needs to be a fantastic addition to the "support class" roster except for an effective design/implementation/balance team/initiative.

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@EnderzShadow.2506 said:Oh, I agree....or rather I don't. Are we talking the Nerfed Druid or the Druid whereby I could tank against 4 people and knock them around and heal my teammates, get away from the fight. Druids early on were absolutely amazing and very strong.

I was referring to the Op's statement that Druids weren't fun.And I never found any of the other classes as fun.I still find druid fun.

I don't disagree with that, as I still play druid as well. Yet, Druid has never been a real support class, it was a duelist. Anets intention to push Druid towards a support role is not a good decision if they do it in the way theyre currently doing. This is a reason that Druid is now not a duelist nor a support class, which is why I can imagine that many people find it boring.

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