I have to say I love these overviews and discussions of specific specs. I’m having fun with the trait changes, since I love the magic feel of Druid. That said a lot of DPS Druid specs revolve around axe and short bow which I’m not a fan of. Kind of wish we could have traits that would make different weapons more viable in different builds.
Lingering Light is a PvP trait to me. Druid has the biggest heal output of the healers, you really don't need any more for PvE content. Alac output is insane right now, I thought it was kind of fine before the buff (with plenty of conc obviously), now I feel like I am capping alac on both groups in a single CA. Druid to me is the strongest healer atm, your toolkit can solve ANY situation. The only thing I would MAYBE ask for is not needing a boon pet to meet the uptimes (talking about might/protection). I want to run SnR (because it's amazing), a glyph specific to the encounter (condi cleanse, push, stabi) and a spirit. If I run Sun, I run short on Protection, if I run Stone (what I do), Might can get iffy, hence I rely on a boon pet (stalker) (that's all without running the petswap traits). I'd prefer to have both pets for situational purpose (like Aegis + condi cleanse or an extra heal + CC, or any combination) instead of a necessity for uptime. I'd rather have them not touch druid at all though, I feel like it can only be a nerf next. I don't think they should move Eclipse to first row either, it clearly is a Grandmaster trait, it is way too powerful. Not all the druid traits are designed for heal druid, that's obvious (and it's the same for every elite spec).
You can actually give the CA skills condi damage components, but only by taking a specific druid trait. The trick to the build is that you stack a good amount of bleed to begin with and compound it further by using Blood Moon to turn all the great disables and immobilizes Druid has into bleed tools.
Just to clarify, "Natural Balance" triggers when you *enter* *_and_* *leave* celestial avatar. This is stated on the tooltip too, but you only mentioned it getting triggered on entering CA. However, it's not stacking, it'll reset the timer on leaving CA. Still, 10 seconds of better condi damage with your normal weapons and utility skills is pretty good and definitely worth mentioning. ;)
Gotta disagree with you about the condi druid discussion. For sustained DPS it has the highest DPS of all the Ranger builds at the moment. Plus it uses ranged skills where as condi SB requires melee weapon.
I thought anet wanted to move away from the whole 'spam utility skills or just skills in general regardless of there additional function' type of gameplay? Cause spamming CA off cooldown and using that big cc on skill 5 regardless if needed for cc and using skills 1-4 when sure it gives alacrity but these skills have burst healing purposes and condi cleanse it kinda reminds me of that whole herald incident.
Haven't played Druid enough to contribute too much, but I can say that the first time I tried it and I saw the range of the glyphs, I cranked my head. Like, why create and Elite Spec with a 1200 range weapon and force you to go into melee range to use it's associated utility skills? It made no sense to me. Similar to my thoughts on Specter. Create a 900 range healer with a Scepter, and then with EVERY new utility skill it forces you to shadowstep into a crowd of enemies in order to make any impact. I feel like it should have been a 2 step concept. Create a well at desired location. Then you have 3 seconds to shadowstep to the well and maybe do a combo finisher or something. Or in reverse: Shadowstep to a location to plant to well, then you have 3 seconds to return to your original position. Why keep creating healing classes that force you into melee range? It makes no sense.
limits usability of skill 1 in CA when playing by yourself? when was that skill ever used? :D they didn't do anything but enhance radius which is a buff. how do you find a flaw where there is none? :D
For a potential damage variant that they wanted to develop. Bringing more to CA in choice of Damage vs Healing might be good. It’s not about finding a flaw, but thinking of a difference in possibility. :D
Could you show us your camera and combat settings? I have the impression that the game looks better in your videos than in others with a camera so far away
I typically just scroll middle mouse button to zoom in. I keep it kind of close also, but i think others zoom out and do more isometric for visibility maybe.
Yeah, I think I have quite similar thoughts about the druid. - Damage variation needs a GM trait that completely changes the CA skills into damage oriented ones, make it more "blood moon" styled or smth - Druid (and support-focused espec in general) should have a certain direction, whether they're going to be a ranged or melee supports. If the devs decided that druid is a ranged support then in my opinion all the supporting abilities (or most of them) should be ranged too (including glyphs). - Astral force generation is kinda awkward and bc of that your alac application heavily depends on how much damage your allies receive. Druid's astral force is generated very inconsitently in comparison to similar spec/class mechanics, like necro's life force that is generated mostly with weapon skills or utilities or specter's shadow force which is generated by spending initiative. - I personally hate traits like "swap a weapon to do x" or "swap a pet to do x" or even "use your pet's ability to do x" and ranger has so many of them packed into their kit. At this point I'd honestly prefer to completely remove pets from druid and put additional support abilities in its place... It's just annoying that my pet exists solely to just provide passive effects from my traits instead of being an actual, fun mechanic.
And to add to that ranger pets are slow in comaparison to necro summons and mechanist golem. In PVE whenever you dismount using bond of faith the pet spawns at the pt of dismount and not the pt of landing. I am very surprised the devs doesnt see that because that i havent observe that from mechanist or necro either.
I think that in games like these, we should be doing one thing or the other. Either we heal, or we DPS. The whole point of a teamplay is to NOT have everyone doing everything. Why else would we have instant access to multiple templates, if not to swap our roles? if I want to DPS I will simply go Soulbeast or Untamed. There is no need for the druid (or any healer for that matter) to also have to worry about doing damage. I loved my druid healer the way she was before the spiritnerf patch. Now, with my slightly disabled hands, the druid healer requires way too many keypresses in rapid succession and I had no choice but to abandon the druid healing alltogether. Instead I now use Firebrand but I miss my druid so much... It is my solid opinion that the nerfing of placable spirits that stayed up for a little bit, allowing me to spend more time on the AWSD movement keys and selected staff-heals, was a horribly bad idea by Anet. Most bossfights now, are all about stacking up in a big ball of players where you cant see a damn thing while constantly moving out of massive AOE attacks that often will instantly kill us no matter the healing available. This has in my opinion reduced the game to a hack-n-slash where ranged gameplay (in all forms, including DPS) and focus on placable and target abilities has been so simplified that its stupid but yet incredibly stressful because we have to smash keys 1 - 0 more often then ever. I am not sure how much they have ruined other classes, but for me, the druid is no longer a viable option because of the constant keymashing and petswaping. This has taken all the fun out of the druid gameplay. Give me back my functional nature spirits so I can focus on moving around the field and place my spirits where and when they are needed without neccesarily having to be in a small ball of endless sidestepping GPU particles. Some people will tell me that getting an MMO mouse or whatnot would help and I say to that: No. just No... That's an extra expense that should not be needed and it still would not help with the fast paced repeated keypressing, only move it to the thumb that is holding the mouse, making mousemovements irrational and jerky instead. I tried an MMO mouse and didnt like it at all. //52 year old gamer with carporal tunnel syndrome
Damage build is good but not something new that much you still use Short bow/awx etc... and then go to CA using fewer skill then exist. So what the point of it it this different with Soulbeast? Nope it act like turn Durid to kind of soulbeast thing.
Honestly I didn't liked some of the new updates...how they expect to heal on demand and give massive CC on demand properly if alac is now tied to CA..., works for open world maybe but for instanced? Doesn't seem very efficient. I was enjoying to play druid in raids throughtly, I learned raids playing Druid, I loved the class but honestly I think now i will keep playing QHFB or learn other class that can heal and give alac wihtout compromising one or the other, maybe I will try the new solution that Mukluk gave for this druid inneficiency as it is now, might work. Nice video.
why would you heal from range? especially because CA skill 4 is rather close range you need to be grouped up. and in content such as raid, etc. aren't you stacked on your group anyway?
I don't see the druid acceptable in group content , specially fractals , specially after the patch they change how the druid spirts is in-effective , players always ask to be a condi alac druid than druid healer.
The druid feels extremely awful to play as a healer at the moment. With the alacrity being tied to CA, there is literally no consistent and reliable way to reactively heal the group - because I have to give 100% alacrity uptime, be it a fractal, a strike, a raid or DE meta. It is extremely disappointing and a couple of steps backwards from where healing druid was before the update. Our static has decided to ditch the healing druid completely in favor of ham and specter. Yeah, even on SH.
In all fairness, druid is consistent in or out of CA to give heals... So plan your bursts. You can spam skill 1,2 and 5 on CA to give alac fairly easily and save skill 3 and 4 during pressure. Use glyph of starts when the 'ph shit' moment happens Pet skill heals + if you're taking warhorn trait. Applying Regen heals aswell Out of CA combo heal trap with blasts and leap finishers for burst heal. In which sword warhorn has 3
@@lukebajada7751 You NEED CA 4 on CD just for might uptime. Still, it is a joke to stack 30 secs of alac on current druid - giving you plenty of wiggle room on when exactly you go for CA heals. In other words: You can easily use CA once every 30s in ANY encounter without missing any of the "i need big heal" situations, since CA only is on a 10s cooldown. You just need to know the fight A LITTLE BIT to know the crucial moments. The healtrap is pretty bad outside of condi cleanse, the regen does nothing since you overstack it as druid anyways. Sword does nothing whenever you're on range to do a mechanic and is super clunky compared to axe in general (yea druid just doesn't have a good heal mainhand really) and having WH5 ready for a blast finisher is super unlikely since you use it on CD for uptime and it's on a 24s CD - it really is A LOT more likely to have CA ready than WH5. Waterspirit for vigor or even Glyph for the Gigachad 10k groupheal (with cultivated synergy) (DESTROYING the Greens on VG in a single cast feels so good) are the go to.
I will agree that it would be nice if one of the glyphs gave alacrity straight up, to help pad out that need of being in CA. But, I’ve felt with the recent changes in Alac duration it isn’t all too bad. I’d argue specter is in the same spot with a higher difficulty curve of needing to have proper Siphon targeting.
Might I add..... Having both guard command and protection gives 66% damage reduction. With the grandmaster trait protective bong and guard, you're literally minimizing 66% of damage for 10 seconds which is op.... Very OP.
With 1 CA you can easily reach the 30sec cap of Alac. With the cd of 10 sec you have 20 sec to do what you want. That is more than enough time for all mechanics etc.
Kroof has the BEST reviews of GW2... The game right now for me is like: "It's there and... it's an option...."
I have to say I love these overviews and discussions of specific specs.
I’m having fun with the trait changes, since I love the magic feel of Druid. That said a lot of DPS Druid specs revolve around axe and short bow which I’m not a fan of. Kind of wish we could have traits that would make different weapons more viable in different builds.
Axe and Shortbow are such staples. Thankfully dagger will be added to that list of condi weapons to choose from!
This! At least they should have trait to change Staff into condi damage build
Love my specter jumpy boy :). Thinking about trying druid next.
Lingering Light is a PvP trait to me. Druid has the biggest heal output of the healers, you really don't need any more for PvE content. Alac output is insane right now, I thought it was kind of fine before the buff (with plenty of conc obviously), now I feel like I am capping alac on both groups in a single CA. Druid to me is the strongest healer atm, your toolkit can solve ANY situation. The only thing I would MAYBE ask for is not needing a boon pet to meet the uptimes (talking about might/protection). I want to run SnR (because it's amazing), a glyph specific to the encounter (condi cleanse, push, stabi) and a spirit. If I run Sun, I run short on Protection, if I run Stone (what I do), Might can get iffy, hence I rely on a boon pet (stalker) (that's all without running the petswap traits). I'd prefer to have both pets for situational purpose (like Aegis + condi cleanse or an extra heal + CC, or any combination) instead of a necessity for uptime. I'd rather have them not touch druid at all though, I feel like it can only be a nerf next. I don't think they should move Eclipse to first row either, it clearly is a Grandmaster trait, it is way too powerful. Not all the druid traits are designed for heal druid, that's obvious (and it's the same for every elite spec).
You can actually give the CA skills condi damage components, but only by taking a specific druid trait. The trick to the build is that you stack a good amount of bleed to begin with and compound it further by using Blood Moon to turn all the great disables and immobilizes Druid has into bleed tools.
I know, but I don’t necessarily love that direction of stun-to-kill playstyle.
Just to clarify, "Natural Balance" triggers when you *enter* *_and_* *leave* celestial avatar. This is stated on the tooltip too, but you only mentioned it getting triggered on entering CA.
However, it's not stacking, it'll reset the timer on leaving CA.
Still, 10 seconds of better condi damage with your normal weapons and utility skills is pretty good and definitely worth mentioning. ;)
Gotta disagree with you about the condi druid discussion. For sustained DPS it has the highest DPS of all the Ranger builds at the moment. Plus it uses ranged skills where as condi SB requires melee weapon.
I thought anet wanted to move away from the whole 'spam utility skills or just skills in general regardless of there additional function' type of gameplay? Cause spamming CA off cooldown and using that big cc on skill 5 regardless if needed for cc and using skills 1-4 when sure it gives alacrity but these skills have burst healing purposes and condi cleanse it kinda reminds me of that whole herald incident.
Haven't played Druid enough to contribute too much, but I can say that the first time I tried it and I saw the range of the glyphs, I cranked my head. Like, why create and Elite Spec with a 1200 range weapon and force you to go into melee range to use it's associated utility skills? It made no sense to me.
Similar to my thoughts on Specter. Create a 900 range healer with a Scepter, and then with EVERY new utility skill it forces you to shadowstep into a crowd of enemies in order to make any impact. I feel like it should have been a 2 step concept. Create a well at desired location. Then you have 3 seconds to shadowstep to the well and maybe do a combo finisher or something. Or in reverse: Shadowstep to a location to plant to well, then you have 3 seconds to return to your original position.
Why keep creating healing classes that force you into melee range? It makes no sense.
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limits usability of skill 1 in CA when playing by yourself? when was that skill ever used? :D they didn't do anything but enhance radius which is a buff. how do you find a flaw where there is none? :D
For a potential damage variant that they wanted to develop. Bringing more to CA in choice of Damage vs Healing might be good. It’s not about finding a flaw, but thinking of a difference in possibility. :D
Could you show us your camera and combat settings? I have the impression that the game looks better in your videos than in others with a camera so far away
I typically just scroll middle mouse button to zoom in. I keep it kind of close also, but i think others zoom out and do more isometric for visibility maybe.
You have some kind of peaceful aura when talking about things.
Yeah, I think I have quite similar thoughts about the druid.
- Damage variation needs a GM trait that completely changes the CA skills into damage oriented ones, make it more "blood moon" styled or smth
- Druid (and support-focused espec in general) should have a certain direction, whether they're going to be a ranged or melee supports. If the devs decided that druid is a ranged support then in my opinion all the supporting abilities (or most of them) should be ranged too (including glyphs).
- Astral force generation is kinda awkward and bc of that your alac application heavily depends on how much damage your allies receive. Druid's astral force is generated very inconsitently in comparison to similar spec/class mechanics, like necro's life force that is generated mostly with weapon skills or utilities or specter's shadow force which is generated by spending initiative.
- I personally hate traits like "swap a weapon to do x" or "swap a pet to do x" or even "use your pet's ability to do x" and ranger has so many of them packed into their kit. At this point I'd honestly prefer to completely remove pets from druid and put additional support abilities in its place... It's just annoying that my pet exists solely to just provide passive effects from my traits instead of being an actual, fun mechanic.
And to add to that ranger pets are slow in comaparison to necro summons and mechanist golem. In PVE whenever you dismount using bond of faith the pet spawns at the pt of dismount and not the pt of landing. I am very surprised the devs doesnt see that because that i havent observe that from mechanist or necro either.
@@betacross3675 In general I think some professions could use a big rework to the core mechanics and some older elite specs...
I think that in games like these, we should be doing one thing or the other. Either we heal, or we DPS. The whole point of a teamplay is to NOT have everyone doing everything.
Why else would we have instant access to multiple templates, if not to swap our roles?
if I want to DPS I will simply go Soulbeast or Untamed. There is no need for the druid (or any healer for that matter) to also have to worry about doing damage.
I loved my druid healer the way she was before the spiritnerf patch.
Now, with my slightly disabled hands, the druid healer requires way too many keypresses in rapid succession and I had no choice but to abandon the druid healing alltogether. Instead I now use Firebrand but I miss my druid so much...
It is my solid opinion that the nerfing of placable spirits that stayed up for a little bit, allowing me to spend more time on the AWSD movement keys and selected staff-heals, was a horribly bad idea by Anet.
Most bossfights now, are all about stacking up in a big ball of players where you cant see a damn thing while constantly moving out of massive AOE attacks that often will instantly kill us no matter the healing available.
This has in my opinion reduced the game to a hack-n-slash where ranged gameplay (in all forms, including DPS) and focus on placable and target abilities has been so simplified that its stupid but yet incredibly stressful because we have to smash keys 1 - 0 more often then ever.
I am not sure how much they have ruined other classes, but for me, the druid is no longer a viable option because of the constant keymashing and petswaping.
This has taken all the fun out of the druid gameplay.
Give me back my functional nature spirits so I can focus on moving around the field and place my spirits where and when they are needed without neccesarily having to be in a small ball of endless sidestepping GPU particles.
Some people will tell me that getting an MMO mouse or whatnot would help and I say to that: No. just No... That's an extra expense that should not be needed and it still would not help with the fast paced repeated keypressing, only move it to the thumb that is holding the mouse, making mousemovements irrational and jerky instead. I tried an MMO mouse and didnt like it at all.
//52 year old gamer with carporal tunnel syndrome
Damage build is good but not something new that much you still use Short bow/awx etc... and then go to CA using fewer skill then exist. So what the point of it it this different with Soulbeast? Nope it act like turn Durid to kind of soulbeast thing.
Honestly I didn't liked some of the new updates...how they expect to heal on demand and give massive CC on demand properly if alac is now tied to CA..., works for open world maybe but for instanced? Doesn't seem very efficient. I was enjoying to play druid in raids throughtly, I learned raids playing Druid, I loved the class but honestly I think now i will keep playing QHFB or learn other class that can heal and give alac wihtout compromising one or the other, maybe I will try the new solution that Mukluk gave for this druid inneficiency as it is now, might work. Nice video.
Ese es un druida?
why would you heal from range? especially because CA skill 4 is rather close range you need to be grouped up. and in content such as raid, etc. aren't you stacked on your group anyway?
I don't see the druid acceptable in group content , specially fractals , specially after the patch they change how the druid spirts is in-effective , players always ask to be a condi alac druid than druid healer.
The druid feels extremely awful to play as a healer at the moment. With the alacrity being tied to CA, there is literally no consistent and reliable way to reactively heal the group - because I have to give 100% alacrity uptime, be it a fractal, a strike, a raid or DE meta. It is extremely disappointing and a couple of steps backwards from where healing druid was before the update. Our static has decided to ditch the healing druid completely in favor of ham and specter. Yeah, even on SH.
In all fairness, druid is consistent in or out of CA to give heals... So plan your bursts.
You can spam skill 1,2 and 5 on CA to give alac fairly easily and save skill 3 and 4 during pressure.
Use glyph of starts when the 'ph shit' moment happens
Pet skill heals + if you're taking warhorn trait. Applying Regen heals aswell
Out of CA combo heal trap with blasts and leap finishers for burst heal. In which sword warhorn has 3
@@lukebajada7751 You NEED CA 4 on CD just for might uptime. Still, it is a joke to stack 30 secs of alac on current druid - giving you plenty of wiggle room on when exactly you go for CA heals. In other words: You can easily use CA once every 30s in ANY encounter without missing any of the "i need big heal" situations, since CA only is on a 10s cooldown. You just need to know the fight A LITTLE BIT to know the crucial moments. The healtrap is pretty bad outside of condi cleanse, the regen does nothing since you overstack it as druid anyways. Sword does nothing whenever you're on range to do a mechanic and is super clunky compared to axe in general (yea druid just doesn't have a good heal mainhand really) and having WH5 ready for a blast finisher is super unlikely since you use it on CD for uptime and it's on a 24s CD - it really is A LOT more likely to have CA ready than WH5. Waterspirit for vigor or even Glyph for the Gigachad 10k groupheal (with cultivated synergy) (DESTROYING the Greens on VG in a single cast feels so good) are the go to.
I will agree that it would be nice if one of the glyphs gave alacrity straight up, to help pad out that need of being in CA. But, I’ve felt with the recent changes in Alac duration it isn’t all too bad. I’d argue specter is in the same spot with a higher difficulty curve of needing to have proper Siphon targeting.
Might I add.....
Having both guard command and protection gives 66% damage reduction. With the grandmaster trait protective bong and guard, you're literally minimizing 66% of damage for 10 seconds which is op.... Very OP.
With 1 CA you can easily reach the 30sec cap of Alac. With the cd of 10 sec you have 20 sec to do what you want. That is more than enough time for all mechanics etc.