World of Warcraft’s druid remains my favorite class in any MMO. After all these years it still resonates with me on so many levels. From its flexibility and style to its utility and the skill required to play it effectively, there’s a finesse in its design that I’ve rarely seen again. It was, arguably, the perfect hybrid and provided enough tools to allow players to build it as they saw fit: healer, damage dealer or spell caster. Where Guild Wars 2’s druid is concerned, I had high hopes - possibly even too high. Having been waiting to get my hands on it since the announcement of Heart of Thorns, this weekend not only provided an opportunity to put it through its paces, but to also pit it against the first raid boss. Is it as good as I hoped?

Ranger Hangover

As a long standing ranger player, there was a need for the druid to address a variety of underlying issues that the ranger currently faces, in all aspects of the game. Whether it’s the pet and its inability to survive boss encounters, almost half of the ranger skills being poor or never used and a variety of traits and weapon skills that still leave much to be desired when it comes to cohesion or viability. On top of that there’s the fact that the ranger offers little or no group support and when it comes to damage, it still falls behind the likes of the warrior, elementalist or thief. Although it would be incredibly unfair to suggest the ranger can’t be fun, or that it can’t function in dungeons, Fractals or World versus World, there’s a sense that with only a few small tweaks the profession could be great but sadly those tweaks have never really been forthcoming, or in the right areas.

The druid as the ranger elite specialization attempts to remedy some of these issues by offering a support based role that focuses, primarily, on healing. Whilst I’ve no doubt that some are unhappy at the thought of their ranger being pigeon holed in this fashion, it’s the hand we’ve been dealt and as someone who loves to play hybrids, I’m more than willing to embrace it. I’ve wielded a longbow and greatsword long enough that any change at this point is more than welcome. My hope from the early glimpse of the druid was that the staff, combined with the Celestial Avatar, would provide utility and group support but also an opportunity to take on a Moonkin role as a hybrid spellcaster, capable of wielding both nature and the stars. Whilst there’s some sense of that, it never quite reaches the point where it comes together in a cohesive vision or one that amounts to the druid offering anything more than raw healing.

Staff

The ranger already has a variety of weapons that offer power, conditions or a mixture of both. Whether it’s the eye watering burn damage from the torch or the mobility afforded by swoop from the greatsword, there’s a spectrum of skills available that all attempt to fill a specific niche. What was lacking from their toolset was an ability to utilise a weapon that supports allies through boons, healing and condition cleansing (one could argue spirits are there to provide group wide support, but let us not get into how poor they are). Of the five staff skills, I have to admit that for the most part I enjoy the design and aesthetic of all of them. Whether it’s the mobility and the delicate leaf trail of Astral Wisp or the aggressive eruption of thorns and vines from Vine Surge, the weaponset has well and truly nailed the “theme” of the traditional druid. My concern with the weaponset, however, is that I’m not exactly sure what its purpose is besides that of gaining quick and repeat access to the Celestial Avatar.

Solar Beam, depending on which race you choose, has a mix of animations and considering you’re a spell caster, it’s frustrating to see even more recycled animations when animations for casters are already present and correct. The druid is as far removed from a brawler as you can get, so why am I wielding it like a hammer? Certainly as a female Sylvari, holding the staff over my hand like a pool cue is also a little strange, especially as you run forwards whilst attacking. Your character lurches back, and pokes forward: I’d recommend anyone to try to attempt to replicate it - my wife laughed a great deal at my impression (leaning back, limp-wristed, making a beam noise around my office). As for the skill itself, it’s undeniably good at granting swift access to Celestial Avatar because it provides damage and healing, but the beam is unsatisfying, incredibly thin, the healing negligible considering the difficulty of lining it up to hit an ally, and the sound meek. I’m also concerned at just how little damage it deals when it also heals for so little.

Astral Wisp I really like the look of Astral Wisp as the animation is fantastic but its damage and functionality are very limited. Once again it’s amazing at allowing you to gain access to Celestial Avatar because the combination of damage and healing, multiplied against several allies, can grant near permanent Celestial Avatar use. However, the radius is particularly small (130 units) meaning that for any allies to gain any value from it, they have to sit on top of the enemy. In addition to that, the healing is very small and scales badly irrespective of how much healing power you have. It would be most welcome to have Astral Wisp pass brief regeneration to allies it touches.

Ancestral Grace is my favorite staff skill on the weapon set because it provides some mobility if you happen to have replaced your greatsword. I love the animation, the fact it’s a blast finisher and that it provides healing on impact: I saved several guild mates going down yesterday by arriving at them just in time. It also allowed me to prevent a handful of raid wipes as I quickly travelled inside a circle at the Vale Guardian, that happened to be short one man. Similarly to Astral Wisp, the healing on it doesn’t scale particularly well and the channel needs to end when you reach your chosen destination. At the moment the channel continues regardless of how short you’ve travelled which can be quite annoying.

Vine Surge is gorgeous and the ability to immobilize multiple enemies somewhat useful, especially in structured PvP. However, the skill cleansing movement impairing effects is a little odd and the cast time also makes it particularly difficult to land effectively. I think it would be far more appropriate if Vine Surge provided protection to allies rather than curing three conditions (immobilize, chill and cripple), especially when you consider the hulking vines act as a barrier between you and enemies trying to hit you.

Besides me loathing the name, Sublime Conversion has potential. Having the ability to block projectiles is useful and I’ve already had some success with it in Fractals and structured PvP. However, the returned healing is small (if not inconsequential) and the barrier doesn’t act as a field (see edit below). Considering Field of the Mists has a 12 second cooldown, 6 second duration and is a dark field, this feels particularly stingy. Yes Sublime Conversion can be cast up to a range of 900, but it only has a 5 second duration and the nature of deflects in Guild Wars 2 makes it highly unlikely you’d use it at full distance. Using a barrier just in front of your group to protect all of them is far more common, rather than attempting a clutch defence on an ally who’s too far away (especially with the inability to rotate the barrier if you happen to be at the incorrect angle). To justify the cooldown, I think making it a water field but also providing a small amount of condition removal to allies who move through it would offer much needed utility. If necessary, you could even up its cooldown by 5 seconds to ensure it’s in line with Shock Wave.

[Edit] Eirh over on Reddit points out to me that Sublime Conversion is currently acting as a water field. That makes the skill somewhat better!

Final Staff Thoughts

As you can probably tell from the above, I do like the staff but it’s also a weapon set that’s rigidly linked to the Celestial Avatar. The duality of the skills means it's clearly designed to grant swift access to your new form but it also results in them lacking direction: they neither heal well or deal high damage, regardless of your armor choice. On top of that, there’s a distinct lack of boons or conditions (whether weakness, vulnerability, cripple) and most importantly, not a single skill interacts with the druid’s pet. Considering the insistence that the ranger and druid must retain the pet, it’s absolutely bizarre that none of these skills cause the pet to act in a different way or to have it receive some sort of benefit. The only skill that does, is Astral Wisp as it grants some healing to your pet when your pet is in melee range. With the exception of off-hand weapons, all the other weapon sets provide some pet utility I feel that at least one on the staff should do the same.

Glyphs

Before I begin to talk about the Celestial Avatar, I wanted to provide my thoughts on Glyphs. In general, I’m largely fine with their design and duality but like most of the druids abilities, across its weapons and form, they lack functionality outside of raw output. The key to Glyphs having any sort of viability is to ensure that they offer a distinct alternative to the best that the ranger has. Considering the vast majority of ranger skills are poor (with the exception of a handful) Glyphs need to fight against skills such as Signet of Stone, Quickening Zephyr, Lightning Reflex, Muddy Terrain and “Strength of the Pack!”. It isn’t about mirroring these skills, but about creating a choice for the player to do something different. The Celestial Avatar does complicate things a little as Glyphs cleverly offer two different uses depending on which form you’re in, however, 4 of the 6 - regardless of form - are very niche or poor and I suspect, will be seldom used.

Glyph of Rejuvenation is the druid’s healing ability and heals for a large amount in standard form and provides a small dose to nearby allies. In Celestial Avatar, it does the opposite, healing your party for a large amount. There’s no doubt it’s highly effective and on many occasions yesterday it allowed me to comfortably sustain my team against the Vale Guardian. In comparison to other heals available to the druid (from the ranger) it’s a must in a raid environment (Healing Spring is still valuable).

Glyph of Alignment causes cripple and weakness to enemies for 3 seconds and also deals a small amount of damage. The animation is good but its radius is tiny and its cast time long. I successfully managed to cast it once in structured PvP because it was constantly interrupted and even then, the output instantly cleansed. Its celestial version provides a dose of healing and removes two conditions. Despite these two components being valuable, when you’re in Celestial form you really don’t need healing (why waste a 20 second Glyph when any one of your 5 skills heals for more?). Its limited radius also means you have to hug your allies to cleanse their conditions, the opposite of what a ranged healer should do.

Glyph of Equality provides a daze in a 300 unit radius and when in Celestial Form, provides a stun break for you and nearby allies. Similarly to Alignment, a daze and stun removal is strong but once more the limited range combined with the fact you have to switch to Celestial Form (that you might not yet have) to break stun makes it clunky and unreliable. The fact that Primal Echoes does half the skills job, on an 8 second cooldown, whilst also reducing your staff cooldowns, makes the skill pretty limited. I’d also add that it’s bloody hard work to try to cleanse a stun from an ally using the skill. Even with friends, trying to coordinate a stun removal using the Glyph proved more hard work than necessary and often by the time I’d reached them, the stun had already worn off, further rendering the skill useless.

Glyph of Tides follows the same vein as Alignment and allows the druid to push enemies back 300 units and its Celestial version pulls enemies towards you. The skill looks largely OK (if not unsatisfying) but I struggled to find any value here, across any game mode. The knockback is tiny, it does barely any damage and its radius is very small. We already have Alignment causing an AOE daze on a shorter cooldown (arguably a more powerful status effect) so having the knockback seems redundant. In a PvE environment enemies are back on you in seconds after use and structured PvP it was exactly the same. Yes it pairs with Ancient Seeds as an AOE root, but when you already have Alignment doing a better job, I struggled to justify its use on my skill bar. Taking both for heavy crowd control isn’t really an option either because you would be sacrificing multiple ranger skills that are far superior. As for the pull, it’s largely fine for trash mobs but is once again at odds with the Celestial Form: why would I ever want enemies to come to me when I’m trying to heal my team?

Glyph of Empowerment is the only Glyph I used and for the entire duration of yesterday’s raiding, I felt it had a solid place in a PvE environment. Before we engaged the Vale Guardian I’d use it to provide a 10% damage boost to my team and when I switched to Celestial Avatar, I’d use it again to gain a 25% increase our healing output. I admit it’s incredibly difficult during a raid to keep track of whether it was making a huge difference to me and my party, but it’s fair to say a 25% increase is a fair amount that helped our elementalists and guardians. The fact it has a 20 second cooldown also allowed me to use it often. Although it’ll only ever see use in raids or Fractals, I think that’s largely fine as I don’t expect every skill to have a use across every game mode.

Glyph of Unity is the druid elite skill and allows you to tether yourself to allies or enemies (depending on your form). In the original Twitch stream the skill casts out beams onto those affected but during this weekend, I couldn’t see the tether animation working. Whenever I used it, I think it did what it should, based on the damage and healing values, but it seemed inconsistent so for the time being, I’m going to reserve judgement on its viability until I’ve tested it further.

Final Glyph Thoughts

Overall I have to admit that I’m largely unimpressed with Glyphs. In a raid environment I can see myself using Rejuvenation and Empowerment, but the others are incredibly limited and I’d struggle to see them ever replacing the most common ranger skills. Glyphs such as Glyph of Tides feel purposefully designed for such moments against the Vale Guardian where you need to knock back red orbs to protect your team, but as a result, feel so niche that their wider use in the game is almost non existent. I feel slightly...cheated (if that’s the right word?) that my skills - out of all the other elite specialization - are so heavily geared towards raiding. Being the chosen healer for raids, when it’s only a small part of Guild Wars 2 in comparison to the rest of the content available, is a strange position to be placed in. More than anything with Glyphs, I feel it’s missed opportunity to inject some druid flavour into the elite specialization. The majority of the animations are pretty non-descript and lack a heavy use of druid themes. To be covered in thorns when you use Glyph of Empowerment or having stars rain down on players when using Glyph of Alignment would have been wonderful: Anything to impart the fact you’re a druid, with celestial powers. Oh and before I forget, there also a weird overhang when using some of the Glyphs that prevents you immediately using other skills.

Celestial Avatar

Coming onto the Celestial Avatar, I’ve mixed feelings towards it. On one hand, it's unquestionable that its healing values are incredible but it’s also rigid in its design, offering nothing outside of healing. My hope was that Celestial Avatar would allow druid players to deal damage and heal, focusing on one or the other depending on the gear they chose to wear, but instead it offers only healing with minor utility. Offering no boons, healing a raid it often feels like you’re using blunt force keep your team alive rather than elegantly or strategically using skills. The fact all but Natural Convergence heal not only encourages you to spam your skills but also trivializes your role as a healer.

Throughout yesterday's raid I was more than capable of remaining in Celestial Avatar for the entire duration. A well placed Seed of Life, just before your Avatar runs out, provides enough instant healing - when combined with Astral Wisp - to fully recharge your bar. The impact being that the cooldowns on Celestial Avatar are largely inconsequential. You have the ability to keep up Seed of Life, Lunar Impact and Rejuvenating Tides to such a degree, especially when using Glyph of Rejuvenation, that I never once needed Cosmic Ray. Our only failures were only as a result of us continually blowing ourselves up, rather than facing pressure from a lack of healing.

Having often healed in raids in World of Warcraft or WildStar, there’s an odd feeling when doing the same in Guild Wars 2 because the mechanics of the skills and party effects make your role rather passive. You can, for example, burn through your three heals in the knowledge that you’re only a few seconds away from once again healing for a huge amount. The impact of that is that at no time did I ever feel that I had to consciously choose when to manage my skills - quite the opposite. It took so little thought to keep the heals flowing and my team alive that it instantly made me wonder whether I’d want to do it long term: this is from a player who has, for over a decade, played hybrid healers.

I also found that the party limitations on receiving healing resulted in me sometimes being unable to heal the individual who was taking aggro. On multiple occasions our tanking revenant died not as a result of my lack of output, but because my heals simply didn’t work on him. The splash healing from all four Celestial Avatar skills seemingly prioritised others over him (despite me hitting him directly and being in the squad with him). Perhaps the lesson here is to take two Druids instead of one.

Cosmic Ray was probably used twice by me over the entire weekend because at no point did I need it to keep my entire team alive. Despite some niggles with the inability to actually heal our “tank”, I found its firing speed too slow unless using Quickening Zephyr. Having to manually target it every time, rather than being able target my team mate, felt as tiresome as throwing grenades. Overall its healing is fine and its serves its function as a direct, no cooldown heal. What I’d have preferred is for it to have at least some damage component that scaled on your armor so that if I wanted it to heal lots, it could, or if I wanted it to deal damage, it could.

Seed of Life I really love because it’s a low cooldown condition removal that also heals. However, my biggest issue is the fact that the skill looks awful. The “seed” looks more like a cast-off from WildStar’s Strain than it does anything closely resembling a seed of druidic nature. Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to have a literally seed that blooms and explodes into stars or flowers?

I’ve absolutely no doubt that Lunar Impact is guaranteed to be nerfed when you consider you can daze enemy players for over 6 seconds with Moment of Clarity. Despite that, I love the skill and its animation as the daze, its heal value and it being a blast finisher is particularly powerful. Similarly to Cosmic Ray, though, it feels bizarre for it to only heal and offer players no ability to choose its focus.

Gather Tidal Force is a really strong heal and considering it also applies a water field allows your team to blast you to their hearts content. With Quickening Zephyr it heals outrageously fast and is great for spike healing your team. I’m not particularly keen on its appearance because it doesn’t feel water based and the planets rotating around you feel too similar to Natural Convergence.

Natural Convergence is a strange skill and I’m truly struggling to see its wider purpose as part of the Celestial Avatar, but also in the numerous Guild Wars 2 game modes. It roots you to the spot, pulses a very small amount of damage and causes a cripple and a slow that eventually lead to an immobilize. It takes an age to cast and because you’re unable to run whilst using it, its use is limited even further. The best moment I had was using Ancestral Grace up to a group of opposing players, using Quickening Zephyr, switching to Celestial Avatar and quickly using Natural Convergence for an AOE immobilize. I then wondered why I even bothered when Vine Surge is faster and doesn’t require me to waste my Celestial form. If this skill is to be salvaged, I’d make it ground targeted and if we’re insisting on seeing the Celestial Avatar remain only as a support form with no flexibility for damage, have it provide protection to allies it hits whilst instantly immobilizing and slowing enemies.

Final Celestial Avatar Thoughts

There’s no doubting that the Celestial Avatar does its job of pumping out raw healing well. However, its lack of flexibility and rigidity to its role means that it will - I expect - be forever relegated to fleeting moments in World versus World and structured PvP but highly sought after in launch day raiding raiding. For those who enjoy dedicated healing, I'm sure they’ll enjoy the sight of health bars leaping to full. The majority of the skills, whilst functional, offer little other than healing and one of them is massively out of place. I also think that yet again, the lack of synergy with the pet - or the complete absence of any skills impacting on the pet - is an opportunity missed. The worst part however is that we already know that existing Guild Wars 2 content doesn't require a healer. In fact, I’d even question if the first raid boss does based on how little damage the Vale Guardian actually deals. Why, then, has an elite specialization been designed to the point where it can do little else but heal? Are the other raid bosses so difficult that a druid is mandatory? (a problem in itself). The Celestial Avatar offers no boons, no mitigation and no crowd control outside of a bound-to-be-nerfed daze and highly suspect immobilize. Surely it has more scope to be a hybrid of healing and damage, allowing players to push one aspect or another?

To Finish

I appreciate there are a lot of complaints here and when I began to write this piece, more than I expected after reading over my notes. Many of the issues I’ve discussed above I doubt will ever be adjusted as the Celestial Avatar is likely here to stay as a dedicated healer. It’s also far too late in the development cycle to change any of the animations on the Avatar, the staff or Glyphs. However, quality of life changes to the Glyphs and staff skills should be a priority and I know Irenio has already taken to the forums to discuss some changes to the druid when it comes to heal scaling and flexibility. All of this is good news, but with no more Beta weekends and only a couple of weeks until launch, I have serious reservations about the quality of the druid by the time Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns releases. Even with the addition of new pets and a trait line I really like (Primal Echoes, Natural Stride and Ancient Seeds are great) pets still need a lot of love, having their names “stick” after swapping them out would be welcome, and as a very minimum shouts need a pass.

For the time being I’m still going to stick with the druid because I’m hopeful that at least some of the issues will be adjusted. I’ll let you know my thoughts when we see its first round of changes.