Guild Wars 2

Can someone please explain to me WTF is up with Druid?

I mean sreiously, wtf am i supposed to do vs them? Run necro? that seems to be the answer to everything.

Get them low, they spam cc and sustain, suddenly they are full and their pet has pressured you so much you need to backoff.

All they seem to need to do is staff auto and f2 at slightly the right time.

How is this okay? Or is there something im missing? Because from the little I know about this it seems liek their sustain is infinite and their skill floor is about as low as it can get. Like TURRET engi low.

Novuake.2691:

Can someone please explain to me WTF is up with Druid?

I mean sreiously, wtf am i supposed to do vs them? Run necro? that seems to be the answer to everything.

Get them low, they spam cc and sustain, suddenly they are full and their pet has pressured you so much you need to backoff.

All they seem to need to do is staff auto and spam f2 at slightly the right time.

How is this okay? Or is there something im missing?

They have 1 stab accesss, 2 if you wanna take something that roots them into place for ~2 secs, 1 instant condi cleanse.

I think its you.

StickerHappy.8052:

They have 1 stab accesss, 2 if you wanna take something that roots them into place for ~2 secs, 1 instant condi cleanse.

I think its you.

Great, so what, you saying i should go necro? thats what it looks like….

I even used elixir X and got rampage as a test. They manage to outsustain even that kind of pressure despite chain cc.

So instead of making some vague insulting comment, answer the kittening question? Alternatively kittenoff.

WTF is wrong with you people on this forum? Gezus.

Novuake.2691:

StickerHappy.8052:

They have 1 stab accesss, 2 if you wanna take something that roots them into place for ~2 secs, 1 instant condi cleanse.

I think its you.

Great, so what, you saying i should go necro? thats what it looks like….

I even used elixir X and got rampage as a test. They manage to outsustain even that kind of pressure despite chain cc.

So instead of making some vague insulting comment, answer the kittening question? Alternatively kittenoff.

WTF is wrong with you people on this forum? Gezus.

Oh, you gotta wait for them to Go Druid form, that’s when you CC. You also Condi Bomb them In Druid Form not BEFORE since they have druidic Clarity. Necro is pretty good if you are in melee rangers, otherwise a good ranger will just kite you.

StickerHappy.8052:

Oh, you gotta wait for them to Go Druid form, that’s when you CC. You also Condi Bomb them In Druid Form not BEFORE since they have druidic Clarity. Necro is pretty good if you are in melee rangers, otherwise a good ranger will just kite you.

Thank you, now was that so hard?

Now what do I do as a NON-condi. I run a higher damage variation on the scrapper meta build using marauder. And before you ask, no i dont get better results vs them using full meta. Hits like a wet noodle and they shrug it off like its nothing.

Novuake is right and StickerHappy is afraid of losing the only build he can win ranked with.

Yeah, it’s tougher to chain cc heal-tank druids and tempests when you’re solo queueing and/or don’t have voice comms. If you’re on a team with comms, then it’s considerably easier to call out the healer, and coordinate/chain cc’s and bombs on that person so it’s harder for them to heal back up. Otherwise, yeah….I feel ya man…I’ve solo queued a bunch and run into more than one team with that one heal-tank that will just never die. Personally, I think healing power amulets should be done away with all together in PvP…I don’t mind if healing power is used as a minor attribute in amulets (and it should never be combined with toughness imo), but I don’t think it should be the main stat.

LionChain.7694:

Yeah, it’s tougher to chain cc heal-tank druids and tempests when you’re solo queueing and/or don’t have voice comms. If you’re on a team with comms, then it’s considerably easier to call out the healer, and coordinate/chain cc’s and bombs on that person so it’s harder for them to heal back up. Otherwise, yeah….I feel ya man…I’ve solo queued a bunch and run into more than one team with that one heal-tank that will just never die. Personally, I think healing power amulets should be done away with all together in PvP…I don’t mind if healing power is used as a minor attribute in amulets (and it should never be combined with toughness imo), but I don’t think it should be the main stat.

The thing is I was never an advocate for removing amulets in the first place.
The classes that have this much sustain and boon uptime is part of the reason we are in this mess, removing the amulets was just a lazy band-aid. This goes for scrapper as well.

Everything is just over the top with a stupid amount of hard counters.

Although this wasn’t the point of the thread. I just want to know what im supposed to do vs druids. And no, avoiding soloQ shouldn’t be the solution, at least not in a well balanced Tyria.

Novuake.2691:

StickerHappy.8052:

Oh, you gotta wait for them to Go Druid form, that’s when you CC. You also Condi Bomb them In Druid Form not BEFORE since they have druidic Clarity. Necro is pretty good if you are in melee rangers, otherwise a good ranger will just kite you.

Thank you, now was that so hard?

Now what do I do as a NON-condi. I run a higher damage variation on the scrapper meta build using marauder. And before you ask, no i dont get better results vs them using full meta. Hits like a wet noodle and they shrug it off like its nothing.

You have multiple CCs. Warhorn 4, Staff 5. CC them during Tides of Rejuv. Corrupt Stab works too.

Daunt.8239:

Novuake is right and StickerHappy is afraid of losing the only build he can win ranked with.

For the record I main mesmer so…

StickerHappy.8052:

You have multiple CCs. Warhorn 4, Staff 5. CC them during Tides of Rejuv. Corrupt Stab works too.

So necro again? Sigh.

Novuake.2691:

StickerHappy.8052:

You have multiple CCs. Warhorn 4, Staff 5. CC them during Tides of Rejuv. Corrupt Stab works too.

So necro again? Sigh.

It goes for any other class, key is when to interrupt. Revs do great against druids,

StickerHappy.8052:

It goes for any other class, key is when to interrupt. Revs do great against druids,

What am i supposed to be interrupting?
Revs have a lot more burst and pressure than scrapper does. A lot more frequent CC too. Less sustain at least.

Novuake.2691:

StickerHappy.8052:

You have multiple CCs. Warhorn 4, Staff 5. CC them during Tides of Rejuv. Corrupt Stab works too.

So necro again? Sigh.

Use hydromancy and time your burst hammer 2 (mid-animation) into egun 4 so your damage is more consistent and you control your burst, unlike the meta rng procs that could go off at the wrong time.

Novuake.2691:

StickerHappy.8052:

It goes for any other class, key is when to interrupt. Revs do great against druids,

What am i supposed to be interrupting?
Revs have a lot more burst and pressure than scrapper does. A lot more frequent CC too. Less sustain at least.

Rejuv Tides

XGhoul.7426:

Use hydromancy and time your burst hammer 2 (mid-animation) into egun 4 so your damage is more consistent and you control your burst, unlike the meta rng procs that could go off at the wrong time.

Hmmm. While I do do this, I havn’t tried hydromancy. Might give it a go.

Novuake.2691:

XGhoul.7426:

Use hydromancy and time your burst hammer 2 (mid-animation) into egun 4 so your damage is more consistent and you control your burst, unlike the meta rng procs that could go off at the wrong time.

Hmmm. While I do do this, I havn’t tried hydromancy. Might give it a go.

The only thing you have to practice with it is not randomly blowing your hydro proc when you swap to egun, so try to keep an internal timer or a feel for when it will be back up.

XGhoul.7426:

Novuake.2691:

XGhoul.7426:

Use hydromancy and time your burst hammer 2 (mid-animation) into egun 4 so your damage is more consistent and you control your burst, unlike the meta rng procs that could go off at the wrong time.

Hmmm. While I do do this, I havn’t tried hydromancy. Might give it a go.

The only thing you have to practice with it is not randomly blowing your hydro proc when you swap to egun, so try to keep an internal timer or a feel for when it will be back up.

Yeah can do that. Loved the old Intelligence soldiers engi. Needed to manage int procs to be good at that build! Thanks!

As a defensive style player, I find it sickening that when we finally get a few builds that can stand up to the 1000 different builds that used to burn us down like newspaper, that there is so much kitting whining and sniveling.

Druids are SUPPOSED to be able to have a chance to keep 5 people alive, which would obviously allow them to sustain almost indefinitely 1:1. They are a HEALING profession that is designed to cleanse condis not from just themselves but from 5 people, all at once, and keep them all alive.

But the cost of being able to do that is that WE. ARE. KITTENING. TOOTHLESS.

Of course you can’t 1:1 them. BUT A HEALING DRUID CAN’T KILL YOU EITHER. Not a chance, unless you’re really, really bad. What have we got? The pet? Without decent DPS from the player, who runs Cleric/Dwayna or Melandru, the best we can do is stalemate you.

We FINALLY get something you can’t burn down like dry leaves and within days the screaming and whining has gone through the roof. Tough.

You can take a druid 2v1 in about 20-30 seconds. I’ve been roasted 3v1 in about 4 seconds despite being able to hold all day in a 1v1 vs any profession out there.

And for a profession that is designed to be heavy support for 5 people at the same time, that’s about right. So, no, the screaming is not justified at all.

The possibility to play a strong defender that can be invaluable in team play is long, long overdue and, honestly, not being able to play that style is why I never got into PvP for my first 3 years in this game. I am NOT the only person who feels this way.

Druid is opening PvP up to a different style of play that wasn’t available before. If they take our only real defender builds away then I’ll just go back to doing something other than PvP, and so will a lot of other people.

So if you wanna burn a druid, focus them. If you want to take a point from them, bring friends.

Druid is actually really op though…..The pet taunt bugs out like half of the time and you turn into a free kill because of the bug.

Diamond skin eles have as much if not more tanking ability as druids and more power. Revenants have higher damage and can be really hard to kill against multiple opponents because they evade everything and kite the rest. You can’t not have tanks with condi classes (Reaper, Rev) and massive damage classes (DH, Warrior, Scrapper). I don’t know what the state of mesmer is. And don’t care about thieves because who wants to fight imaginary people?

Healing druids are low power so if you can’t kill them bring a friend or go somewhere else. Like if you were a druid and came up against a druid or a ele you’d have to do the same thing. If you had a nerfed druid on your team against all these other classes you’ll lose.

Voluptus.3509:

As a defensive style player, I find it sickening that when we finally get a few builds that can stand up to the 1000 different builds that used to burn us down like newspaper, that there is so much kitting whining and sniveling.

You have a very strange understanding of class balance. If you really think being unkillable in 1v1 is ok (because hey, you died in a 3v1), if you really think (new) pets provide only mediocre damage (independantly from player stats), I will disregard any and all of your opinions from now on. Druids are the shining example of what’s wrong with this game: they get everything stuffed up their … , they are powercreep embodied. On top of ultra sustain and free dps, add loads of CC to the party (and great mobility in wvw). And the best: the class practically plays itself. It has everything that I despise in GW2 right now, were choices don’t matter because there is always that class that gets everything anyway.

Oh, plus a smoke field…

Oh Snapalope.1378:

Druid is actually really op though…..The pet taunt bugs out like half of the time and you turn into a free kill because of the bug.

That I wasn’t aware of. I’ll have to triple check but I don’t think I’m utilizing the taunt. I’m mainly focused on protection when dodge rolling, healing around the pet for team support, etc.

I’ll look at that though. Maybe the taunt does need to be looked at.

MarauderShields.6830:

You have a very strange understanding of class balance. If you really think being unkillable in 1v1 is ok (because hey, you died in a 3v1), if you really think (new) pets provide only mediocre damage (independantly from player stats), I will disregard any and all of your opinions from now on.

At the disregard comment I stopped regarding, or reading, your response.

And what you’re not understanding is that for any player to be able to fulfill the role of real team support then they’re going to have to have far more healing and cleanse than they would need only for themselves.

Druids are designed to heal TEN people at one time in raids, but you want them to not even be able to heal all the damage that just one person can do?

If DPS and heals are equal, the druid’s average health shouldn’t change much, up or down, over the course of a long fight. That is a form of balance, but apparently one you don’t like.

GW2 has never had a true healing class before. Now it does. It can heal but not kill while other professions can kill but not heal.

I didn’t know either. Don’t use the beast mastery traitline. I prefer wilderness and nature for the boons and condi removal.

jessiestiles.9437:

Diamond skin eles have as much if not more tanking ability as druids and more power. Revenants have higher damage and can be really hard to kill against multiple opponents because they evade everything and kite the rest. You can’t not have tanks with condi classes (Reaper, Rev) and massive damage classes (DH, Warrior, Scrapper). I don’t know what the state of mesmer is. And don’t care about thieves because who wants to fight imaginary people?

Healing druids are low power so if you can’t kill them bring a friend or go somewhere else. Like if you were a druid and came up against a druid or a ele you’d have to do the same thing. If you had a nerfed druid on your team against all these other classes you’ll lose.

All great points and reasons why other professions can, with the right builds, perhaps be even stronger in solo point defense than a druid.

But a lot of the druid’s capabilities are really designed for support of others, especially Avatar. This is why someone above rightly pointed out that a druid is very vulnerable in Avatar… because all the healing gets flipped from a lot for self and a little to others to a lot for others and little for self while in Avatar.

jessiestiles.9437:

I didn’t know either. Don’t use the beast mastery traitline. I prefer wilderness and nature for the boons and condi removal.

I run exactly the same. Occasionally I will flip to beast mastery for Foefire or somewhere else where I really need the swiftness from Resounding Timbre. I lose a lot of condi clear that way but the regen really helps make up for that.

A Scrapper engi kittening about sustain? From druid? Lol

Voluptus.3509:

Oh Snapalope.1378:

Druid is actually really op though…..The pet taunt bugs out like half of the time and you turn into a free kill because of the bug.

That I wasn’t aware of. I’ll have to triple check but I don’t think I’m utilizing the taunt. I’m mainly focused on protection when dodge rolling, healing around the pet for team support, etc.

I’ll look at that though. Maybe the taunt does need to be looked at.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48bdpd/pvp_can_we_please_talk_about_the_stuck_in_place/

Well documented and reported bug. Taunt is one huge contributor of it.

defo CA form is Very Vunrable it looses out on almost all forms of defence only leaving Utility to survive and taking more personal Utility to survive has to be mostly non-glyphs with the exception of glyph of tides as the others get flipped for self/team support not Self damage migration.

best burst combo to do as a power build user would be focus on Poison before and after CA form then wait for the CA form interrupt KD with slickshoes stop the Luna impact which allows the healing to start. (i honestly will say CA druid skills lack Utility outside of Daze and skill 2 seeds of life , skill 5 takes way too long and does nothing for damage migration or defence vs projectiles) if they have Stability up to defend vs CC’s well then that just means you’ll need to wait it out don’t waste your burst+CC and do a round 2 as you’ll be able to burst+damage before Strenght of the pack is ready again , that means the Second CA form will be Stability-less (no stability options) during this time Force the Druid to Enter CA Early throw off his rotations and doing so also effects the team his supporting.

also do learn that there are other Druid builds outside of meta battle , we have a Druid/ranger builds thread in our forums so please do check those out .

Kill the pet.

The reason Druids have that much damage and sustain is because of the pet and the fact that so few players pay attention to them.

Killing the pet makes them inactive for the better part of a minute, they swap and you kill the second one and that’s it, they’ll have to fall back or rely on mediocre damage.

Once the pets are out of the way, focus the Druid in close combat and you can burst them down pretty quickly, if they’re evading your attacks when they’re in that state then it’s down to their skill and luck, not so much the class.

Engineers have enough CC and sustain to force Druids to play defensively whether they use power or conditions.

Necromancers can run conditions to shut them down.

Warriors can stunlock them and render them useless.

Thieves can burst them down quickly or run conditions and shut them down.

Elementalists can burst them down with heavy AoE pressure. Or if you’re running a burn build, you win.

Guardians traps can be a pain for them because of the CC but if they stay at range with a longbow then they’ll lose, get in close to get the upper hand. Or run a burn build, you win.

Mesmers can CC them then apply heavy burst damage to take them down, but running conditions is more effective.

Revenants power attacks hit like a truck and can burst them down if they stay in melee range, or run conditions to shut them down.

Rangers…prepare for a long fight.

tl;dr : Take down the pets, stay in melee range.

Novuake.2691:

How is this okay? Or is there something im missing? Because from the little I know about this it seems liek their sustain is infinite and their skill floor is about as low as it can get. Like TURRET engi low.

I also disagree with this, the priority of a Druid running this build should always be reviving allies, you need to constantly make sure you’re in the right position to revive allies that are struggling. Constantly bouncing between points.

Whilst doing this you also need to do what other people are doing, killing enemies, decapping or holding points as is necessary.

A standard bunker Druid may have a low skill level but it’s far from a low skill floor as they have the potential to make or break a team depending on skill and awareness.

At an equal skill lvl druid should lose against reaper,revs and scrappers. Considering the druid is using menders.
In a teamfight you are super vulnerable and in 2v1 situations you have less survivability than a rev with zerk amulet. Atm druid is far away from being great