Guild Wars 2

Cross posted from Ranger forum….

I’m wondering if anyone has really found a good Druid WvW/GvG role? specifically more around support mid/backline?

Metabattle is pretty thin on the matter… i hope that’s not the reality of it

Most of the things that would seem to make sense have limited range to be effective it seems, IDK, just haven’t found anything that really seemed to work and was looking for advice/tips?

Thanks

Yes.

Druids are freaking great and absolutely awesome, especially in organized and semi-organized groups (guild groups and guild led pug groups). In pure pugs, less so. And they in fact play several different roles and use different builds.

In particular, if you go through the posts on this forum, you will find MANY complaints about the pirate ship meta and groups being unable to dive into them, yet if you watch the streams, you will find exactly and precisely that, which vast majority of those complainers are complaining about, melee groups diving into pirate ship groups and just absolutely owning them, consistantly and vast majority of the time. Druids play vital roles in those and make that possible.

However, unfortunately I can not post builds for you as it is something we keep to ourselves for as long as possible, I will give you a clue and tell you to watch some of the better streams, if you have decent experience by now as a druid player you will be able to figure it out relatively easy.

Also to add to that, your group has to be led by a decent core at minimum and you can not be the only druid there, it takes a few, or they just will not be able to take full advantage of your abilities. Sure you may get some nice stuff off running in a pug when everyone is tight around you, but those will be exceptional instances, you need to be able to get it all off vast majority of the time, reliably, like clock work, and for that, you need an organized core and a couple more druids.

Again, watch the streams, get in touch with some decent WVW guilds and you’ll be set. If you get into a guild that has no clue what to do with a druid or asks you not to play it, leave it. It is a sucky guild incapable to adapt, those are the kind of people making the complaint posts and/or sticking exclusively to the pirate ship meta.

i appreciate not wanting to give secrets… but how else do we build the class of those who know dont help others who are interested?
im with a good guild, but the current meta leads in other directions.. im trying to break into that but havent quite got it right.
ive watched a lot of streams.. most are doing sPvP.. ive seen very few in WvW or GvG that are “known” to look to for advise.
Its nice to know there is a way… but it would be better to see some details Thanks for at least confirming my thoughts

Floplag.4032:

i appreciate not wanting to give secrets… but how else do we build the class of those who know dont help others who are interested?
im with a good guild, but the current meta leads in other directions.. im trying to break into that but havent quite got it right.
ive watched a lot of streams.. most are doing sPvP.. ive seen very few in WvW or GvG that are “known” to look to for advise.
Its nice to know there is a way… but it would be better to see some details Thanks for at least confirming my thoughts

If youre serious about your guild it will be better for the long run if you learn to theorycraft for yourself. Too many players these days just look to copy and paste off of metabattle.com. From my experience unlike in spvp, serious gvg guilds atleast back in the day wouldnt go round giving out their builds, it is a weapon the theorycrafters spent hours designing to give their guild a real advantage on the field.

Make a build regardless of how crappy, test it and reiterate. Learn every single minute detail of this game’s combat system and the mechanics of your class. Gain the trust of your guild and assert yourself so that they listen and go along with your testing because with a 20man group testing builds solo wont give you any meaningful indication of how good it is. Once youre happy with the build start teaching the others using your class how to use the build in the optimum way, train them and then perfect both the optimum playstyle and build from there.

Honestly the game mode is as good as dead now so i almost feel bad for people newly arriving at this game to go on a journey when it comes to zergbusting. Or you could screw the long run and just wait till someone posts a dull outdated build on metabattle and play it in a mediocre way.

Zetsumei.4975:

Floplag.4032:

i appreciate not wanting to give secrets… but how else do we build the class of those who know dont help others who are interested?
im with a good guild, but the current meta leads in other directions.. im trying to break into that but havent quite got it right.
ive watched a lot of streams.. most are doing sPvP.. ive seen very few in WvW or GvG that are “known” to look to for advise.
Its nice to know there is a way… but it would be better to see some details Thanks for at least confirming my thoughts

If youre serious about your guild it will be better for the long run if you learn to theorycraft for yourself. Too many players these days just look to copy and paste off of metabattle.com. From my experience unlike in spvp, serious gvg guilds atleast back in the day wouldnt go round giving out their builds, it is a weapon the theorycrafters spent hours designing to give their guild a real advantage on the field.

Make a build regardless of how crappy, test it and reiterate. Learn every single minute detail of this game’s combat system and the mechanics of your class. Gain the trust of your guild and assert yourself so that they listen and go along with your testing because with a 20man group testing builds solo wont give you any meaningful indication of how good it is. Once youre happy with the build start teaching the others using your class how to use the build in the optimum way, train them and then perfect both the optimum playstyle and build from there.

Honestly the game mode is as good as dead now so i almost feel bad for people newly arriving at this game to go on a journey when it comes to zergbusting. Or you could screw the long run and just wait till someone posts a dull outdated build on metabattle and play it in a mediocre way.

which i have been doing… but asking for ideas is never a bad thing right?
I’ve been trying a few things and am looking for ideas to see if im on the right track etc… since meta battle doesnt really have anything relevant.

Floplag.4032:

Zetsumei.4975:

Floplag.4032:

i appreciate not wanting to give secrets… but how else do we build the class of those who know dont help others who are interested?
im with a good guild, but the current meta leads in other directions.. im trying to break into that but havent quite got it right.
ive watched a lot of streams.. most are doing sPvP.. ive seen very few in WvW or GvG that are “known” to look to for advise.
Its nice to know there is a way… but it would be better to see some details Thanks for at least confirming my thoughts

If youre serious about your guild it will be better for the long run if you learn to theorycraft for yourself. Too many players these days just look to copy and paste off of metabattle.com. From my experience unlike in spvp, serious gvg guilds atleast back in the day wouldnt go round giving out their builds, it is a weapon the theorycrafters spent hours designing to give their guild a real advantage on the field.

Make a build regardless of how crappy, test it and reiterate. Learn every single minute detail of this game’s combat system and the mechanics of your class. Gain the trust of your guild and assert yourself so that they listen and go along with your testing because with a 20man group testing builds solo wont give you any meaningful indication of how good it is. Once youre happy with the build start teaching the others using your class how to use the build in the optimum way, train them and then perfect both the optimum playstyle and build from there.

Honestly the game mode is as good as dead now so i almost feel bad for people newly arriving at this game to go on a journey when it comes to zergbusting. Or you could screw the long run and just wait till someone posts a dull outdated build on metabattle and play it in a mediocre way.

which i have been doing… but asking for ideas is never a bad thing right?
I’ve been trying a few things and am looking for ideas to see if im on the right track etc… since meta battle doesnt really have anything relevant.

Yeah dont get me wrong, asking the right questions is good but dont blame him for not wanting to giving out all his ideas away, youre his competition after all

oh i dont blame him im just saying that building the community matters too.
and im noones real competition but the point is valid

We’ve tried to make druid work in WvW and GvG, but overall it was lackluster. The guilds who beat us generally don’t use druids in open field or GvG. In the NA scene druids aren’t used really(except here and there experimentally). EU might use them, but I haven’t seen that in their videos either(the few I’ve watched).

I still think the class has potential, but haven’t seen anyone able to utilize it successfully yet.

The Scrapper currently has more potential in a GvG or group WvW role than a Druid, and they only have a couple of tools at their disposal. The Druid lacks any kind of meaningful support with only a minimal amount of CC application as well as AoE damage to make it more useful than another class in that role (honestly, Scrappers are actually pretty good to have in the commander party when melee pushing).

All the medium armor classes are still at the bottom of the pile when it comes to WvW zerging though.

Having tried out both elites for ranger and ele, I’d stick with ele. Ranger elite and form is too dependent on other factors, hence needing several in a group to make it work, and if running a heal spec isn’t really much use for other things. Ele can switch quickly to provide other services and also cause a lot of damage.

I really wanted ranger to be better for wvw, but it just isn’t that useful.

Maybe with snipe teams and the new res rules (whenever they actually get put in, usual Anet announce, announce, announce, announce again, then bring in 6 months later), rangers might find a role again.

Caliburn.1845:

We’ve tried to make druid work in WvW and GvG, but overall it was lackluster. The guilds who beat us generally don’t use druids in open field or GvG. In the NA scene druids aren’t used really(except here and there experimentally). EU might use them, but I haven’t seen that in their videos either(the few I’ve watched).

I still think the class has potential, but haven’t seen anyone able to utilize it successfully yet.

False statement which is valid exclusively to your server and / or tier. Druids are a huge part of our meta.

Again guys, there are some decent streams left, watch them, adjust your builds to what you see. Also most of all your commander will need to adjust, this is of utmost importance as coordination and timing of abilities between druids is what makes or breaks it. You can watch some nice streams on weekends, perhaps not many right now cause holidays, but they are there.

And again I apologize for keeping things to myself, but until our meta is out from people figuring it out, we are keeping it to ourselves.

No good guild uses druids for a reason.

jamesdolla.3954:

No good guild uses druids for a reason.

Nah, I can see 1 druid used in a 15-20 man group for the ranged water field (also projectile absorption) + blast. Helps the melee make a big push as well as the regroup. The damage is honestly so lackluster though

Tongku.5326:

False statement which is valid exclusively to your server and / or tier. Druids are a huge part of our meta.

Again guys, there are some decent streams left, watch them, adjust your builds to what you see. Also most of all your commander will need to adjust, this is of utmost importance as coordination and timing of abilities between druids is what makes or breaks it. You can watch some nice streams on weekends, perhaps not many right now cause holidays, but they are there.

And again I apologize for keeping things to myself, but until our meta is out from people figuring it out, we are keeping it to ourselves.

Since expack I’ve fought 125 scrim rounds, against 15 different guilds from NA tiers 1-5.

If there is some guild out there doing something cool with druids that is awesome. But it is apparently a well kept secret from most of us, and until this guild(s) steps up and begins wrecking the rest of us, I am going to be skeptical.

@Caliburn: I do play druid on EU with way more than 125 scrim rounds since xpac ;)

We are still testing stuff and recruiting for our new roster but so far we have had good results. I play with minstrel/nomad gear (self buffed: 1525 healing, 50% healing eff., 3k4 armor, 23k hp, 37% boon duration – for regens / caf generation contribution), with 3 or 4 glyphs equipped, in the commander’s group and close to the frontline.
I’m currently the only druid in my guild group but we did try it with two in open field (T1) and it felt like “god mode”. Your melee train can litterally sit in a bomb and constantly push the enemy lines. The damage you lose from including a full healing class is counter-balanced by the increased uptime your guild group gains on the enemy.

The thing is, I have seen almost nobody play druid to its full potential. Most of the druid I have seen are just using CAF #3 on cooldown from max range and that’s it.
Tips: CAF #1 + quickness is underrated, CAF #2 is underrated, CAF #4 has to be precalled on vocal, glyphs are one of our best tools, time in CAF has to be managed carefully, while out of CAF generating enough resource before the 10 sec CD is your priority.

PS: elem used to be my main, but my guild don’t want to play without a druid anymore ;)

Reverence.6915:

jamesdolla.3954:

No good guild uses druids for a reason.

Nah, I can see 1 druid used in a 15-20 man group for the ranged water field (also projectile absorption) + blast. Helps the melee make a big push as well as the regroup. The damage is honestly so lackluster though

Helps in a big push, but most of the times I’ve seen Ele’s (namely staff ele’s) be more sought after. In my guild group we’ll run 1 maybe 2 druids only if we don’t have at least 2 or 4 ele’s. Or if we pick up a pug that is a druid. (Usually we try to run with 15 or more, but if we have like 25 people running, 2 are likely druids). Reason being, Druid doesn’t offer as much versatility as Ele’s with there meteor showers to get ACs and stuff down, and not as much versatility in calling out water fields that are large enough to actually help us. The thing is, too… Druids some havoc groups I run with are target #1 and target #2 is a protection boon herald. Poor things…

If you can find any group that will run with you and help protect yous, then its wise to definitely be organized enough and call out your water field if and when you use it. However, don’t be surprised if people are looking for Ele and Tempest more than druid.

Disclaimer, I play druid at times to help out the guild I’m in, but often than not we have enough ele’s and want other front or black line classes like reaper and warriors or dragonhunters. I would give the build that we use out, but I’m not sure how well that go over with leadership… So hush hush for now.

Oddly the Druid is a far better roamer/skirmish class than GvG or large scale WvW. Other classes still bring the water fields and dish out substantial damage better. GRREENNN seems to be the effective meta these days as in Guardian, Revenant, Revenant, Elementalist, Elementalist and Necro, Necro, Necro. Only need Guardians in there to keep front-line enemy zergs honest.

I run a Druid in a small man group. If I want to bunker down it provides a ton of healing and ok condi clear. The glyphs are really stron and the more u play the class the more you will discover some of the OP aspects of it. I also play a Crusader/Celestial build that is a nice back line player.

Some of the pros are- glyphs are strong- healing glyph is a nice bonuse to team mates even without healing power. The elite glyph, if used right, can do a lot of damage even with out a dps build. Celestial form provides decent group utility that gives the ranger some options. Root after CC is amazing.

Cons- stability options suck- healing seeds require u to wait for a delay (tho, in Zerg fights would probably be fine) and pets are still stupid (tho, much better now).

I don’t know if I have any thing great up on my YouTube page but if you google lymbo moonsea, you can watch what I have been messing around with. If u have any questions, it’s easier for me to answer them there (don’t come here too much).

I main druid in a hardcore WvW guild and am very well integrated into our roster. It is in a really good spot right now. As posters before me, I will not reveal my build for several reasons.

First, all our builds are tailor made for our specific setup, on its own/in a vacuum my build will probably not be very useful to you.

Second, most serious WvW guilds will not share neither exact setup nor their build – some streamers are even concealing info such as lifetotals or boons when they run their raid build. There are hundreds of hours going into designing and testing a new build or setup and the result is the core essence of any such guild. It is about gaining strategical advantage over other competitors and sometimes also about finding the broken stuff before the rest does or ANet nerfs it. Some will even go that far to make or promote dishonest “informative” posts or class “guides” which, although providing a sometimes solid build, have the purpose to actually distract the “casual” mass of players (and also ANet) from the really strong synergies/combinations/archetypes. Alternatively they abuse the inherently flawed voting mechanic in reddit to prevent posts conatining “critical info” to gain any serious attention.

WvW was designed to resemble war and all warfare is based on deception.

Edit: My main point with reason 2 being: If you want to become a serious wvw player, you have to be able to theorycraft properly. You dont necessarily need to design all builds completely on your own, but gain a sense for potential synergies and the ability to think outside of one class and in the proper WvW dimensions. Most of the strong stuff is pretty obvious if you spend some time on researching skills/traits available to you in the wiki. Never disregard anything just because “it is not used” or “everyone knows is bad”. Only if you actually have found a better alternative.

Like your guild Amenaza, the guild I’m in runs that and many of us theory craft. We recommend if not absolutely force people to run certain builds based on what we want to do at the time, and/or team composition. Say if one of us decides to main a class that isn’t really sought after, say thief. We’ll have people doing exactly what you recommended in the edit testing out various combinations of gear stats and trying to see any effective way to include them in our guild zerg groups.

The best advice any of us can really give the original poster is this… Yes, druids are used in WvW in both roaming and zerg/blob on zerg/blob roles. You’re best bet is to test out things yourself and find what works best for you for sustained and healing focus. You’ll not out hit many people in the guild groups, because at times frontline and engi’s, reapers, and ele’s are covering overall damage with mesmers/chronos helping out.

Your [original poster] best bet is find an active guild on your server in WvW and join them and ask them what they want you to run on your druid. You’ll get more than enough help likely from them.

Just to clarify.. i have been testing and using it, though support for it within my guild is non existent. Cant say as i blame them, there isnt exactly any references to suggest otherwise at this point and for the most part its effects are not as obvious as others.

The question was designed to see if i was on the right track, but i understand the reluctance to share information.

For me it comes down to trying to convince anyone that we could fill the roles that others get on merit to justify giving us that spot? I guess my theory crafting isnt good enough to make that argument yet.

Well Floplag, I’d suggest finding a way to get good damage numbers from long bow skills and yet getting decent if not uber heals like Ele’s with water field. I’ll not tell you any “GUILD” builds still, but in many guild groups, you’ll find that they want Ele’s to hit things on top of a wall with meteor, do fire fields, and more.

1) Therefore you’ll want to run something like torch offhand to get fire field for area might effect like Ele’s fire no. 2 skill on staff does.

2) You’ll want a large AoE like meteor, so Long bow no. 5 will help and even Long Bow number 2 for high burst damage.

3) You’ll want to supplement with staff and learn to use all the various heals on it to substitute as a water field… but there is more to this, that you can only gain by practice…

4) You’ll want to have some sort of benefit and movement advantage for yourself while in celestial avatar cause your water field won’t be as large as Healing Turret or a large water field from a staff Ele.

5) You’ll want to focus on sustainability and able to keep up with the front line fighters to get yourself noticed. Why you may ask? Ele’s often are counted as back line and rarely can offer front liners heals until the push behind the front line to help heal them. If you can keep up with front liners, you’ll get them to notice you are helping keep them up and they may eventually accept that a druid is a good support class for front liners.

… Above all those suggestions, one big comment… People won’t change their opinions overnight. So, what they had been running with for ages, they’ll likely still will prefer even if they know you can do the same job as good as their sought after classes.

Tongku.5326:

Caliburn.1845:

We’ve tried to make druid work in WvW and GvG, but overall it was lackluster. The guilds who beat us generally don’t use druids in open field or GvG. In the NA scene druids aren’t used really(except here and there experimentally). EU might use them, but I haven’t seen that in their videos either(the few I’ve watched).

I still think the class has potential, but haven’t seen anyone able to utilize it successfully yet.

False statement which is valid exclusively to your server and / or tier. Druids are a huge part of our meta.

Again guys, there are some decent streams left, watch them, adjust your builds to what you see. Also most of all your commander will need to adjust, this is of utmost importance as coordination and timing of abilities between druids is what makes or breaks it. You can watch some nice streams on weekends, perhaps not many right now cause holidays, but they are there.

And again I apologize for keeping things to myself, but until our meta is out from people figuring it out, we are keeping it to ourselves.

And what renowned guild are you from that has managed to make druid so much better than other guilds? GS? Some t1 blob guild? I see nothing in your description and see no comments detailing your guild name. As far as I am aware I’m the only person to succesfully integrate a dps druid into a guild group comp. Tips to people, druids are the most op gank when paired with scrappers….

Geez, getting all worked up over a three months old post.
You must be a necro.

I’m not a great player because I’m a little slow on the keyboard.Old worn out fingers.
But I’ve been using a druid trapper with high condi with staff and axe/ torch.It’s not a perfect build has been quite effective in group and roamer.With the staff I have the mad bomber attack and finish with axe torch.People say that druids/ranger cant do AOE well all I can do is laugh because thats simply not true.The biggest problem with people that regard some classes as “useless” in WvW group fights are the ones that haven’t played those classes or are just no freaking good at them.