Guild Wars 2

Hi folks,

I recently returned after being AFG since before HoT, and bought the expansion after the April 19th patch. I’ve played six of my nine characters through the story, including ranger.

I mostly play open world on my own, not in the “organised groups” beloved of build theorists, so I have nobody to heal/buff and I’m not getting any group buffs.

So far I’ve stuck with my pre-HOT marksmanship + skirmishing + nature magic longbow and sword/X zerker Frostspotter build, deploying the spirit for bigger fights. The only things I’ve really changed are to acquire an Electric Wyvern for these new fangled break bars and a tiger to experiment with extra fury.

I look at druid traits and I don’t see anything that looks useful, except maybe piercing arrows from one of them. I’ve unlocked druid, but I’m not seeing a reason to use it. But I must admit that I don’t even know what “celestial avatar” is, so maybe I’m missing the point.

Have I missed something? Am I going to get any personal DPS or personal utility out of Druid?

Hey there, and welcome back to the game

Your assumptions are correct, Druid is not for your personal DPS, but adds great ability to keep teammates above 90% for scholar bonuses and then the added bonus damage of Grace of the land and Glyph of empowerment to Buff you and your allies.

As far as personal utility goes, the Druid line does add some very nice things (at the cost of personal DPS to some extent):

1. Druidic Clarity, stun break and full condition cleanse when you enter astral form
2. Celestial Shadow, Stealth and Superspeed when you exit astral form
3. Natural stride, 33% passive speed boost and reduction in duration of movement impairing conditions.
4. Ancient Seeds, basically an entangle (like the elite) when you hit a stunned target, at a low 10s ICD.

In general compared to a normal frost spotter you will do a bit less DPS than a Druid counter part, but the added utility, and party buffs, even in open world, where you have larger events with many people will pull Druid ahead of Core ranger, not by personal DPS but by how it affects your allies.

I use it in regular PvE for the wispy woo travel skill. It lets me travel faster and avoid enemies, and is cool to land on combo fields created by the pet.
Natural Stride is good too, as I don’t need the signet anymore for movement speed.
Still haven’t found a place for celestal avatar and I hardly ever use it.

I’ve found it to be very helpful on the HoT maps since things tend to hit harder and CAF help burning break bars on a lot of the mobs in those maps