Guild Wars 2

Just a post really to summarise the nature of potential builds that could make use of the Druid traitline. Literally just the summaries here to make it easier to see the breadth of potential builds without the clog of all the detail which can come later. Obviously these may or may not be viable depending on what we observe during the BWE, but it gives an idea template for things for people to test using their own takes on armor/traits/weapons etc. I also hope this thread will show the Negative Nancys out there that you are not forced into being a healer if you take the Druid traitline.

1. Straight-up super group healbot (clerics etc.) maximised for healing power. e.g. Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic/Druid.

2. Longbow power selfish healer. Damage focus with the Druid traitline providing self-sustain/cc for the squisher builds. e.g. Marksmanship/Skirmishing/Druid

3. Druidic Beastmaster. Heavy pet-focus with the Druid acting as a secondary/support function to the pet. This may only have a use in solo PvE content – for example boss soloing. Axe+Warhorn/Staff set-up. Axe 1 provides might stacking while warhorn provides standard buffs , switch to staff for damage/cc/pet healing. Alternatively replace axe+warhorn with longbow. e.g. Marksmanship/Beastmastery/Druid (or switch out Marksmanship for another traitline giving less Druid damage support but more pet sustain focus).

4. Druidic condi bunker. Sacrifice the Beastmastery traitline for the Druid line (keeping Wilderness Survival and Nature Magic) – supplement existing condi bunker builds (Settlers etc.) with healing and/or CC. e.g. Wilderness survival/Nature magic/Druid.

5. Mcrocha: Druid Trapper. Primal Echoes + Ancient Seeds to bomb enemies in traps. Settlers/apothecary for mad sustain and Druid line for the condi removal usually lacking.

5.1. Ehecatl: Druid Trapper. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsfWjMqQ7K2tCmrAVLWYEM4m6Vtr2EB6cJNmCwlLAcyziGM-TZRFwAt3fAwTAIxJAIaZAEHCAA

Trapper Druid. Lots of bleeds, decent condi clear that leaves Poison Master open to take. Britlseback bumped up to 1,300 condi damage so it’s bleeds are actually stronger than the druid’s. Good sustain through heals and the potential for a couple different condi bursts. Resistant to slow effects but vulnerable to hard stuns.

6. HotHit: Moment of Clarity Druid. You’ve got a LOT of dazes available to you as a Druid. Take all of them and lock down some suckers. Take a greatsword and staff, the latter is needed for primal echoes, the former synergieses with MoC. Wilderness Knowledge sets up the Remorseless triggers better than most things and deals with primal echoes invalidating Druidic Clarity, not needing to take Verdant Etching gives you access to Natural Stride, not needing a speed boost (though GS/Staff is naturally pretty mobile) means you don’t need runes of the traveller. So yeah, CC/support Druid that has maximum mobility and is pretty tough to take down. Marksmanship/Wildeness Survival/Druid

7. Blood Red Arachnid: Kitty/Kitty Zerk PvE Druid:

Gear: Full Berserker
Sword/Axe + Staff
Kitty / Kitty
Marskmanship: Clarion Bond, Steady Focus, Predator’s Onslaught
Beastmastery: Companion’s Might, Natural Healing, Zephy’rs Speed
Druid: Cultivated Synergy, Natural Stride, Lingering Light

Glyph of Rejuvenation, Quickening Zephyr, Frost Spirit, Signet of the Wild, Strength of the Pack. I considered using glyph of empowerment, but it just isn’t as strong as Frost Spirit. Anyway, this build is basically the PVE power build, except it trades the offensive bonuses of spotter and longbow with mild sustained and burst healing. I don’t imagine this build to be super useful, but it will definitely be good at carrying pugs.
The alternate version uses Greatsword instead of sword/axe, along with remoreseless and two-handed training.

8. Mistsim: Daze Druid. Offensive daze build: MoC, Mesmer runes, celestial or valk stats

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnEqAlsgVsCOsAEtil/ADet+WvrLvuMQAopfVD2BjYM-TpgUQAyyAg9HAA

9. Ehecatl: Spirit Druid. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAVWn8ICtqgNrA+qAEtglEBDeq2VHrOpuUwN4JAE7ednMhcBD-TZRFwAYLD0e/BAPBAIXAAEHCAA

Lots of protection and might for the team, tons of might for the pet plus taunt. Moa can taunt an enemy into it’s daze to set up Ancient Seeds for a 5 second immobilize and bleeds. Decent vigor and stability up time from the spirits to help with defense. Lots of heals. Healing from Water and Nature Spirit plus staff heals to heal the spirits which also heal you from Live Vicariously. Potentially very high astral force generation to do a full condi clear every 10-15 seconds plus burst heals. Steady condi pressure plus pet bursts to down enemies.
Playstyle: You are the shepherd and the spirits are your flock. Stay near them and protect them as they give you boons.

Please comment with any others I can add to the list – thanks.

On the subject of non-healer based druid builds…

I wonder if Quick Draw gets triggered by leaving Celestial Form?

I guess it would as that staff daze gets triggered on form exit – as Irenio made a point of mentioning it on the stream.

So you could CF, pump out some aoe daze, exit CF, then gets some back to back rapid fires on the go for a bit of spike – even more fun if you factor in the ancient seeds root proc.

I’m wondering if CF has a cooldown associated to it? to prevent players from ducking in and out of the form rapidly in order to max these sort of wep swap procs.

Ancient seeds should also proc off LB knockback too.. which is also useful for a Quick Draw Druid LB Spiker.

Gonna give a Druid Trapper build a go.

Primal Echoes+Ancient Seeds to bomb enemies in traps. Settlers/apothecary for mad sustain and Druid line for the condi removal usually lacking.

My only concerns with relying on druid for CC / heals / condi cleanse are:

1) How fast we can charge it up with heals/dmg

2) Does the charge decay over time when not in combat like Warriors adrenaline? Leading to a situation where combat starts.. not enough charge to go CF.. so cant do any condi removal.

3) Can the bar be topped up when actually in CF? or only when out of it?

I think settlers will be ideal. I’d just be concerned about AF genereration without staff, seeing as S/T A/D will likely still be better for this build. Maybe staff/SB could work, since the SB daze can trigger ancient seeds, but I’m not sure considering how bonfire+evade spam is overall a lot better.

I think it could work at traps, but I think having to drop a line for skirmishing would be hard to do since you need the sustain from the other traitlines, but druid could let you substitute one if you take some of the condi cleanse traits.

^ Celestial Form generation I feel will be picked up as a potential issue pretty quickly in the BWE, in particular the damage vs. healing contribution to its re-filling.

An idea of mine is pretty silly, but…

Moment of Clarity Druid

You’ve got a LOT of dazes available to you as a Druid. Take all of them and lock down some suckers. Take a greatsword and staff, the latter is needed for primal echoes, the former synergieses with MoC. Wilderness Knowledge sets up the Remorseless triggers better than most things and deals with primal echoes invalidating Druidic Clarity, not needing to take Verdant Etching gives you access to Natural Stride, not needing a speed boost (though GS/Staff is naturally pretty mobile) means you don’t need runes of the traveller. So yeah, CC/support Druid that has maximum mobility and is pretty tough to take down.
Marksmanship/Wildeness Survival/Druid

On the PVE side, there’s two builds. Or rather, one build with slight variation.

Gear: Full Berserker
Sword/Axe + Staff
Kitty / Kitty
Marskmanship: Clarion Bond, Steady Focus, Predator’s Onslaught
Beastmastery: Companion’s Might, Natural Healing, Zephy’rs Speed
Druid: Cultivated Synergy, Natural Stride, Lingering Light
Glyph of Rejuvenation, Quickening Zephyr, Frost Spirit, Signet of the Wild, Strength of the Pack

I considered using glyph of empowerment, but it just isn’t as strong as Frost Spirit. Anyway, this build is basically the PVE power build, except it trades the offensive bonuses of spotter and longbow with mild sustained and burst healing. I don’t imagine this build to be super useful, but it will definitely be good at carrying pugs.

The alternate version uses Greatsword instead of sword/axe, along with remoreseless and two-handed training.

Updated

Depends on how healing power scales with Druid skills but ill try something like this at first
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhNYkRFaYx+VgrFCEClP7zwtvleAU1A-TVCEABJcIAEUJYnq/olyP62foD9BIcEAA4BA8wJAgUA+tMC-w

Druid Traits: Druidic Clarity, Natural Stride, Ancient Seeds

Swap in Staff for Longbow.
Swap out SotP for Glyph of Unity
Last utility spot will be for Glyph testing (Signet of the Wild will be there in WvW though)
Pets: Smokescale + Wyvern (either one, will swap in Wolf as needed)
Oh and running warhorn just for that extra blast with the new combo fields from pets.

If healing scales terribly though, I will just run a power build with strength or pack runes instead.

Draeyon.4392:

Depends on how healing power scales with Druid skills but ill try something like this at first
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhNYkRFaYx+VgrFCEClP7zwtvleAU1A-TVCEABJcIAEUJYnq/olyP62foD9BIcEAA4BA8wJAgUA+tMC-w

Druid Traits: Druidic Clarity, Natural Stride, Ancient Seeds

Swap in Staff for Longbow.
Swap out SotP for Glyph of Unity
Last utility spot will be for Glyph testing (Signet of the Wild will be there in WvW though)
Pets: Smokescale + Wyvern (either one, will swap in Wolf as needed)
Oh and running warhorn just for that extra blast with the new combo fields from pets.

If healing scales terribly though, I will just run a power build with strength or pack runes instead.

Thanks, do you have name/brief description for this build? Also what game mode would you mostly use it in?

Staff Druid seems to be rather power-based. If I want a good heal/condi hybrid, any suggestion?

Many thanks!

Oh My God.8423:

Staff Druid seems to be rather power-based. If I want a good heal/condi hybrid, any suggestion?

Many thanks!

For a bunker condi build with lots of healing you could try:

Weaponset: Axe/Torch + staff (that’s if you want to use Staff at all, otherwise you could take the current Axe/Dagger + Sword/Torch condi set up)

Armour and trinkets: Apothecary (PvE/WvW) or Settlers (PvP) both are condi, toughness and healing power stats

Runes: Runes of the Undead (toughness + condi damage, 7% of toughness converted into condi damage) These are very cheap too!

Traits: Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic/Druid (individual traits are your choice but the best ones are fairly obvious to pick)

Sigils: geomancy and bursting I’d take, but these may be switched at your whim.

Bryzy.2719:

Oh My God.8423:

Staff Druid seems to be rather power-based. If I want a good heal/condi hybrid, any suggestion?

Many thanks!

For a bunker condi build with lots of healing you could try:

Weaponset: Axe/Torch + staff (that’s if you want to use Staff at all, otherwise you could take the current Axe/Dagger + Sword/Torch condi set up)

Armour and trinkets: Apothecary (PvE/WvW) or Settlers (PvP) both are condi, toughness and healing power stats

Runes: Runes of the Undead (toughness + condi damage, 7% of toughness converted into condi damage) These are very cheap too!

Traits: Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic/Druid (individual traits are your choice but the best ones are fairly obvious to pick)

Sigils: geomancy and bursting I’d take, but these may be switched at your whim.

Thanks!

IF I want to keep Beastmastery, which one of the two – Wilderness and Nature Magic – can I drop?

Oh My God.8423:

Bryzy.2719:

Oh My God.8423:

Staff Druid seems to be rather power-based. If I want a good heal/condi hybrid, any suggestion?

Many thanks!

For a bunker condi build with lots of healing you could try:

Weaponset: Axe/Torch + staff (that’s if you want to use Staff at all, otherwise you could take the current Axe/Dagger + Sword/Torch condi set up)

Armour and trinkets: Apothecary (PvE/WvW) or Settlers (PvP) both are condi, toughness and healing power stats

Runes: Runes of the Undead (toughness + condi damage, 7% of toughness converted into condi damage) These are very cheap too!

Traits: Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic/Druid (individual traits are your choice but the best ones are fairly obvious to pick)

Sigils: geomancy and bursting I’d take, but these may be switched at your whim.

Thanks!

IF I want to keep Beastmastery, which one of the two – Wilderness and Nature Magic – can I drop?

I couldn’t say to be honest – you’d have to go on gw2skills editor and cross compare them. Personally – and I think most would agree – Wilderness Survival and Nature Magic are both better than Beastmastery because they offer better traits… but it depends how exactly you plan on playing your build. If you want more pet involvement then yes take Beastmastery, but it’s too tough to choose between WS and NM >.<

HotHit.6783:

An idea of mine is pretty silly, but…

Moment of Clarity Druid

You’ve got a LOT of dazes available to you as a Druid. Take all of them and lock down some suckers. Take a greatsword and staff, the latter is needed for primal echoes, the former synergieses with MoC. Wilderness Knowledge sets up the Remorseless triggers better than most things and deals with primal echoes invalidating Druidic Clarity, not needing to take Verdant Etching gives you access to Natural Stride, not needing a speed boost (though GS/Staff is naturally pretty mobile) means you don’t need runes of the traveller. So yeah, CC/support Druid that has maximum mobility and is pretty tough to take down.
Marksmanship/Wildeness Survival/Druid

hey thanks for giving us that idea. daze druid is going to be an offensive powerhouse. these are the two builds i’ll be running tomorrow

offensive daze build: MoC, Mesmer runes, celestial or valk stats

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnEqAlsgVsCOsAEtil/ADet+WvrLvuMQAopfVD2BjYM-TpgUQAyyAg9HAA

healbot: not sure about stats yet, cleric or celestial; i don’t think cleric will have enough survivability; monk or dwayna runes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhZ6keVokFsiVwhFgoVskJYw10d6Q1Jxt4mZNJrAwBYC3A-TpwNgAtlBA2fAA

I’m really excited about the dino dog’s smoke field. if using staff/GS, we can blast + leap finish over it for lots of stealth.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsfWjMqQ7K2tCmrAVLWYEM4m6Vtr2EB6cJNmCwlLAcyziGM-TZRFwAt3fAwTAIxJAIaZAEHCAA

Trapper Druid. Lots of bleeds, decent condi clear that leaves Poison Master open to take. Britlseback bumped up to 1,300 condi damage so it’s bleeds are actually stronger than the druid’s. Good sustain through heals and the potential for a couple different condi bursts. Resistant to slow effects but vulnerable to hard stuns.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAVWn8ICtqgNrA+qAEtglEBDeq2VHrOpuUwN4JAE7ednMhcBD-TZRFwAYLD0e/BAPBAIXAAEHCAA

Spirit Druid. Lots of protection and might for the team, tons of might for the pet plus taunt. Moa can taunt an enemy into it’s daze to set up Ancient Seeds for a 5 second immobilize and bleeds. Decent vigor and stability up time from the spirits to help with defense. Lots of heals. Healing from Water and Nature Spirit plus staff heals to heal the spirits which also heal you from Live Vicariously. Potentially very high astral force generation to do a full condi clear every 10-15 seconds plus burst heals. Steady condi pressure plus pet bursts to down enemies.
Playstyle: You are the shepherd and the spirits are your flock. Stay near them and protect them as they give you boons.

Bryzy.2719:

Oh My God.8423:

Bryzy.2719:

Oh My God.8423:

Staff Druid seems to be rather power-based. If I want a good heal/condi hybrid, any suggestion?

Many thanks!

For a bunker condi build with lots of healing you could try:

Weaponset: Axe/Torch + staff (that’s if you want to use Staff at all, otherwise you could take the current Axe/Dagger + Sword/Torch condi set up)

Armour and trinkets: Apothecary (PvE/WvW) or Settlers (PvP) both are condi, toughness and healing power stats

Runes: Runes of the Undead (toughness + condi damage, 7% of toughness converted into condi damage) These are very cheap too!

Traits: Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic/Druid (individual traits are your choice but the best ones are fairly obvious to pick)

Sigils: geomancy and bursting I’d take, but these may be switched at your whim.

Thanks!

IF I want to keep Beastmastery, which one of the two – Wilderness and Nature Magic – can I drop?

I couldn’t say to be honest – you’d have to go on gw2skills editor and cross compare them. Personally – and I think most would agree – Wilderness Survival and Nature Magic are both better than Beastmastery because they offer better traits… but it depends how exactly you plan on playing your build. If you want more pet involvement then yes take Beastmastery, but it’s too tough to choose between WS and NM >.<

I know… so difficult to choose.

Yes indeed I want to involve my pets more either by way of compensating my personal DPS or by way of other supports. I think because I used to play pet-class for a long long time so using pet active has been ingrained in my playstyle.

I notice the build calculator has been updated. I shall play around with it.

Thank you very much for your suggestions again.

Thanks for the ideas peeps – updated.

I am still looking for a WvW build based in power and traveler’s runes, maximizing power and being able to survive – the staff is an amazing weapon but I don’t think I quite have the right gear yet or being so hybrid is keeping me from dying each time, not really sure.

I am still looking for a WvW build based in power and traveler’s runes, maximizing power and being able to survive – the staff is an amazing weapon but I don’t think I quite have the right gear yet or being so hybrid is keeping me from dying each time, not really sure.

I am still looking for a WvW build based in power and traveler’s runes, maximizing power and being able to survive – the staff is an amazing weapon but I don’t think I quite have the right gear yet or being so hybrid is keeping me from dying each time, not really sure.