Guild Wars 2

I dusted off my ranger over the weekend and fully unlocked the druid, which I really enjoyed. I decided to build a front-line cleave/healer wvw build with the staying power to be able to run alongside a commander doing damage, while providing water fields, cleansing, and CCs. What I particularly love about the build is the mobility to be able to get yourself out of trouble, and the greatsword cleave. Kinda reminds me of Aragorn (yes, I just went there).

I equipped it using karma/badges and odds and ends that I already had in my bank as I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on an alt that I may or may not play with any regularity. My main is tempest, but after spending the weekend on the druid, I may devote some more time to it, as I absolutely loved the play style.

So here is the build, and I would really appreciate any feedback from the experienced ranger/druid players out there: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWjMqQDL2yCmsAVLWyEM4baPdo+M5WATsmkVA4AkyrKwUrA-TVCBwACs/In6P91F4V5HgnAAFlgJMBt5QAE4CAEAAB4m3MbezAu5Rv5RvZCBIbCA-w

Thanks in advance!!

1. This is a big problem with any build that is not built around shouts – lack of Stability. You’re relying on other people to give it to you. This is especially pronounced when Dragonhunter LB5 is on the field. It will beat every anti-hard CC option you have outside of Strength of the Pack/Signet of the Wild. More of a warning than a build criticism.

2. This build has too much armor. Drop it down to around 3100 without Signet of Stone, at most.

3. Find a rune set and get your Zerk stat distribution elsewhere in your armor itemization (eg. lose some of the Soldier pieces). Should look into taking advantage of something like Durability (cannot go wrong with +Vit/Toughness, Area Prot/Resistance on Hit Taken).

4. Healing Spring is nice as far as a water field is concerned, but Staff 5 and CA4 can cover the same purpose. Also keep in mind that condition cleanse may already be handled by Ele WS5, Guardian Purging Flame, and other ideas. Weigh this against Troll Ungent, which you will have on a lower cooldown, self cleanses and procs Fury.
5. Swap Sigil of Accuracy for Sigil of Intelligence on GS. There are a lot better options than Sigil of Force (eg. Hydromancy).

6. For Staff, find something other than Accuracy as well. Staff is more utility in nature than damage. Energy for slot 2 is a good choice.

7. Saffron Bread or the new Damage Reduction/Boon Duration food out of Dragon Stand is better than what you’re projected to run for food.

8. Since you have Quickness on pet swap, consider abusing Bristleback F2 shotgunning. Also consider taking advantage of Smokescale F2 for self/group stealth with Staff 3.

Thanks so much for the feedback!

Agree with quite a lot of what Sorenstam says. I would add however to tinker a bit with your specialisations, pets just die in most large and/or organised wvw encounters.

The following http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnEqA1sitsAmsActgl/AD+sGXnrLFhMQAopfVD2Bp8qCM1K-TlCBAB5o+Tf6C8S5HAPAAKUCy/+DMcEASwE0GHCgAuAABAQAu5Nzm3Mgbe0be0bmUABuMC-w sets you up with remorseless which when grouped with a Herald will give you a very nice damage boost. It also provides signet of the wild if you get caught and double daze durations.

I would suggest to look at other druid traits. Druid clarity is a very nice stun breaker and clears just about all conditions and grace of the land gives your party an additional 15% buff to damage after you heal them back up again.

Runes of durability are a good investment and don’t cost any gold, just some pve time. Bloodlust sigil on staff will give you the additional +250 strength and stuff like Golden Dumplings provide some good boon duration and might generation.

Erro.2784:

Agree with quite a lot of what Sorenstam says. I would add however to tinker a bit with your specialisations, pets just die in most large and/or organised wvw encounters.

The following http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnEqA1sitsAmsActgl/AD+sGXnrLFhMQAopfVD2Bp8qCM1K-TlCBAB5o+Tf6C8S5HAPAAKUCy/+DMcEASwE0GHCgAuAABAQAu5Nzm3Mgbe0be0bmUABuMC-w sets you up with remorseless which when grouped with a Herald will give you a very nice damage boost. It also provides signet of the wild if you get caught and double daze durations.

I would suggest to look at other druid traits. Druid clarity is a very nice stun breaker and clears just about all conditions and grace of the land gives your party an additional 15% buff to damage after you heal them back up again.

Runes of durability are a good investment and don’t cost any gold, just some pve time. Bloodlust sigil on staff will give you the additional +250 strength and stuff like Golden Dumplings provide some good boon duration and might generation.

one change i would make as its a WvW focused thread take glyhp of tides instead , it’ll heal and buff more people while in celeform and push people back into doors or larva/cliffs when out of celeform much more Useful than a 10% extra damage attack , also with the glyph of tides it’ll charge AF faster as it damages / heals more people giving you more Flexability for over all use in any application or situation.

Someone posting about effective builds on page 1 reminded me to revisit this thread. Apologies. Was meaning to but GW2Skills went down and it slipped out of my head.

Erro.2784:

Agree with quite a lot of what Sorenstam says. I would add however to tinker a bit with your specialisations, pets just die in most large and/or organised wvw encounters.

While universally agreed that pets suck in WvW engagements (exception: small roam team), the idea behind a Bristleback shotgun is to abuse Zephyr’s Wind on petswap to put an F2 right in a target’s face. Just an option.

The following http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnEqA1sitsAmsActgl/AD+sGXnrLFhMQAopfVD2Bp8qCM1K-TlCBAB5o+Tf6C8S5HAPAAKUCy/+DMcEASwE0GHCgAuAABAQAu5Nzm3Mgbe0be0bmUABuMC-w sets you up with remorseless which when grouped with a Herald will give you a very nice damage boost. It also provides signet of the wild if you get caught and double daze durations.

RE: Build

If he’s running Wilderness Survival, then he does not need Druidic Clarity. His Wilderness skills combined with condi cleanse from comp should be enough to cover. Primal Echoes has better synergy due to Daze on swap, which is extended by Moment of Clarity. Also keep in mind that Primal Echoes also triggers when leaving Celestial Avatar while equipped with a staff (it is treated as a weapon swap, similar to Elementalist attunement).

If you’re running Strength of the Pack, you might as well run We Heal as One along with it. Ultimately it comes down to preference.

Enlargement is nice to have in a pinch. Arguable between that and Clarion Bond though. Good call on Remorseless. Keep in mind though that you arguably do not need a Herald always, since SotP produces Fury ticks as well.

RE: Glyphs.

First, a correction on Zenos’ part. Tides does not heal natively.

Personal preference:
Equality > Tides > Alignment = Empowerment.

Equality is a self-stun break, PBAOE daze and PBAOE stun break on demand.
Tides is good as far as what Zenos recommends with respect to disrupting positioning.
Alignment and Empowerment have their own niches, but considering the amount of interrupt potential from the above two, these two sort of get nixed. Empowerment feels more like a PvE Glyph than a PvP or WvW Glyph.

Keep in mind that for CC, Druid has the following if you follow along with what I have brought up:

1. Entangle – Immobilize
2. Staff 4 – Line Immobilize/Group Movement Cleanse
3. Swap to Staff – PBAOE Daze
4. GS4 – Knockback Counterhit
5. GS5 – Single Target Daze
6. Glyph of Equality – PBAOE Daze
7. Glyph of Tides – PBAOE Knockback
8. CA3 – Ranged AOE Daze

That’s a lot of potential interrupts, movement kitten ups and some other wonky business I’m not allowed to touch on.

—

The healing component of any glyph outside of Alignment is actually attributed to Verdant Etching. Besides giving Glyphs even better CDs, it also drops CA2 and the point where you used the Glyph. This is good for three things:

1. Pinch heals
2. Additional AF generation
3. AOE Blindness when the seed pops