Druid feels so weak
Druids depend a lot on gear, unfortunately. The greatest value of the druid comes from party support; magi’s gear ous your friend in that situation. But vanilla DPS ranger is really reliant on berserkers or marauders gear. To answer your question, you may have to choose between vanilla zerk/marauder and druid magi if you want to optimize your build… Unless you can find a way to make Zealot gear work.
Well to actually do damage with the staff i would need power i suppose? Staff hasnt any condi at all, so how do i kill stuff when i go magi and gather +heal? Or am i a heal bot only as druid?
Staff has a weak power co-efficiant as far as I am aware, so if you’re looking for damage, you’d be looking at Sword/Axe, with Longbow for quickdraw burst damage with a 2-5-2 combo (filling the remainder of your weaponswap cooldown with the Celestial Avatar rotation for GOTL).
Unfortunately, it’s fairly difficult to heal as a Druid without Healing Power – for a power build, you’re maintaining your rotation for the group buffs, not the sustain.
If you’re looking to play healbot, Magi + Superior Rune of the Monk (From Ascalon Catacombs) will allow you and 5 others to outheal most content. For this build, I prefer Sword/Warhorn + Staff. Doing this allows you to focus soley on group buffs (FURY FOR DAYS!), as you have a larger sustain buffer.
(edited by Westenev.5289)
Staff has a weak power co-efficiant as far as I am aware, so if you’re looking for damage, you’d be looking at Sword/Axe, with Longbow for quickdraw burst damage with a 2-5-2 combo (filling the remainder of your weaponswap cooldown with the Celestial Avatar rotation for GOTL).
Unfortunately, it’s fairly difficult to heal as a Druid without Healing Power – for a power build, you’re maintaining your rotation for the group buffs, not the sustain.
If you’re looking to play healbot, Magi + Superior Rune of the Monk (From Ascalon Catacombs) will allow you and 5 others to outheal most content. For this build, I prefer Sword/Warhorn + Staff. Doing this allows you to focus soley on group buffs (FURY FOR DAYS!), as you have a larger sustain buffer.
I was dreaming of self sustain soloing PvE and roaming WvW. But i dont seem to outheal damage dealt to me. Alone switching to staff i just cant keep myself alive. In the process i am mostly dead after a few seconds.
Ok, people really need to stop suggesting going Magi for someone new and for Open PvE. Not only he will hit like a wet noodle, he won’t do far with that soloing PvE.
CA healing coefficient got nerfed many time. You either need to invest a lot in healing power or don’t.
You aren’t supposed to sit on Staff to do damage. You sit on Staff to get your CA bar up, to heal, for mobility or to go through reflects.
For the rest, get on a Power or Condi set. Power preferably if you’re new. Do you use your pet efficiently ? You should post your build so we can tell you what is wrong.
What can help you greatly is to watch people PvP/WvW Roaming with Druid on YouTube.
(edited by Krispera.5087)
Honestly, the only build safer than magi-staff druid is a minion reaper – though, I will admit it does take awhile to kill anything, so throwing in Zerk trinkets never hurts.
What kind of stats are you running at the moment, fashion?
Anyone playing magi in open world is going to quit the franchise in 4 minutes.
Fashion you need some basic PvE advice. For HoT, take 1 stun break, take 1 condi clear, and as much damage as possible. If kitten goes wrong, use CA and skill 4 to heal enough to not die. If you are really struggling take Signet of Stone to buy you enough time to kill an entire mob. If a mob is particularly hard use tiger (or another cat) and longbow to kill them while you maintain 100% health.
Edit: Don’t use staff in open world unless you want to move fast. It’s one of the lowest damage weapons in the entire game and no one wants your healing. Everyone is in pure damage gear and effortlessly killing all the weak mobs, your help is not needed.
(edited by Fluffball.8307)
Well i was still running Zerker Longbow and Greatsword, as condition shortbow axe torch or horn. Of course healing was rubbish, but dps with staff was even with zerker underwhelming. I cant imagine killing anything with healing gear. Thought about shortbow with staff and condi healing gear…
Anyways i think now that i cant compare to a longsword bow guardian, it seems they dps and heal decently. But i love the nature themed druid and staff…
Pets are Lynx and as tank arcturus.
Ranger LB is more reliable and do more damage than Guardian LB in most of situations. Solar Beam can do okay-ish damage on Power set, but you aren’t supposed to sit on Staff.
While in CA and soloing, you mostly just use 3 and 4 for heals, then you get out. Don’t sit in CA and do 1 and 2.
Like Fluffball suggested, be sure to always have a Stun Break, a Condi Clear and maybe an Immunity. You can go pretty far by just using Signet of Renewal and Signet of Stone.
As for pets, change to HoT pets as soon as possible : Smokescale, Bristleback, Electric Wyvern or Tiger.
Brown Bear would be better than Arcturus.
I really have no problems with Ranger. While doing my elite specs on all my characters, Ranger was the easiest, because you have easy access to CC to break bars in HoT. Would be really curious to see your traits.
Ok, so heres the basic problem. Druid as a spec is effectively mutually exclusive from the majority of other Ranger loadouts, with one exception. The spec itself is geared entirely toward group support, sacrificing damage options in the process. Its also the only group support spec that focuses on heals rather then boon support; which run contrary to most of the game’s core design principles. It was created, tuned, and synergies specifically with how Raids were designed….. and ironically are starting to lose to Tempest, because that class has more inline support to compliment its healing.
This leaves only 2 functions for Druid, and are really the only reason to take them into raids. 1. They can better stagger their healing, but reatain 2 strong burst heals in emergencies. (which is inconsequential if your team is good) 2. “Grace of the Land” being a buff allows it to stack on top of might.
The one outlier in this situation is Condi Druid, because DOTs are less impacted by sequence breaks, and Ranger condi is currently insanely powerful in Raid meta atm. I’d actually argue a healing Druid fell out of the Meta, because the Druid’s main benefit IS GotL, and a Condi Druid can still bring 85% of its personal DPS while boosting the team DPS by a significant amount (near continuous 14-20%).
Heres where you’re having trouble. Core Ranger is this hodgepodge of individually strong facets, but terrible internal synergy compared to other classes. Druid exacerbates this problem, because its a mutually exclusive Group Support spec that the ranger can’t personally capitalize on (efficiently), nor does it bring personal protection to offset the loss of a defensive traits.
Another problem is Core Ranger needing paired traits to get competitive damage, due to 25% of their DPS being monopolized by their pet. Skirmishing is Mandatory in all builds due to the sheer utility of the QuickDraw trait, while a second trait line is dedicated to damage type. Full Zerks/Vipers is also pretty integral to their respective builds, as Ranger damage coefficients are lower then normal; giving less for the % traits to boost off of. Normally the 3rd trait line would be used for defense, but thats now taken up by Druid for access to its skills. So despite having access to heals, you’re giving up fairly reliable defensive traits to make up the damage loss, and then interrupting your damage output to use those healing skills. This is why Druids feel really squishy, while Core Ranger feels oddly durable.
No matter how hard you try to mitigate it….. Druid is a personal DPS loss, limits personal defense options, and only benefits a group setup. I’ve honestly tried every thing I can think of to make Druid work for Solo/Casual play, and it just doesn’t work to your benefit. You either give up too much damage to keep up with HOT mobs, or are really vulnerable to big damage that the HOT mobs dish out. If you operate with a group/squad, the benefits are worth the trade off….. but it makes you very dependent on other players to cover the damage difference.
On a final note: The Staff is designed to be almost purely utilitarian. Staff 1 gives a continuous source of healing to build energy for CA, but is underwhelming as a healing source. Staff 2 is similar in function, but with a different targeting system. Staff 3 is a Burst heal and Blast Finisher, and doubles as a travel skill for re-positioning in fights. Staff 4 is a geared mainly for WvW, clearing movement impeding skills, or pinning stragglers. Staff 5 serves the same overall function as Wall of Reflect.
I play a full Viper Druid when I solo using Axe/Torch and Shortbow (sometimes Warhorn) and use all Glyphs except for Flame Trap.
The Glyphs are great because while traited they are also a Condi Cleanse which is a major pain I found in the HoT maps.
If I don’t go Druid, than I take Beastmastery instead.
This build isn’t meta, and I’m sure most would say it’s trash, but I have a great time with it and never die. And yes, it can kill people, just not as fast as a true power build.
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Bunker_Druid_Roamer
This build isn’t meta, and I’m sure most would say it’s trash, but I have a great time with it and never die. And yes, it can kill people, just not as fast as a true power build.
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Bunker_Druid_Roamer
Interesting Build Pip, you run the exact same traits as I do. However, your weapon choices and gearing choices are way different.
Can you link a build editor load out? I am curious on your total health and boon duration.
Edit: NM, I put in the gear into an editor and got my answers!
Sarhaz [CDS]
I was a ranger before shortbow had 1200m range AND after it didn’t…
I was a ranger before shortbow had 1200m range AND after it didn’t…
(edited by GUFF.5692)
Staff has a weak power co-efficiant as far as I am aware, so if you’re looking for damage, you’d be looking at Sword/Axe, with Longbow for quickdraw burst damage with a 2-5-2 combo (filling the remainder of your weaponswap cooldown with the Celestial Avatar rotation for GOTL).
Unfortunately, it’s fairly difficult to heal as a Druid without Healing Power – for a power build, you’re maintaining your rotation for the group buffs, not the sustain.
If you’re looking to play healbot, Magi + Superior Rune of the Monk (From Ascalon Catacombs) will allow you and 5 others to outheal most content. For this build, I prefer Sword/Warhorn + Staff. Doing this allows you to focus soley on group buffs (FURY FOR DAYS!), as you have a larger sustain buffer.
I was dreaming of self sustain soloing PvE and roaming WvW. But i dont seem to outheal damage dealt to me. Alone switching to staff i just cant keep myself alive. In the process i am mostly dead after a few seconds.
Druid has some sweet CC and condi cappabbilities.
Use axe torch/dagger for dmg and evades and staff to disengage and projectile defences.
Use traps and trapper rune and some glyphs for CC and stunbreak. Entangle as elite and you got a very strong WvW build.
Pale Raiders united.
9 Sylvari, 9 unique Builds.
9 Sylvari, 9 unique Builds.
Many good advices have already been given. I dont agree with the people suggesting you go Magi in open world PvE tho. The best druid build for me in all instances (Open World PvE, fractals, Raids etc…. i dont do PvP sorry) is Condi Druid. Understand full Viper gear, without any healing power into it, because it is a waste. As for weapons – Shorbow and Axe/Torch on swap with Lynx or Tiger (For Open world PvE you can get a pet with more utility rather then pure DPS and boon output).
The healing from the CA should be more then enough if you actually use your active defenses to dodge and evade (like ‘Quick Shot’ – shortbow 3). Also a good tip for building faster CA on Condi druid is to cast Flower of Life and have it proc when you are already outside avatar to build some CA. Glyph of Rejuvenation and your CA skills should give you more then enough heals if you use them properly at the right time and you learn to actively dodge and recognise the more dangerous mobs attacks, which you need to evade. Every build ever will feel week if you face hoards of mobs (especially in HoT) and expect to face roll them. HoT isnt Central Tyria, which is waay more casual-friendly.
What is “Flower of Life”? I’ve never heard of it and it isn’t in the wiki.
I think he means seed of life and have it pop after you’ve left CA.