Guild Wars 2

So, I was wondering for a long time weather I should post this build, recently I came to the conclusion people deserve to know there are other ways of playing druid that have nothing to do with LB, GS or glyphs whatsoever.

Here’s the build :
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAnfWjMqQ5K2tCOsAVLWYEM4o6VtryUAucBgmIQtKpVizrA-TphAQB8Y/h/8AAAwJAwDHCAIWG4DHBAA

Now this might look like an average sort of build that lacks the survivability many people depend on when playing ranger, this is true.
The build focuses on extensive condi application to the amount that most enemies will die so quickly your sustain wont matter.
This build excels in point defending while fighting 1v1 / 1v2, it is also an excellent build for cleaving dawned enemies.

General idea is jumping in a teamfight AFTER most of the abilities were used (meaning the condi transfers/cleanses were wasted) and applying your 20 bleed stacks on top of poison and burning (proc quick draw on torch 5 followed by proc 3 on CA).
Your goal is to apply as much condis as possible before swapping back to staff (for aoe daze and chill+extra Ancestral roots on swap) followed by CA form spell 3 to keep the enemies dazed with the conditions ticking.

Runes of Krait are probably the most bizarre thing on this build, and the thing that actually makes it work as well. This rune makes it insanely easy to maintain high bleed stacks on your foe for very long time allowing you to inflict bleeding in mid -> run to home for defense 1v2 -> get rallied 40 seconds later when some enemy died from your bullkitten condi duration in mid.
The krait runes also give you an extra condi (torment) as some extra fodder for the enemy condi removal (on that node use axe 3 for more condi removal fodder).

Build strength’s : easy to play, excellent 1v1-1v2, insane point holding power, insane dawn state damage (1k on hit) and dawn state survivability (wolf – only possible cause you dont need to depend on pets for damage on this build).
Build weaknesses : low sustain, enemy team with 3+ minion/condi necros. Or tanky shout tempest builds (Trooper).

When fighting a condi necro your objective is to : elite->both traps-> torch 5->axe 2-> axe 4 -> swap staff(procs stuff..) -> staff 3 AWAY. (mix pet fear/barrage in it).
you need to stay away from the necro after finishing that combo which should take about 4 seconds tops. By running away you wont let him condi transfer.

Cleaving -> torch 5 and axe 2 should handle most of the cleave but if the enemy comes for a rez do the following : place your spike trap to interrupt, if on cd swap to wolf and fear immidiately while placing whatever traps and damage you can. Swap to ca form spell 5 to finish them off before taking on the second enemy with ca 3 followed by your usual condi combos.

My experience with this build : Last season and this season, easily got to Diamond before stopping playing (I simply stopped playing ranked after diamond for personal reasons).

Adjustments : If enemy team is heavy on necros AND cc you will need to swap Poison Master to Wilderness Knowledge followed by swapping your stone signet to Reflexes.
if enemy team is heavy on necros and condi in general, you will want to swap Wilderness Survival to Nature Magic going Bottom->Top->Middle, and maybe swapping Primal Echoes to Druidic Clarity.

Note : the damage values on the Build Editor will show wrong numbers cause the Sage Amulet is bugged (its written 1050 healing, 560 condi WHILE IN FACT its 1050 condi and 560 healing!!! – so dont worry your damage will be much higher).
if you want to see approximate damage values swap the Sage Amulet to Carrion.

Hopefully you wont overlook this build just cause it uses completely out of meta stuff, but even if you do, some of us will just get to keep the element of surprise with another great Trap druid build (:

why hydromancy sigil instead of geomancy sigil? Or you prefer chill if the person has stability?

This wouldn’t be bad if not the complete and total lack of evades or blocks, condition removal, cc, support, etc…

I get you wanna play condi ranger but it just isn’t viable anymore in competitive PvP… You have three hard CC’s: staff swap, spike trap, and wolf fear… I don’t count wolf knockdown as it isn’t controllable.

Your support is non exsistant unless someone happens to stand around in your healing spring…

Condition removal involves standing in a water field for 5 clears total over a TEN SECOND period… With no blocks/evades it isn’t viable to stand in that one spot the full duration…

No blocks/evades other than staff 3…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8fjEqQ5KWyCusAVLWMEMmAworBAnVHrp1m31JoFUyKOD-TZRFABJcEAOvMAAPAAGuIAps/AA

Different build… Still amazing 1v1 or 1v2… Has evades (2)…. On demand condi removal… Just as much CC… It does lack team support but that’s not the purpose… Still not good enough for top tier competitive but it’s fun to break out from time to time… You’ll also be able to take more hits due to wanderers’ giving toughness and with the on demand condi removal vitality isn’t as important…

Yeah healing spring + seeds of life on top of a point is just horrible condition removal !
And worse is Ancestral Grace/quick draw with aoe blind spam to back it up!

Seriously, even I can stay alive on a point using rampagers amulet with just seeds of life for a reasonable amount of time.

Seeds of life? Where? It’s definitely not in the linked build…

A seed of life = nuke here icon… 99% of rangers will stand there taking the abuse while they wait for their little heal and condition removal in hopes of removing my 30+ bleed ticks but will be covered up by weakness, blind, torment, poison or any other number of the conditions I’m not actually doing my damage with.

Ranger’s best condition removal from my experience is from soldier runes w/ shouts, WS, and Druidic Clarity… I guess you could count the signet too with those super heavy condi teams… Empathic bond too but that kinda kills your pet… These are instant removals except soldier runes (about a 1~2s delay) and Empathic Bond (3 per 10s). None of them require you stop moving and stand on a small circle.

Arguably HS can be a decent choice due to its ability to clear 5 conditions and act as a water field but in his build he has zero leaps and only a single blast finisher. To top it off he already has a water field on the weapon that has the blast finisher. So all in all a different heal would be better if you take a more reliable source of condition removal. You could also say HS is better for team play but your playing ranger (much less condi ranger) your not trying to get in on any fights larger than a 3v3 and that’s not the goal of the build.

Good rangers cast seed of life where they are going to be when it pops… Casting directly on top of yourself is a bad idea. You have to time it so that you run/dodge through it when it pops. From what I understand, you didn’t use a mechanic well so it didn’t work for you, and then you say its not good. When on the contrary seed of life combined with Lunar Impact is one of the best ways to burst healing in an aoe for Druids.

Now, if you want to talk about being a target… channeling rejuvenating tides at bad times in a fight make you a giant one. Used correctly however, its good at supporting your team.

Hey guys,
Sorry for the late response (new work place..).
Anyway, about the build mentioned by Allison The Strange.4519 ~ I must admit that on paper this build seems like a much better build mainly from a defensive POV but also from an offensive POV.
To explain why I think my build is more valid I would have to look at the sort of enemy’s I usually meet in the arena, many of them have long damage bursts. (examples could be : ranger (pets barrage,smokescale and LB 2), p/p thief, shatt mes, freshair temp, and more rare versions of rifle warr).
Atleast one of above would appear in any of your games, now the answer your build gives is a bunch of evade skills to rotate between. If you indeed rotate between those evades you will lose dps, and most likely get hit anyway (as the bursts are long), making you unable to kill the enemy before backup arrives or even lose a 1v1 after being bursted down by said stuff.
My build on the other side had Staff, long evade on 3 and projectile→heal on 5 which eliminates most of the examples I stated above.
Furthermore if you are up against a Scrapper with your heavy projectile relient build you will be hitting yourself half the time, and will be unable to proc Ancient Seeds which you only have on the SB.. this proc is one target at best, very situational, and based on a projectile which can be reflected. When in my build you proc it aoe on 5 targets max on weapon swap to staff, which is very easy to land on 2 targets at the very least, it also dazes said enemies and chills them. (And yes i prefer the chill more than the Geomancy builds for harder condi removal pressure on enemy and slower heals).

About the condi removal issue on the build, it is addressed by the sigil of generosity, healing trap, and CA spell 2.. you can also dodge most of the condi applications, and if you can’t.. well that’s a personal skill issue. I do admit there could be some optimizations, but I wouldn’t swap to SB for the reasons mentioned in the first section.

In short, this build is better 1vMany than many of the current proposals, UNLESS you get heavy cc chained.. in which case you can pop the stone signet, I AGREE that it might not be enough, but than again if they wasted enough to drop you even after stone signet, your team should have been able to kill one of them or atleast pick you up when enemy is on CD’s and you pop wolf fear.

About wolf being ‘unreliable’.. I can say my wolf would always use knockdown on enemy within the first 5 seconds of him being out. so general plan is : you use lightning for first stomp attempt. You use knockdown for the second attempt (or fear if you are afraid it wont come in time) and the third one is like 99% guaranteed to be a wolf knockdown. OFCOURSE that’s an absolutely fictional scenario as no one in higher divisions will try stomping you more than twice when they can cleave you instead.

To sum it up, this build is pretty bad if you get cc chained. But if you are, you take one for the team and pop stone signet… I believe the condi removal should be enough, especially as this is not intended to be a support build but rather a kill everyone Ebola build. I’m not arguing about how valid the current sustain meta builds are, but that’s as good a condi pressure as you can get while also observing the obvious disadvantages of taking SB.
I would also refer to swapping the axe to sword, totally viable imo, but that means losing alot of bleeds and a chill/weakness for a mere dodge and risky plays. I suppose that’s not my taste but it can be useful for faster movement on the map.

Enjoy (:

ah also, another reason why staff is better is the amount of DH’s and staff reapers.. they will put down marks and traps on points/treb to defend.. you can easily get rid of those with a surprise long evade attack of staff 3 into your traps+elite+ebola combo..

BTW there are 2 blast finishers, and a leap on wolf.. i constantly blast my water fields, or if i feel like going offensive i blast the poison field. Finishers on the build proposed by you are far worse tbh.. you only got the projectiles on fire fields but it has high probability of getting right back at you.

I apologize for my bluntness, I dont see this build being anywhere close to being competative at higher levels, heres why

- No stun break.
- No real condi clear (spring isnt enough). Mesmers, reapers, even condi war with immob resistance and stability will eat you alive.
- Axe is a meh choice for the 1h slot, and quickdraw is wasted on it cuz u use it for bonfire not honed axes.
- Staff applies no condis, and with your amulet choice, will be a huge dps loss when u switch to it, removing all pressure. all uncan do is evade and heal. This is an even bigger problem considering you arent using BM to make up for the dps loss.
- No boon share or boon stacking for you or your pet (again, why use only axe if you arent giving your pet the might?)
- one trick pony style build that is easy to adapt to and play around

you could have something somewhat decent if you went:

- Sword/torch ( so you can leap through fire/water fields, have just as many evades and mobilty as staff, and make better use of quickdraw)
- axe/dagger (use quickdraw on honed axes and still have an evade and good condi pressure on your second weapon set)
- take druidic clarity for at least one stun break and oh kitten condi clear
- Take flame trap over vipers ( cuz now you have enough poison on your weapon set)
- Re-think your sigil choices. Geomancy runes for example could provide some nice extra bleed for condi coverage
- maybe consider trapper runes so you have access to re-positioning and escape options just in case they decide to focus you

Update : made it to legendary with this build soloQ (swapped amulet to mercenary’s occasionaly), happy to say winrate was greater than 70%.

I would refer to the comments although most of them are irrelevant. It sure is a ‘one trick’ build, although this will never be meta. I play games against many druid teams and I know EXACTLY what they will play before the match even starts.
You simply cannot adapt to this build in the first encounter and you can’t expect it, furthermore if you try to adapt to this build mid game all you can do is try predicting traps (which is true for every trap build anyway).
Reason for axe is not the might obviously. The reason is unique conditions on axe 3 that add up to make condi removal harder in addition to the buffed up bleeds.
Sword might provide you more survivability but your conditions will be cleansed in much easier manner cause they are fewer (note I already have plenty of criple on traps so having it on weapon as well makes no sense.. This build is about fighting on point anyway and not harrassing from afar).
It won’t work in LCS and not against well organized teams, but as far as soloQ goes it works wonders at least until getting to legendary.
I wish I had apothecary amulet option but there’s none ;/

Swapping staff and getting druidic clarity are a nice option, again it take the on swap instant power with the aoe ancient seeds proc and the projectile handling of staff but you are free to take those risks.
I usually don’t stay close to necros after initial condi application and other condi build don’t put enough condi pressure to force me into druidic ..