Guild Wars 2

Ok, going to step out into the unknown here. Have always been a tank or dps in the MMOs I have played (WOW,ESO,SWTOR,etc.) and was especially handy to have the wife play heals thus making us a great team.
But am looking to try and give healing a go as Druid here with Guild Wars and not sure were to start.
The wife has helped some and she has kinda pointed me down the path but I figured it may be a nice change from always just dps plus it might take away some of the grief I seem to be always getting (it has gotten better) from playing a Condi Druid, lol, one can hope!
Checking META the raid build they have they don’t even rate it at 100, any reason why? Isn’t that and Ele heals about all there is?
So, as the title suggests, hit me with your builds and any and all advice, tips, warnings you guys have when it comes to playing a healing Druid.
I have a geared Rev, War, Engi and Reaper so why not give this a go, might be fun and perhaps some raiding will come my way.
Thanks in advance and also huge thanks for all the replys and help on my previous posts! You guys really do help.

Your post is a little confusing, but my take on what you’re asking:

The healing druid in raids is a VERY specific build. It’s basically used no where but raids. You can use it other places like high end fractals, but it’s kind of not welcome. In raids, it’s critical and doesn’t matter what it’s “rated”, it’s (relatively) needed.

If you want to heal in open world or low end PvE content like dungeons and low level fractals….. probably don’t. No one needs you and thus no one will want you. If you want to duo open world with your wife, you’re going to be bored as hell while she kills everything and you don’t heal her because she doesn’t need it.

If you want to heal outside of raids, you’re going to want to try WvW roaming or PvP. You and your wife can do some serious damage doing that, with you healing and her killing.

Ah,my bad…shoulda been more clear.
Yea, this would be a raid only build. Pretty much open world and all that I figure its not as an ideal setup what with people everywhere so doing your own thing and then maybe helping here and there is what is ok and yes, I do want to still kill things, lol!

I would say that full healing Druid is considered meta for pretty much all pugs / casual guild runs at this point. The more offensive power/condition variants are rated higher as they find much more effective usage in groups which are more experienced with the content and thus don’t need quite as much healing.

The Staff healer build on Metabattle looks pretty up to date.

As for tips for a full healing druid:

• Use Pink Moa instead of Electric Wyvern for CC/Utility, it’s now much better in nearly all cases.

• Stack as much outgoing healing % as you can (Rice balls, Sigil of Transference, Monk runes, Natural Mender). It’s much more effective at increasing your healing than the raw healing power stat.

• Try not to be tempted to roll double staff, instead be smart about when to heal and when to deal damage. Remember that one of your primary jobs is to buff allies with grace of the land.

• Healing is subgroup prioritised, so be mindful of your squad set up when running a full healer. For example a 4-4-2 squad with only one full healer will result in only 4 players recieving the vast majority of heals.

• You have a ton of CC available (Path of scars, Pink Moa, Lunar impact, Natural convergence). Always be mindful of breakbars such as sacrifice at Matthias.

• You can provide perma-protection to a group using stone spirit and the Nature’s Vengeance trait. This is great for Matthias.

• Be willing to switch up your build for each encounter, some fights are fairly healing intensive like Matthias while others feel like a walk in the park if the mechanics are being handled correctly (i.e Sloth).

I play healer Druid in raids and it’s pretty meta. The guys from metabattle rate it lower be cause it is not optimal in their eyes. They prefer a more dps oriented support. But fact is: in 95% of the raids there is 1-2 healer druids with heal stats. It’s pretty fun but first a bit awkward to use.

AnariiUK.7409:

I would say that full healing Druid is considered meta for pretty much all pugs / casual guild runs at this point. The more offensive power/condition variants are rated higher as they find much more effective usage in groups which are more experienced with the content and thus don’t need quite as much healing.

The Staff healer build on Metabattle looks pretty up to date.

As for tips for a full healing druid:

• Use Pink Moa instead of Electric Wyvern for CC/Utility, it’s now much better in nearly all cases.

• Stack as much outgoing healing % as you can (Rice balls, Sigil of Transference, Monk runes, Natural Mender). It’s much more effective at increasing your healing than the raw healing power stat.

• Try not to be tempted to roll double staff, instead be smart about when to heal and when to deal damage. Remember that one of your primary jobs is to buff allies with grace of the land.

• Healing is subgroup prioritised, so be mindful of your squad set up when running a full healer. For example a 4-4-2 squad with only one full healer will result in only 4 players recieving the vast majority of heals.

• You have a ton of CC available (Path of scars, Pink Moa, Lunar impact, Natural convergence). Always be mindful of breakbars such as sacrifice at Matthias.

• You can provide perma-protection to a group using stone spirit and the Nature’s Vengeance trait. This is great for Matthias.

• Be willing to switch up your build for each encounter, some fights are fairly healing intensive like Matthias while others feel like a walk in the park if the mechanics are being handled correctly (i.e Sloth).

Thanks for that! Was kinda wondering about the double Staff setup, hate the loss of a at least a little bit of dps. So what should I run, LB or SB or ??
Also thanks heaps for the tips, that’s what I need as the wife has told me that healing in this game is not like WOW and such in as you don’t target people like the tank, its mostly AOE healing? So game to give it a go and see how I fair. Dang shame game doesn’t allow for 2 builds to swap back and forth from as I don’t plan to run a heal build just doing Open world, meta events and the like, unless my dps can be decent then maybe.
Cheers guys!

Joxer.6024:

AnariiUK.7409:

I would say that full healing Druid is considered meta for pretty much all pugs / casual guild runs at this point. The more offensive power/condition variants are rated higher as they find much more effective usage in groups which are more experienced with the content and thus don’t need quite as much healing.

The Staff healer build on Metabattle looks pretty up to date.

As for tips for a full healing druid:

• Use Pink Moa instead of Electric Wyvern for CC/Utility, it’s now much better in nearly all cases.

• Stack as much outgoing healing % as you can (Rice balls, Sigil of Transference, Monk runes, Natural Mender). It’s much more effective at increasing your healing than the raw healing power stat.

• Try not to be tempted to roll double staff, instead be smart about when to heal and when to deal damage. Remember that one of your primary jobs is to buff allies with grace of the land.

• Healing is subgroup prioritised, so be mindful of your squad set up when running a full healer. For example a 4-4-2 squad with only one full healer will result in only 4 players recieving the vast majority of heals.

• You have a ton of CC available (Path of scars, Pink Moa, Lunar impact, Natural convergence). Always be mindful of breakbars such as sacrifice at Matthias.

• You can provide perma-protection to a group using stone spirit and the Nature’s Vengeance trait. This is great for Matthias.

• Be willing to switch up your build for each encounter, some fights are fairly healing intensive like Matthias while others feel like a walk in the park if the mechanics are being handled correctly (i.e Sloth).

Thanks for that! Was kinda wondering about the double Staff setup, hate the loss of a at least a little bit of dps. So what should I run, LB or SB or ??
Also thanks heaps for the tips, that’s what I need as the wife has told me that healing in this game is not like WOW and such in as you don’t target people like the tank, its mostly AOE healing? So game to give it a go and see how I fair. Dang shame game doesn’t allow for 2 builds to swap back and forth from as I don’t plan to run a heal build just doing Open world, meta events and the like, unless my dps can be decent then maybe.
Cheers guys!

I’ve been playing druid since raids were released and never had to use double staff, I see it as a pointless overkill, and believe that if you don’t output enough healing without it = either you or the group are doing something wrong.
As said above, all you have to do is learn the encounters and know when is the right time for each weapon (plus your strong heals come from CA anyway, so you don’t have to be on staff when you have CA).
Instead you should carry dps/utility weapons on your second set (sword/axe or sword/warhorn), you can still build astral force fast enough even when camping sword/x, and have enough healing. the sword/x can use berserker stats (that way it will be useful with both berserker and healing stats), just make sure you have a water sigil there for faster AF regen.

Also, I would suggest to not look at the Metabattle scores, they are not always accurate, and in the situations builds with lower rating can perform higher.

Your wife was right, you don’t target people individually for healing, instead all your heals have a healing radius, but some of your strong AoE heals can be ground targeted, which is very useful for healing people far away from the stack.

I’m not sure what you mean with game not allowing you to swap 2 builds, druids are very versatile in raids and ideally you want to have 3 sets (healing, zerk, condi) that you swap between with various builds. Healing gear is a good start though, and will work for most PuG groups.

“I’m not sure what you mean with game not allowing you to swap 2 builds, druids are very versatile in raids and ideally you want to have 3 sets (healing, zerk, condi) that you swap between with various builds. Healing gear is a good start though, and will work for most PuG groups.”

That’s just referring to games like WOW where you could have 2 builds to swap from at any given time, i.e. a Blood Death knight could swap to Frost with just a mouse click, that’s all.
Thanks again for all the great help and info!!

Joxer.6024:

“I’m not sure what you mean with game not allowing you to swap 2 builds, druids are very versatile in raids and ideally you want to have 3 sets (healing, zerk, condi) that you swap between with various builds. Healing gear is a good start though, and will work for most PuG groups.”

That’s just referring to games like WOW where you could have 2 builds to swap from at any given time, i.e. a Blood Death knight could swap to Frost with just a mouse click, that’s all.
Thanks again for all the great help and info!!

I never played WoW, so I don’t know much about it, do you mean it can be done even in the middle of combat?
Because if not, swapping builds in GW2 takes like 5 seconds once you remember the builds and get used to swapping..

Coconut.7082:

Joxer.6024:

“I’m not sure what you mean with game not allowing you to swap 2 builds, druids are very versatile in raids and ideally you want to have 3 sets (healing, zerk, condi) that you swap between with various builds. Healing gear is a good start though, and will work for most PuG groups.”

That’s just referring to games like WOW where you could have 2 builds to swap from at any given time, i.e. a Blood Death knight could swap to Frost with just a mouse click, that’s all.
Thanks again for all the great help and info!!

I never played WoW, so I don’t know much about it, do you mean it can be done even in the middle of combat?
Because if not, swapping builds in GW2 takes like 5 seconds once you remember the builds and get used to swapping..

Nah, cant be done in combat but still handy. Would be complete weapon set and everything.
Can you really swap that quick in GW2? If so, I would love to see/know how as that would rock! Is it more like you said, just knowing what skills to take and then checking them quickly?

Also, really quick…what other stats do I want? healing power of course but what else? Power I think would be nice so I can still maybe kill a few things solo or in raid help a bit. Granted my main role is to keep people alive and that’s brings another question.

In “other” MMO’s, healers would be the ones that kept you alive, period, save for the one off healing potion if the game had them or abilities that gave back health. Is that the same expectation here or are people expected to somewhat try and keep their health up as well, using self heals and such? Thanks again!

It’s still expected that players be good and defend themselves if necessary. With a solo healer you can often find that their heals have already all been taken by people in closer proximity, and if that’s the case you need to defend yourself. Basically do the best you can while healing, reposition to get as much coverage as you can. And, if someone dies and has their heal skill off recharge, they’re the idiot.

Joxer.6024:

Coconut.7082:

Joxer.6024:

“I’m not sure what you mean with game not allowing you to swap 2 builds, druids are very versatile in raids and ideally you want to have 3 sets (healing, zerk, condi) that you swap between with various builds. Healing gear is a good start though, and will work for most PuG groups.”

That’s just referring to games like WOW where you could have 2 builds to swap from at any given time, i.e. a Blood Death knight could swap to Frost with just a mouse click, that’s all.
Thanks again for all the great help and info!!

I never played WoW, so I don’t know much about it, do you mean it can be done even in the middle of combat?
Because if not, swapping builds in GW2 takes like 5 seconds once you remember the builds and get used to swapping..

Nah, cant be done in combat but still handy. Would be complete weapon set and everything.
Can you really swap that quick in GW2? If so, I would love to see/know how as that would rock! Is it more like you said, just knowing what skills to take and then checking them quickly?

Also, really quick…what other stats do I want? healing power of course but what else? Power I think would be nice so I can still maybe kill a few things solo or in raid help a bit. Granted my main role is to keep people alive and that’s brings another question.

In “other” MMO’s, healers would be the ones that kept you alive, period, save for the one off healing potion if the game had them or abilities that gave back health. Is that the same expectation here or are people expected to somewhat try and keep their health up as well, using self heals and such? Thanks again!

Yes, it’s pretty fast when you know what to swap: Armor / Weapons are just double clicked in inventory, Trinkets through Hero Panel. Utility skills as needed (some utilities never move off your skill bar anyway), and Traits, in which you always keep Skirmishing and Druid lines, and pretty much don’t change them (except for 1-2 minor traits for specific bosses), so only need to change one line per build.

For healing gear you’d want to go for Magi or Zealot stats, Magi being the safer & easier to obtain option.

In groups that run two Druids you can go for a more offensive version, Viper or Berserker, but that also depends on the group/encounter.

The last question is a bit hard to answer because it is also very much dependent on the group / encounter. In general, everyone is expected to avoid unnecessary damage ,not fail mechanics and have some self sustain. Your job is to heal over the unavoidable damage (like ticking auras) and provide all the important druid buffs, You should also try to help players recover if they have taken unnecessary damage, but that won’t always be possible (no healing in the world will save you if you don’t dodge Sabetha’s flamewall, or Matthias’ hadouken, etc..).
So you kind of have to prepare for the worst, and adjust yourself according to the situation..

How critical is getting Magi’s gear? I also run fractals and zealot’s seems to have enough healing while doing a lot more dmg. Question is: is that ‘lot more’ enough to give up healing power? Grace of the Land works either way, so I’d say ‘yes’. But I might be wrong.

Nimrud.5642:

How critical is getting Magi’s gear? I also run fractals and zealot’s seems to have enough healing while doing a lot more dmg. Question is: is that ‘lot more’ enough to give up healing power? Grace of the Land works either way, so I’d say ‘yes’. But I might be wrong.

Zealot’s is enough since most of the buffs to healing come from the healing % modifiers (Rice balls, Transference Sigil, Monk Runes, trait), and not from healing power.

Coconut.7082:

Nimrud.5642:

How critical is getting Magi’s gear? I also run fractals and zealot’s seems to have enough healing while doing a lot more dmg. Question is: is that ‘lot more’ enough to give up healing power? Grace of the Land works either way, so I’d say ‘yes’. But I might be wrong.

Zealot’s is enough since most of the buffs to healing come from the healing % modifiers (Rice balls, Transference Sigil, Monk Runes, trait), and not from healing power.

Ok, that’s good to know! I was told to stack all the HP I can get but what you say with the foods and runes and such makes more sense and I can still do some decent dps perhaps.
So running A/T as offhand not really a good thing? I see you all mention Sword /X so will look into that.
Been practicing with the gear swap and yea, I see what you mean. Pretty easy to swap into a condi build even if I remember the traits. And like you said, you don’t change that many anyways.
Anyone have a solid build they can post? Easier than the metabattle when folks do that,better reference and all. Cheers guys, you have been a HUGE help!

Oh yea, one thing I wanted to ask and be clear on. Do I bother to run a “condi’ish” build as a healer with zealots and such or just use s/x like you all say? Not sure what to run when I am not raiding and healing, would still like to be able to dps a fly or two!

Healing power depends from skill to skill. Some things have as low as .0033 modifiers others 1.0+ (.0033 modifier is part of the med kit for engi >.<)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ancestral_Grace
Has a 1.0 modifier, so in full HP gear (about 1650 HP iirc) you’re doubling this skill with 1600+1600, that then gets modified by %’s to reach some very large numbers

Then you have https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lunar_Impact witha 1.1 modifier, but a much higher base of 2400. You’re getting ~2400+1700 at max healing power, modified up huge.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rejuvenating_Tides this on the other hand is a .85 modifier, but a lower base so you actually gain quite a large % from HP.

Overall though, you’re still going to be just pumping out heals with zealots gear still. Druid is the overpowered healer nothing can really match. Staff Ele can get kinda close, but other than that guard is just well behind and probably the next best (or at least that I know of).

Axe/Torch is a condi setup, where you’ll run condi food (less heals) and condi gear (less heals) without food/gear you’re quite pitiful. Zealot and other power based things you’ll want Sword/X, or even GS or Longbow (though sword is best).

Condi, though of course you can swap up skills, I just tossed what I often use (tides can be nice to break bars or pull trash into you. Or on VG push seekers away). I’d point out Healing spring is extra nice here as it makes CA bounce back much faster with it’s regen.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAnfnMqA1sitqAmsCUtgFDBDerGWLrNdggVVjJAsuaAlMscA-TBSFQBNU5nS2HYkKBBwJAod6BSwDAofq/ctFGIFwiKrA-e

Then full healer is something like this, again possible variations here as well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8Xn0rC1sitqAmsCEtiFDBjJAsuaAwb1waZ1519CyalI3wA-ThSBABAcEAqQJo+PAAQV/BKlfZt/AeaGs4iAMoOgGM/RKA/2bB-e

Thanks for that Jerus!!! Just what I needed.
I guess what I am asking is whats “best” the run dps-wise when not healing? Power as you mentioned since that’s what my gear has in it and I wont need to bother with any swaps. If I am the 2nd druid or just condi then I can swap the rest easy enough.
Ok, now time to make some Zealots gear I reckon!

For Zealots for sure Power builds. You can actually swap out Nature Magic for Markmanship for more personal dps if you wanted. You could drop staff and go Sword-X + Longbow and do a rotation with quick draw to get 2X rapid fire + Barrage then swap back until barrage would be back up (haven’t really played that power build in a while so I’m assuming it’s the same as when I quit before HoT). You could just run Sword/Axe and Sword/warhorn, or for extra evades offhand dagger.

Quite a lot of freedom, keep CA going to keep GoTL up, use Glyphs with the seed trait to keep GoTL going between when you want to drop CA. I’m sure someone will be along and give you better advice for the power side of things for when you want to go heavier damage. I personally almost always run Condi Druid, and in raids I PUG so it’s full healer Druid. Sometimes I slip in pure condi ranger just for the funsies.

I’d say a full set of magi isn’t a bad idea, it’s cheap, you can get the gear at I believe Melandru temple in Orr, and trinkets at Lyssa. So just a few hundred thousand Karma if you have a bunch of that. Monk runes you’ll be farming Ascalonian Catacombs for, Water is a good alternative until you can get the monk (monk’s % boost is huge). No need to go better than exotic though as you shouldn’t have to use it often, just when you need an excessive amount of healing because your group is playing sub par (or you want it to make it easy mode on everyone )

That’s awesome! And yea, I too love the Condi build and love running it. But lately all the raids I have pugged (cuz as a Guild we kinda blow with raiding) I get griefed running condi Druid. As been mentioned MANY times here, the buffs are still there along with some extra healing, which shouldn’t be needed really, I’m talking I do VG, Escort,Gors…haven’t been brave enough to venture further!
But I shall play around with power side of things and see how it fairs and like you said, hopefully some others come along and offer up some tips. Cheers mate!

Curious what does your guild run at raids?

Jerus.4350:

Curious what does your guild run at raids?

We don’t really, as Guild. We have tried many times and can do VG, Escort and Gors pretty easy but most of our “hard core’ish” raiders just pug. We are Sing/Aust based guild so times tend to be an issue. That and just a lot of folks in the Guild just aren’t into raids.
We have a blast when we do them, even failing, which is why I prefer Guild runs over pugs, just more fun.
Last Vg kill we ran 7-2-1, not sure why but I was the 2nd Druid and we needed Condi anyways, always need condi it seems…lol.
But yea, I really enjoy the Druid, big change from what I am used to in other MMO’s and like I said, just bums me that people feel the need to grief you on your class and build. Long as Boss dies and we win whats the issue eh? Hopefully the mentality will change. Cheers!

Jerus.4350:

Healing power depends from skill to skill
<snip>

Very good post, +1

Jerus.4350:

Then full healer is something like this, again possible variations here as well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8Xn0rC1sitqAmsCEtiFDBjJAsuaAwb1waZ1519CyalI3wA-ThSBABAcEAqQJo+PAAQV/BKlfZt/AeaGs4iAMoOgGM/RKA/2bB-e

So is it fine to use this build with zerker back/rings/earrings/amulet for high lvl fracs and keep the original build with full healer gear for raiding?

Also, I’m a little confused about healing power… I get that if I use exotic accessories I get to slot those Sapphire jewels which give 20 more HP than ascended infusions (25 vs 5) but the loss from not using ascended gear goes like this:

back: 63 – 30 = 33
rings: 126 – 90 = 36
earrings: 110 – 75 = 35
amulet: 157 – 120 = 37

So, 5 × 20 = 100 extra HP from using sapphire jewels instead of infusions. Plus 25 because with exotic gear you can also slot your amulet with sapphire jewels unlike the ascended version for which only utility infusions (enrichments or what) are usable. So 125 HP gain from the extra slot and the better jewels.

And 33 + 2 × 36 + 2 × 35 + 37 = 212 extra HP from better base stats of the asc gear.

YET the build editor shows more HP for your build… How come? Sapphire jewels also have toughness and power on them, so I was looking for traits or food or runes or whatever that says ‘converts X% of your toughness/power into healing power’ but I’ve found none… So what am I missig here? Or is the build editor wrong?

I just threw ascended gear because it was faster, and exotic trinkets because it’s important to show that option there as Ascended magi is a pita to get, and you do want to minimize toughness (sapphire jewels are just the only reasonably priced option for healing power there).

For amulet you get 120 HP on it, then you have an upgrade slot (it’s not an infusion slot) for an additional 25, total 145. Ascended has 157 base with utility infusion slot (read no stats). Accessory is 75+25=100 vs ascended option 110 HP with optional stat infusion.

On the build editor with the exotics I have there it’s 1695 HP, if I swap those to ascended it’s 1757, so higher (add infusions and it’s 1822, but realistically even higher because this build thing doesn’t have multislot back/rings).

If you’re comparing it to what you have in game, I have the best food options slotted there, the furious tuning crystal is kitten expensive and honestly unrealistic but I like tossing it in there because it is the best option.