Guild Wars 2

I just recently started playing Druid. Here’s my setup: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqAlsi9sA2CCctgFMBrZZNACAP3gGQkDum2TLql480A-TJBHwAFeCAAuEALLD0b/BA

Now being inexperienced, I don’t know how to survive very well, especially when getting stunlocked by DH traps, or pressured by a good thief or condi bombed by a reaper.

So let’s say SotP is on CD and CA isn’t fully charged. How could I survive those 3 classes?

Also, are there any reasons to take Signet of Stone over the knockback glyph with its 80 second CD? I understand 6 seconds of power damage immunity is awesome, but the glyph traited offers an AoE blind, small heal and of course the knockback.

So what I can do?

OK. First. There are a few things that I find off with your build.
Beastmaster/druid, OK. But Why wilderness survival? It hurts your damage source.
It seems to me that nature magic line would better harmonise to the two other traitlines, while still being defensive. Skirmishing, with quick draw, can also help with survival (eg, when using staff 3 or staff 5, the staff 3 (combo heal / explosion in water field) or GS 3 or 4 as first attack) while also being offensive (staff 4 and GS3 can help your pets land hits).

I also see that you use sigil of intelligence. You have no power. No ferocity. Nothing that triggers on critical hit. They are swap sigils, and you can only have 1 on swap sigil trigger per switch. Permanent bonus sigil of transference might be better. Or the on-hit sigil of ice. Your GS could be sigil of air and sigil of intelligence, and leave the healings sigils on staff. I keep mixing good and bad sigils, so don’t take my word on which sigils are best.

As for fighting. GW2 is made in a way that there are always going to be builds against which we are strong or not.
As a BM, your purpose is to keep your pet alive and help it deal damage, while keeping the attention of the ennemy.
DH. Know their traps. If you are up against a DH, do not try to cross the sword wall animation. You can evade in the sword trap (never cross it!), block with GS, evade with staff 3. Keep protect me to break that stun (if DH traited for daze on trap activation ^^. Get to know the trap laying animation…
If you feel heavy condition damage might be a thing in a given match, I would advise you take healing spring, which cures some conditions. you can also blast it with staff 3, and jump with GS3 for more heals. You can also swap your glyph with glyph of empowerment which gives you 2 condi cure on 16 seconds CD.
The best is still to find the dangerous attacks tells and avoid the arresponding attack. EG, necro might self inflict alterations to send them to you. blind him on th spot, get your pet to taunt them, dodge if you have to…
As for thief, depending on the build, they are pretty easy to make out. I see one goe in stealth, I slowly count until attack. next time I know attack will likely be on the same pattern, allowing me to dodge. Your build migth lasts some against thief (taunt wisely!), but you do not have what it takes to get one of pretty much any builds down. Call for help^^.

Hope it’s intelligible and it helps. I’m not a PvP expert, but I enjoy dueling with my guildies. Take my words with a grain of salt, and practice, practice, practice…
If you can, try to whisper someone who keep killing you to ask if they would be nice enough to do a few duels against you after the match. They could explain what they do, so you can improve. In my experience, most players are nice about it. It really is worth it to try, and really helps to get to know the dangerous things to avoid.

Jocksy.3415:

OK. First. There are a few things that I find off with your build.
Beastmaster/druid, OK. But Why wilderness survival? It hurts your damage source.
It seems to me that nature magic line would better harmonise to the two other traitlines, while still being defensive. Skirmishing, with quick draw, can also help with survival (eg, when using staff 3 or staff 5, the staff 3 (combo heal / explosion in water field) or GS 3 or 4 as first attack) while also being offensive (staff 4 and GS3 can help your pets land hits).

I also see that you use sigil of intelligence. You have no power. No ferocity. Nothing that triggers on critical hit. They are swap sigils, and you can only have 1 on swap sigil trigger per switch. Permanent bonus sigil of transference might be better. Or the on-hit sigil of ice. Your GS could be sigil of air and sigil of intelligence, and leave the healings sigils on staff. I keep mixing good and bad sigils, so don’t take my word on which sigils are best.

As for fighting. GW2 is made in a way that there are always going to be builds against which we are strong or not.
As a BM, your purpose is to keep your pet alive and help it deal damage, while keeping the attention of the ennemy.
DH. Know their traps. If you are up against a DH, do not try to cross the sword wall animation. You can evade in the sword trap (never cross it!), block with GS, evade with staff 3. Keep protect me to break that stun (if DH traited for daze on trap activation ^^. Get to know the trap laying animation…
If you feel heavy condition damage might be a thing in a given match, I would advise you take healing spring, which cures some conditions. you can also blast it with staff 3, and jump with GS3 for more heals. You can also swap your glyph with glyph of empowerment which gives you 2 condi cure on 16 seconds CD.
The best is still to find the dangerous attacks tells and avoid the arresponding attack. EG, necro might self inflict alterations to send them to you. blind him on th spot, get your pet to taunt them, dodge if you have to…
As for thief, depending on the build, they are pretty easy to make out. I see one goe in stealth, I slowly count until attack. next time I know attack will likely be on the same pattern, allowing me to dodge. Your build migth lasts some against thief (taunt wisely!), but you do not have what it takes to get one of pretty much any builds down. Call for help^^.

Hope it’s intelligible and it helps. I’m not a PvP expert, but I enjoy dueling with my guildies. Take my words with a grain of salt, and practice, practice, practice…
If you can, try to whisper someone who keep killing you to ask if they would be nice enough to do a few duels against you after the match. They could explain what they do, so you can improve. In my experience, most players are nice about it. It really is worth it to try, and really helps to get to know the dangerous things to avoid.

Hello! Thanks for the tips!

I’m using WS because I found it provides increased for both power damage and conditions. Though NM has some good traits, such as Protective Ward and Evasive Purity, WS provides a couple seconds of protection on dodge, 5% reduced power damage with regen which is gained from shouts, 3 conditions transfered to my pet every 10 seconds passively, perma 20% endurance regen rate increase, and a CC is taken by the pet every minute. While Skirmishing provides improved offence and some defence options, it just wouldn’t work overall and most of the traits would be useless to my spec. My goal is to stay alive and help keep my teammates alive while letting me pet do most of my damage (seriously, my The Needler and Lets Me Stealth are awesome!)

I agree somewhat about your point on sigils. I don’t have ferocity but Cleric Amulet has 900 power! So not sure where you got the no power idea from! I just tested in game and you actually do maintain both on swap procs. So I would have 3 crits and 900 life leech from one swap. Though I never thought of how useless Sigil of Intelligence is on staff. I swapped it for Transference.

On that note, does anyone know whether the 10% healing bonus applies in CA and if so, whether the bonus is specific to my equipped weapon at the time of changing into CA? Like, will I have 10% bonus when switching to CA as staff but not when switching as GS? Edit: Nevermind, it does affect CA healing and is dependant on the weapon used with CA.

I’m glad you mentioned taunt. Since I’m using the BM trait and Protect Me, I have access to two taunts, which is taking me a while to really get down using properly. I haven’t had too much trouble against traps that are already placed, but rather when they’re placing them and chaining them together. Taunting won’t work, I might be out of dodges and the CCs are so short that Protect me would only help because of the protection boon. This game is just loaded with quick CCs that are just reapplied the instant I use any stunbreak. So I’ll just have to be more careful with my dodges and save them for those traps and taunt for thieves and reapers.

You had mentioned Healing Spring. I had thought about trying it, but a few concerns come to mind. The shout is nearly half the CD and also cleanses a condition with Soldier rune and provides healing to my pet. On the other hand, the trap can be placed ahead of time to trigger early regen and the 10 second water field. It also has half the cast time making it tougher to interrupt. Plus, it can be used in CA to blastSo is the blastable/leapable water field, half the cast time yet twice the CD worth it? Edit: it seems to be bugged to sometimes not trigger when placed ahead of time. In fact, it doesn’t even sometimes trigger when placed on top of an enemy. Seems highly inconsistent. I just looked at the bug fixes from the patch and it actually says that this trap was fixed but it wasn’t! Edit 2: It’s actually not bugged. The tooltip just doesn’t state that it acts nothing like a trap and only triggers when dropped on you or an ally below 100%. It won’t trigger if you are at 100% and on the trap. So that was confusing…

Thanks again!

Hello!
What I meant about the traitline was that you rely on pet for damage on the one hand, yet you rely on hurting the pet for automatic stunbreaks and condi cleanses. Condis might be just blind that would make your next pet attack useless, if he takes it from you, or it may kill it, while you would have few or no way to save it. Plus, stun and dazes that the pet takes from you stop it’s attack. Sending them to pet in a non-BM build is a good option… Sending them to pet in a BM build has always seemed counter-productive to me. If you’re good with it, and you did take it in consideration, then go with it…

About sigils, in the patch note after they the runes and sigils were re-worked, or in the explanations they gave surrounding the sigil change, Anet stated something that two runes of the same category wouldn’t stack, just like on-kill can’t stack, or two same quality air sigils share the same CD.
Can’t find the post, it was too long ago for me to remember precise words to look for it.
About power, your power is 1900 unbuffed. which mean a basic maul would do only average 1200 damages, so not even a 2 k critcal hit.
Why waste a sigil for 3 crits that will not even give you a 1.5k bonus in the standard swipe (749 base + 375 crit), hilt bash (390 damage +190 crit), maul (1247 base, plus 623 crit) rotation (damages are the one indicated in the build editor). It is even worse on staff. 3 crits per switch on a low damage build would have a meaning with on-crit bonus (from traits or sigils), which you do not have.

Heal is really a matter of preference.
Many prefer your choice to survive to high-damages/bursts classes.
with staff you do have a water field anyway, and with allies, you might even benefit from explosions in your celestial water.
These are all just options worth considering. For mobility, I prefer the shout. For point bunker, I prefer the trap.

As far as bug goes, I never experienced the bug where it would not trigger. I did sometimes have one where standing inside, it wouldn’t trigger.
Note: The trap design prevents the old regen stacking from the source…

Jocksy.3415:

Hello!
What I meant about the traitline was that you rely on pet for damage on the one hand, yet you rely on hurting the pet for automatic stunbreaks and condi cleanses. Condis might be just blind that would make your next pet attack useless, if he takes it from you, or it may kill it, while you would have few or no way to save it. Plus, stun and dazes that the pet takes from you stop it’s attack. Sending them to pet in a non-BM build is a good option… Sending them to pet in a BM build has always seemed counter-productive to me. If you’re good with it, and you did take it in consideration, then go with it…

About sigils, in the patch note after they the runes and sigils were re-worked, or in the explanations they gave surrounding the sigil change, Anet stated something that two runes of the same category wouldn’t stack, just like on-kill can’t stack, or two same quality air sigils share the same CD.
Can’t find the post, it was too long ago for me to remember precise words to look for it.
About power, your power is 1900 unbuffed. which mean a basic maul would do only average 1200 damages, so not even a 2 k critcal hit.
Why waste a sigil for 3 crits that will not even give you a 1.5k bonus in the standard swipe (749 base + 375 crit), hilt bash (390 damage +190 crit), maul (1247 base, plus 623 crit) rotation (damages are the one indicated in the build editor). It is even worse on staff. 3 crits per switch on a low damage build would have a meaning with on-crit bonus (from traits or sigils), which you do not have.

Heal is really a matter of preference.
Many prefer your choice to survive to high-damages/bursts classes.
with staff you do have a water field anyway, and with allies, you might even benefit from explosions in your celestial water.
These are all just options worth considering. For mobility, I prefer the shout. For point bunker, I prefer the trap.

As far as bug goes, I never experienced the bug where it would not trigger. I did sometimes have one where standing inside, it wouldn’t trigger.
Note: The trap design prevents the old regen stacking from the source…

I see what you mean about the traitlines now. I compared the them again and found that BM would work better still due the shouts trait (I’m using 2 utilities and the elite), the GS trait and the taunt on f2, which can act as an interrupt. Overall, those 3 traits work better in helping me keep myself and allies alive. The condi removal is invaluable with reapers terrorizing everyone. Blind isn’t too bad because the smokescale and bristleback attacks fast. Also, most CCs going around are short so those aren’t too impactful on them either. So that’s my reasoning.

For sigils, I swapped to Transference and it worked great! I see what you mean about Intelligence. My pet is my main damage source too so Intelligence is pretty poor in that regard. Also, it must just be weapon swap sigils that stack.

The trap heal worked great in some games today. The extended CD wasn’t much of an issue overall, and I could tell it was helping keep my team alive, especially with Sigil of Transference. Could you clarify about the “old regen” thing?

Another question: what are your thoughts on Rune of Leadership over Soldier? The traited elite shout is a CD of 48 seconds, which times perfectly with Leadership. I’ll also be running the trap heal, and the teleport res won’t be used for the condi cleanse. Only protect me the elite would be useful for that, and the elite with Leadership would cleanse two and turn them into boons (possibly 2 seconds of resistance from chill).

There is nothing wrong in taking WS instead of NM or MM. The problem I see here is that he took Cleric, which simply will not give him enough health to survive a condi spike, which is incidentally the biggest threat to the druid at the moment.
I would suggest taking either Menders or Paladins amulet.

Also, there is no need for an intelligence sigil on your staff. Take generosity or purity instead, or both on staff.

Also, if you are using glyphs, Equality is more important then tides as it is a stun+breaker/aoe stun breaker.

Zintrothen.1056:

I just recently started playing Druid. Here’s my setup: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqAlsi9sA2CCctgFMBrZZNACAP3gGQkDum2TLql480A-TJBHwAFeCAAuEALLD0b/BA

Now being inexperienced, I don’t know how to survive very well, especially when getting stunlocked by DH traps, or pressured by a good thief or condi bombed by a reaper.

So let’s say SotP is on CD and CA isn’t fully charged. How could I survive those 3 classes?

Also, are there any reasons to take Signet of Stone over the knockback glyph with its 80 second CD? I understand 6 seconds of power damage immunity is awesome, but the glyph traited offers an AoE blind, small heal and of course the knockback.

So what I can do?

Hey there, I think you would have more survivability with GS and Staff if you switch your amulet and replace WS with MM. I can understand your choices. It looks like you want to have a strong bursty heal and good defense. I think a good offense is the best defense in this meta. With MM you will have longer daze and stun and skill 5 on your GS will be more devastating, along with Lunar Impact and CA skill 5.

WS, prior to power creep, was a must have but opponents hand out hard CC like it is candy now. The chances are Shared Anguish will get eaten by some insignificant AoE spammed daze or short stun you don’t care about. It will also be difficult to keep bark skin active with low health pool. The effects of Companions Defense have also been reduced with the removal of energy sigil (ok they didn’t remove it, but the nerf is so severe they might as well have done so), and the massive boon corrupt being handed out will most likely gobble it up.

You will do more damage with Crusader Amulet and have better defense. The added toughness will do more for you than the healing power, which scales poorly. Also, Maul will be significantly improved with the critical damage increase which will benefit from your intelligence sigil.

Good luck, and have fun!

So there are several things to try here then. Mender’s with my current setup, or MM over WS with Crusader Amulet.

I can see Crusader Amulet with MM working fairly well for a more damage oriented build, but I don’t see it being more defensive. My concern with this setup is that I won’t have the 3 conditions cleared to the pet every 10 seconds and I’m still sitting at 17.6k hp, so condition defence won’t be as high. Plus my pet absorbing a small CC isn’t all bad. The main reason for taking that trait is because there’s nothing better! Given that the spec is more focused on dodging, it would make more sense to have the condition removal on dodge trait in WS instead of NM.

All these decisions could probably be based on what the enemy team has. A condi heavy team might favour Mender’s. A power heavy team might favour Cleric. Lots of experimentation needs to be done against various teams.

Healing power may scale poorly, but it’s the most useful stat for team support as a Druid. With the MM Crusader setup, I won’t be able to sit on points to do damage without taking too much. I know the toughness is good, but Cleric also has it and it’ll allow me to heal from a distance when needed. But like I said, this might all be situational.

I like that we have several options now for fairly similar supportive play styles. I would encourage all of you to try out Cleric with WS in addition to Mender’s with WS and Crusader with MM to see what works best against what. Then we can post here with results.

Lastly, let’s not underestimate the ability knock multiple foes off point with Glyph of Tides!

Did you ever try anything like this against reapers? Your pets will do quite a bit more damage and now you’ll have on demand condition removal whenever you need it. If you watch reapers closely, you’ll notice they bomb you with all kids of crap conditions, but actually kill you with poison. This way you can dodge roll the poison off, on demand, and have Glyph of Equality for an extra stun break.

Here is what I currently run, btw. It’s hard to tell how viable it is going to be though. I’ve been having a difficult time getting into good matches.

I thought about running that first spec before the patch went live, but I haven’t tried it yet. So that makes three builds to try and two variations of my current build. Is it just me, or do Druids have the highest build diversity in the game?

@Archon, interesting sigil choice with Agility! I never thought to try that on GS.

During last season I occasionally ran Crusader over Cele- are you finding that when you run it instead of Paladin that you’re too susceptible to condis, or is your cleansing holding up with Soldier Runes + Verdant?

@AshinDreidon, Thanks! Yeah, Agility is working really well on GS! Nearly guarantees a critical Maul. :-) I did the same thing as you last season, really focusing on celestial with sw/t.

You are spot on about conditions, however I am finding that the combination of shouts, soldier runes, and especially Druidic Clarity are enough to save my tail. I find that if I go into CA too early and blow Druidic Clarity, I’ll usually loose against a Condi reaper.

I think the trick is to build AF early on and save Druidic clarity until you get condi bombed. You can use your shouts and Glyphs to casually remove conditions while building AF. Once I’ve blown Druidic clarity, I try not to stay in CA too long, a few lunar impact/seed combos (232323) then go back to staff to rebuild AF. The staff sigils help to rebuild AF fast.

Hey everyone. A guild mate suggest this spec. Tried it and it’s awesome! As with most druid specs, you can switch between a couple different traitlines, and sigils are always optional. It uses Paladin’s Amulet, which the Build Editor hasn’t updated to yet. It has no healing power, but the healing you put out is fantastic anyway because you have so much survivability through CDs, 560 toughness, protection on dodge etc. You’re teammates can be kept up mostly unless they’re focused by 2-3 and don’t have CDs. I haven’t tried GS with it yet, but I’m sure that could work. Longbow has a strong AoE with cripple and a short CD knockback as well as strong range burst. But GS is a bit more defensive. It’s preference. I’m having good luck as longbow because staff allows me to escape to range and nuke from afar if needed. Overall, I’ve had more success with this than my old spec. It’s not as supportive through healing, but it’s as survivable for yourself while putting out much more damage.

Something important to note is that even if you take GS, don’t take the trait. The one below actually generates AF through the passive 125 healing your pet receives every second, so this spec also gains AF VERY quickly.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWnUqA9Ci9sA2CCctgFMBDum+TLqP3gVVkrZZNACAl480A-T5QIwAAuEA42fA8TAAA

Zintrothen.1056:

Hey everyone. A guild mate suggest this spec. Tried it and it’s awesome! As with most druid specs, you can switch between a couple different traitlines, and sigils are always optional. It uses Paladin’s Amulet, which the Build Editor hasn’t updated to yet. It has no healing power, but the healing you put out is fantastic anyway because you have so much survivability through CDs, 560 toughness, protection on dodge etc. You’re teammates can be kept up mostly unless they’re focused by 2-3 and don’t have CDs. I haven’t tried GS with it yet, but I’m sure that could work. Longbow has a strong AoE with cripple and a short CD knockback as well as strong range burst. But GS is a bit more defensive. It’s preference. I’m having good luck as longbow because staff allows me to escape to range and nuke from afar if needed. Overall, I’ve had more success with this than my old spec. It’s not as supportive through healing, but it’s as survivable for yourself while putting out much more damage.

Something important to note is that even if you take GS, don’t take the trait. The one below actually generates AF through the passive 125 healing your pet receives every second, so this spec also gains AF VERY quickly.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWnUqA9Ci9sA2CCctgFMBDum+TLqP3gVVkrZZNACAl480A-T5QIwAAuEA42fA8TAAA

Interesting build, so many new druid builds since last patch, “a golden age” ^^.
I think you should take CS over NS(you have swiftness all the time) also CS is an amazing survivability tool. WIth LB, Take marauder amulet, you need the damage, you have enough survivability tools from traits and utilities. Change sigils to air/fire on LB, air/boold in staff. Dont be 2 obssesed with condi clear(generosity), best way to play around a condi necro is to kill the kitten thing. Your builds puts tons of pressure on your pets(EB+BW+GUARD) not sure britsleback will be able to survive the heat, moreover, range pets are not optimal for the use of BW(perheps electric wyvern for the AS synergie).

LughLongArm.5460:

Zintrothen.1056:

Hey everyone. A guild mate suggest this spec. Tried it and it’s awesome! As with most druid specs, you can switch between a couple different traitlines, and sigils are always optional. It uses Paladin’s Amulet, which the Build Editor hasn’t updated to yet. It has no healing power, but the healing you put out is fantastic anyway because you have so much survivability through CDs, 560 toughness, protection on dodge etc. You’re teammates can be kept up mostly unless they’re focused by 2-3 and don’t have CDs. I haven’t tried GS with it yet, but I’m sure that could work. Longbow has a strong AoE with cripple and a short CD knockback as well as strong range burst. But GS is a bit more defensive. It’s preference. I’m having good luck as longbow because staff allows me to escape to range and nuke from afar if needed. Overall, I’ve had more success with this than my old spec. It’s not as supportive through healing, but it’s as survivable for yourself while putting out much more damage.

Something important to note is that even if you take GS, don’t take the trait. The one below actually generates AF through the passive 125 healing your pet receives every second, so this spec also gains AF VERY quickly.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWnUqA9Ci9sA2CCctgFMBDum+TLqP3gVVkrZZNACAl480A-T5QIwAAuEA42fA8TAAA

Interesting build, so many new druid builds since last patch, “a golden age” ^^.
I think you should take CS over NS(you have swiftness all the time) also CS is an amazing survivability tool. WIth LB, Take marauder amulet, you need the damage, you have enough survivability tools from traits and utilities. Change sigils to air/fire on LB, air/boold in staff. Dont be 2 obssesed with condi clear(generosity), best way to play around a condi necro is to kill the kitten thing. Your builds puts tons of pressure on your pets(EB+BW+GUARD) not sure britsleback will be able to survive the heat, moreover, range pets are not optimal for the use of BW(perheps electric wyvern for the AS synergie).

I’ll give CS a shot. You’re right about the constant swiftness making the movement speed on NS pointless. The only reason for the trait is for the duration reduction on the movement impairing conditions.

I disagree about Marauder. There are too many times when Paladin’s has saved me. And a lot of times I might need to walk onto a point for whatever reason. The only thing Marauder has over Paladin’s is 560 ferocity. Though ferocity is good, it’s part of RNG whereas 560 toughness is always working, and it helps my healing on myself a bit, which is what this build is made for.

Even with extra ferocity, reapers don’t die quite that quickly! But yeah, 9 second ICD condi transfer probably isn’t going to save me and the reaper can just throw it right back lol.

I’ve been trying to find a pet that could replace bristleback. Something with a shortish CD f2 that times well with the taunt and is survivable while putting out good damage, and preferably with a CC. If only we could use two smokescales.

Zintrothen.1056:

The trap heal worked great in some games today. The extended CD wasn’t much of an issue overall, and I could tell it was helping keep my team alive, especially with Sigil of Transference. Could you clarify about the “old regen” thing?

Another question: what are your thoughts on Rune of Leadership over Soldier? The traited elite shout is a CD of 48 seconds, which times perfectly with Leadership. I’ll also be running the trap heal, and the teleport res won’t be used for the condi cleanse. Only protect me the elite would be useful for that, and the elite with Leadership would cleanse two and turn them into boons (possibly 2 seconds of resistance from chill).

Before it was a trap, we could stack regen pre-fight, by casting it. Now that it is a trap, the regen only comes when the trap is activated, so when the player lost some health, which limits the ability to stack regen.

Only for personal condi cleanse, Lyssa is the strongest (I believe). But it does not give the many advantages the other give.
Leadership; I’m not sure of it’s range. If it’s below 360, I do not feel it would be worth it to take it if thinking about allie’s condis.
Soldier. it’s strong points are vita and toughness. Personnal sustain. I personnally find a one condi per shout taken off weak in the current meta, especially since it might be taking off a weak condi, and not the one that’s killing you.

All in all, ranger have alway been somewhat adaptable in PvP.
It is not a “one build to conquer them all” kind of class. It kept that versatility with the introduction of druid.