Guild Wars 2

Druid has just completely baffled me and I think it’s mostly because in other games, when you play a healer…you PLAY a healer, not a damage dealer who sometimes gets a heal off. So Druid is confusing the kitten out of me…how do you Druid while in a Fractal or a dungeon?

Do you try to get into the F5 as often as possible and stay or switch in, use a skill and switch out? The metabuild guide says use skill 4 but then how are you heaingl teammates then if all you are doing is using one skill? The Glyphs? Is there something I am not seeing? A rotation maybe that I could follow to start learning the Druid and get more comfortable with it?

Am I going to get the blame, like in other games, if the party wipes? I mean, PUG groups aren’t exactly known for standing where they are supposed to to get buffs and heals.

It feels so niche, I honestly only use it for a few traits.
Honestly I think Druid should have been an elite they released way down the road, when there are other elite options already released. Definitely should not have been the first elite released for ranger. Just a bad decision IMO.

(For Fractals/Dungeons)
Don’t think of Druid as THE healer. You are just like the other players, there to DPS… plus you can heal if need be.

The skill 4 in CAF heals all your allies and gives them full stacks of Grace of the Land (party wide 15% dmg/condi dmg increase), which is why I pop in CAF whenever I can, just for that one skill.
Skill 3 is useful for breaking breakbars and/or giving that bit of extra healing to allies who need it.
Skill 5 is only a DPS boost if you are using longbow and waiting for weapon swap.

Glyphs do heal a bit which again can help pugs. You should be running with at least Glyph of Empowerment, traited with Verdant Etching (seeds give Grace of the Land).

I haven’t personally witnessed any ‘’blame the healer’’ if the party wipes.

For fractals I focus mostly on disruption and damage mitigation.
Your seeds (glyphs with Verdant Etching) place a blind on enemies in an area, so that mitigates the damage income. I usually go with glyph of Rejuvenation, Equality, Empowerment, Frost/Sun spirit (depending on setup) and Glyph of Unity.

And truth be told, I think I didn’t screw anything up when I used #3 > #4 > #3 > #2 > #5 combination. That way I mitigated the most damage I could while also providing a little heal.
Naturally, this doesn’t work at bosses with Break-Bar so using #4 on quickdraw is a natural choice.

I usually run around with LB + Staff since I can throw the initial burst from LB with +10 vuln, and then keep building CAF up.

Note:
Don’t forget that Glyph of Empowerment in Astral Form increases Healing Done by 25% for everyone. So even if it’s not you who does the heals – your allies can heal themselves for more thanks to you.

P.S. Don’t worry. You won’t get blamed if the party wipes. You come in as a babysitter. Not as a healer. If the party wipes – it’s their own fault for not avoiding damage and using their own heals properly. You are there just to create comfort.

For PvE if you want to do some damage and heal- Make a condition/heal build.

Tell your party to stand still and heal them. If they are not in your heal zone and die say “I’m sorry, but you have to be in my heal radius.”. If you don’t have heals ready because of the gated CA and players die just say “I’m sorry, my heals are gated and couldn’t heal you at the time because I didn’t have access to CA.”.

Enjoy Druid!

Here is a handy dandy video that explains the awesomeness of healing on a Druid…

Tragic Positive.9356:

I usually run around with LB + Staff since I can throw the initial burst from LB with +10 vuln, and then keep building CAF up.

So I’m not going to get the ‘WTF staff??? /kick’ if I bring one to a party then? The community can be so weird about weapon choices and lately the s/a and lb has been the meta. Is it ok to let the sw/a go for fractals then? Not like I am a real damage dealer to a party anyway…

Swagger.1459:

Here is a handy dandy video that explains the awesomeness of healing on a Druid…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm2ZK2wrKhU

Thank you for this video link! It was super helpful…now I have an idea of the things I should be doing.

One more quick question…can I replace the LB with the staff? Never been a fan of LB much and would rather keep my melee set of s/a or s/t

rabidsmiles.5926:

Tragic Positive.9356:

I usually run around with LB + Staff since I can throw the initial burst from LB with +10 vuln, and then keep building CAF up.

So I’m not going to get the ‘WTF staff??? /kick’ if I bring one to a party then? The community can be so weird about weapon choices and lately the s/a and lb has been the meta. Is it ok to let the sw/a go for fractals then? Not like I am a real damage dealer to a party anyway…

This depends on the party. And it depends a lot.

If you have any means of filling CAF without staff – I’d recommend using a different weapon set or build. S/A is a viable choice. The pull is nice and so is #5.

The only thing that matters is that you fill your CAF fast and you make sure your run ends well. This will sound awful, absurd, arrogant and whatnot – but the only thing in GW that matters is that you get your fractal done in as least time and in the most enjoyable way you can.
If you don’t enjoy being flamed – adjust to ViperMeta or ZerkMeta or whatever.
If making sure you’ll finish the run is enjoyable to you – then get a staff, get stuns and heal up your party that probably can’t dodge the right stuff. I made my way to 100 with Cleric Daze build extremely safely and much faster than probably other Pug individuals who went for MetaZerk logic.

I’m not that fond of LB either so I usually run fracs with s/a+staff. Iirc there has been only one time someone mentioned about my staff. The 5+3 combo on it can help in higher fracs, but other than that I don’t really swap to it during a fight. Traited Healing Spring is more than enough to generate AF along with glyph seeds and Cultivated Synergy. Or you can sacrifice some dmg and slap a Water sigil on your sword.

Oh and don’t forget to bring Frost Spirit+Spotter. If you don’t, well, that will more likely be the reason for getting kicked than using a staff or not healing

My Sweet Lily.1952:

Oh and don’t forget to bring Frost Spirit+Spotter. If you don’t, well, that will more likely be the reason for getting kicked than using a staff or not healing

This.
Even though at higher Fractals you might get into a position where Frost Spirit is changed with Sun spirit. If more people from your group run conditions, naturally.

Oh I run the meta build to a point…spotter and frost spirit have never left my druid. I know why I am brought into fractals, it’s not because of my adorable tiger

Haven’t been kicked but trying to prevent it…nothing like getting halfway through a fractal only to have someone rage at the group and it implode. Didn’t want them to see a staff and freak out.

Druid is a emergency heal for your self it’s no where near the quality of others
it’s a joke and why i quit my ranger and started a reaper since they just plain SUCK

Valky.2574:

Druid is a emergency heal for your self it’s no where near the quality of others
it’s a joke and why i quit my ranger and started a reaper since they just plain SUCK

I quit playing after their last patch, but saying that doesn’t help someone who wants to play the druid in any way.
If you can’t use CAF to help others then you were probably just using it wrong. CAF also boosts DPS of other people by 15% by 2 button presses (entering the form and using #4).

Your statements are hardly objective.

My Sweet Lily.1952:

(For Fractals/Dungeons)
Don’t think of Druid as THE healer. You are just like the other players, there to DPS… plus you can heal if need be.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I made my way to 100 with Cleric Daze build extremely safely and much faster than probably other Pug individuals who went for MetaZerk logic.

I am stuck between these two positions on Druid… Go Zerker or go Cleric? The question “How does one Druid properly” has been bugging me as well because it seems that most people who you come across in GW2 is all about DPS, you don’t really hear much about healing. I was thinking about going full Cleric armor and trinkets to take advantage of all the healing Druid offered but… is a healer role really necessary in this game? Or should we all just be trying to DPS?

LittleHorn.6728:

My Sweet Lily.1952:

(For Fractals/Dungeons)
Don’t think of Druid as THE healer. You are just like the other players, there to DPS… plus you can heal if need be.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I made my way to 100 with Cleric Daze build extremely safely and much faster than probably other Pug individuals who went for MetaZerk logic.

I am stuck between these two positions on Druid… Go Zerker or go Cleric? The question “How does one Druid properly” has been bugging me as well because it seems that most people who you come across in GW2 is all about DPS, you don’t really hear much about healing. I was thinking about going full Cleric armor and trinkets to take advantage of all the healing Druid offered but… is a healer role really necessary in this game? Or should we all just be trying to DPS?

I wouldn’t worry about the healing stat. Only 2 druid skills really take advantage of it. One is lunar impact, which you have to be in CA to do, and the other is Ancestral Grace. Neither of those skills are bad without healing stat.

Can I add a side question that came about after reading all the replies here?
Well I’m going to anyway.
If I go “full” Heal, clerics or magi armor, tickets and weapons, my DPS is going to be lower than let’s say for example 40% of a full Zerk set…
If I bring Glyff of Empowerment, frost spirit, spotter, pet for fury or might, plus I get into CAF often with its power buffs I theoretical give say 30-40? DPS buff to 4 (fractal) of my allies??? 4*30% is not 120% anyway, therefore covering the deficit of my lack of DPS?
Plus the Heal provided by me keeping them up longer and putting down the hurt longer?
Of course you could argue that a Zerk druid has good DPS with some Heal, but in my mind they’re similar, am I wrong?

I’ve been on my druid for about 6 weeks now and I’m loving it!

The 1st thing to keep in mind that Rangers have 2nd worst personal DPS across all the board, even in full meta DPS setup.
And that DPS is roughly (or below) 40% of an elementalist’s perfect (immobile and stuff) on a single target. In AoE it falls off even more. By trying to squeeze your personal DPS – you have to ignore CAF completely since that mode stops your DPS – and that way you shorten 4 other people of 15% of DPS… Which might very likely be those elementalists that far surpass yours.
Which means it doesn’t really matter if you go for personal or support DPS.

You see, the thing is that you won’t really know what works best until you try it yourself. If you pug and you find most of yours groups dying (with you included because of that) – cleric all the way.
If you get matched with good people – berserker healer will very likely do and will make your run faster by around 30 seconds. People never wanted rangers because of their personal DPS anyway.

The worst part about “How to druid properly” is that you have to be a slave and adapt to every single situation differently. And that sucks a bit since that is something you didn’t want to hear, neither did it help you.
I haven’t had a single day ever since HoT where I kept the same build. I always changed it according to situation 2-3 times a day. So I keep a completely full equipment of berserker, Cleric, Viper/Sinister, and most weapons I keep double of Berserker/Zealot or Viper stats. Because that’s the correct way to druid. To change your build and equipment depending on every single party differently – since each composition and party individually needs something different.

Each suggestion of every single one of people here is correct. And that’s the problem.

Agree 100% and perhaps that’s the best way to play the Druid, know your situation and where you and change accordingly.

I too have full Zerk, condi, Heal sets, with multiple weapons for each.

I will change equipment and traits for almost all content, support for wvw, power for karka farming, speed and traps for log farming or normal world PvE, condi for HoT or SW. Weapons too always different.

I like the complexity and don’t notice to lack of DPS, they still go down and GW2 is great fun either way.

Do what you like and have fun, or find a guild or group that suits you, not the other way round.