Guild Wars 2

Hello!

I played gw2 for a while when it was first released, but drifted to other games after a few months. Now, I got back into the game about a week ago, and having a blast with it. I used to play with mesmer and engi, but now I went with ranger, because the druid spec sounded something I might enjoy. Healing is something I often go for in MMOs.

I mostly do PvE content, such as world events/bosses, fractals (still t1). I also do/did some WvW, mostly for the reward tracking and skill points. PvP arena is something I mostly do for dailies./reward tracking. I like PvP, but PvE is nore the content I do. I’m hoping to utilize a healing based build, aiming for the PvE content, anything I can do with pugs. High end fractals and raiding seems interesting, but I don’t know if those are doable without a dedicated group/guild.

Now my main problem is choosing the gear to compliment my playstyle. I don’t mind going all the way into healing, but from what I’ve read, that’s for raiding only? So far, I’ve crafted the minstrel ascendant staff (might’ve been a waste, dunno. Looks sweet, though :P).

Now I’m looking into getting the rest of my ascendant gear, but I have no idea, what prefixes or stats I should go for. The healing power-heavy items seem to be a no-no for other than raiding. So, is there any good all around trinkets and armor, that would let me do the fancy healing I want, and the (atleast moderate) dps that seems to be what favored and expected from me? What are the general tresholds that I should aim for in healing power, cond/powerwise?

And if it is possible to combine these two in a single set, should the dps be condition or power-based? And if it’s not possible to get both healing/average dps for the desired all-around-PvE content, should I craft my ascendandt gear for the dps or healing?

Sorry for the long and jibberish post and thank you for reading!

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_DPS/Support_Power, works for everything, if you want some heals just get some zealots trinks.

however if you do top tier fracs or raids with pugs id have at least a full exotic magis gear for back up, those kind of things its better just to heal and buff the group, since they will mostly like make more mistakes than an organized comp

Oh, seems interesting! I’ll give it a go! I have to say it feels kind of underwhelming that healing power seems to be of so little importance. When I got started again, I blindly went for cleric gear, ’cos I thought the hp would matter more. After that I realizd to check the general view of the builds onlyntonfind that it mostly seems to berserker and what not. So as for crafting ascended armor, I take it that the suggested berserker/assassin combo would be best to start with?

if you a going to make ascended gear i would make marauder to start with. It doesn’t do quite as much damage as zerker but you get a little more suitability and more crit chance for proc’ing stuff

for open world stuff like bosses, events, and map completion i use this build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWjUqQFL2vCOsAXLW2Dsn4wR4pBHXzr91lbXAIBUizDD-TFCFQBXUJI72fQfq/QgLBgCV+BgjAgAeAAqTXAA-w or
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWnUqA1Ci9rAOsActgl9ADOumX7rPxhy1Tb52FAOblMtzA-T1BFQBE4QAoONBXUJI72fQhK/0n6PA4IAAA-w

For WvW roaming i use this build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqA1Ci9rAOsActgl/A7JN8DOawn126dd51lBCAl480A-TFCFQBqTXA72fQfq/IgHAAAOCAXUJoCV+RgLBAA-w OR
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqA1Ci9rAOsActglZB7JAUn+Ww/zC6D1JqNnyalMtzA-TFCFQBA4IAoOdB6T9HCcJAuoSQFq8jd7PIgHAAA-w (you could use replace Great sword with Long bow or sword-War horn or Axe-WH as well)

For dungeons and fraticals use the meta battle build above with marauder

So general pve content is pretty easy ment to be enjoyed and explored. Really really casual

But when decide to really look f or challenges they’re there be it wvw, top tier fractals, raids, or PvP healing power is very very essential in very important niche rolls.

I’m mainly a roamer/ in wvwer who casualy pvps when wvw is slow or to zergy. But I’ve dabbled with raids and fractals, map completion since I grew up on gw1 I’m embarrassingly a bit of a lore geek.
What I’m trying to say I try to play evrything, anyways that’s a solid pve build and is pretty much welcome every where in pve due to its okay damage and fantastic offensive buffing.

But eggs got a point marader is a good around set for just doing okay in evrything, it’s alright in in all 3 game modes,as you have okay survivability and okay damage.

The assassins is for reaching that 100 % crit chance so you can squeeze everything out of your deeps

I am currently working toward an ascended Magi’s set for raid-level healing, and I can keep people alive through quite a bit in all game modes I’ve done so far (sPvP, WvW, dungeons).

For dps, I’ve fallen in love with my Viper condi druid. The shortbow and axe/torch setup just clicked with me (even before the shortbow received some much needed improvements), and I just love the playstyle.

The raiding/super-duper-optimizers would laugh at me for this, but shockingly almost any kind of druid makes an incredible spot healer, all thanks to celestial avatar. My Viper condi druid can heal any dungeon group quite easily just by popping briefly into celestial avatar form, then returning to normal and doing dps. The added bonus is that celestial avatar triggers the reduced cooldowns from the Quickdraw trait, making it that much more useful to be switching between heals and dps as necessary.

This dps-that-heals-occasionally will NOT work for raids, unless your super team needs very little healing compared to what a staff-wielding Magi druid puts down. I too am still working my way out of T1 fractals, so I can’t speak to how far along you can be a dps-healer in the fractals.

Thanks for all the replies and help! I haven’t tried out the condi before, I’ve mostly done lb and x/wh. lb for the dmg, and wh for the CotW sustaining and vulnerability spamming. I’m new to the game, so I have alot to learn about the combos, and how traited abilities work together. I think I’ll get more exotics first, and give some more thought for the ascended armor, and whether I’ll go for the magi or marauder.

one thing about ascended armor and weapons, is that you can change the stats on them (at an ingame cost) so they are worth making even if you are not sure, you can also get a lot of ascended gear from completing ingame content as well. so you cant make the ‘wrong’ accended gear as you can change it at a later date

I run t4 fractals regularly and raid occasionally. Full magi gear, or any healing power, isn’t really needed in fractals. Just slot the Druid traitline and you can provide enough general healing to get through most any encounter.

at the moment viper condi ranger/druid far outshines power ranger in terms of dps, especially in t4 fractals. kitten you can go either way but it pays to learn the encounter as condi since you’re playing closer to the boss.

power can certainly be used in t4 fractals and marauder is a good set, you don’t need to reach for 100 crit chance, druid doesn’t make as good a use of crits as some other classes. pure zerk is better but marauder can help you stay alive as you learn te encounters. once you’re ready stat switch your gear to zerk and have fun killing everything that moves.