Guild Wars 2

Hey folks! Caiden here. You may have seen some of my Necro/Guardian guides out there.
There’s a lot of doom and gloom. Some people are really sad about the healing, some people are loving it. Awesome.

Some people may be like me, hoping to play Druid in the sense of a Meditation guardian. Offensive with some side support. Before you puff up and say that Celestial Form without healing power will be useless (We don’t know the healing coefficients yet), bear with me.

Did anyone else notice the auto attack, which attacks in bursts of 3 and ignores reflects, getting upwards of 2,500 damage? Did anyone else see the untraited/unstatted wisp hitting for 800 a second for 5 seconds?

Coefficients:
Bow Auto Average: 336
Staff: 282 with 3 pulses (Higher damage potential)

Rapid Fire: 1400 (If all arrows hit)
Astral Wisp: 743 for kittens (Also higher potential)

Rain of Arrows: Cripple + 1788 for all waves
Vine Surge: 464 + Immobilize + 3 targets + condi cleanse. (Less damage, but I like the instant pay off of the immobilize rather than a dodgeable Rain of arrows)

The other skills offer their own utilities. Comes down to situation and preference. Glyphs I would probably skip and stick with Survival skills. Go for the Movement speed buff trait, reduce staff recharge and daze, and Ancient seeds.

I think this has a lot of potential. Using cooldowns, swapping into Celestial, getting a little more control and topping off, then back into Staff/Greatsword or Staff/Bow.

Staff/GS has some great synergy with Glyphs, chaining off of dazes, stuns, and more.

There is some great Medium/High DPS potential here. You won’t be zerker level, but it’s a step in the direction of 70/30 damage healing split rather than vice versa.

What do you think?

Some of my wild theorycrafting has been focusing on frontline support with Greatsword. Yes yes, I know, p!ss-poor damage and all that, but the greatsword does have both a daze and a knock to help trigger Ancient Seeds, and Verdant Etchings is pretty baller cleanse support with 3+ Glyphs. Not as ridiculous as an Elixirs Engineer or such, but pretty solid. Moment of Clarity is pretty intense, and the Druid seems to be fairly well able to set up Predator’s Onslaught, as well. Beyond a metric grip of dazes, I mean.

I honestly don’t see the problem. Yes, it has a ton of healing. No, that is not all it does. I’m rather looking forward to experimenting with it.

Twisting the new trait-line and utilities into a selfish monster was pretty much the first thing to go through my mind.

I’m confident people will unleash even worse evils in a day or two…

Nike.2631:

Twisting the new trait-line and utilities into a selfish monster was pretty much the first thing to go through my mind.

I’m confident people will unleash even worse evils in a day or two…

I approve of this. Let us show them the wrath of nature, friend.

Ancient Seeds and shortbow #5 is pretty much auto-tangles. You can build a whole interlocking nest of awful around SB and off-hand dagger.

You should have predator’s onslaught up continuously.

Im thinking about it the whole time already and can’t sleep. How to make the most annoying 1v1 druid that actually has good dmg-potential. Broooooo… those heals… this is gun b gud. It seems so op on paper. Imaging a Ranger that can just kinda “water-attunement” out of difficult situations.

I was thinking something more like this.
S/WH-Staff
Cultivated Synergy
Verdant Etching
Lingering Light
Missing skill is Glyph of Empowerment.

Nike.2631:

Ancient Seeds and shortbow #5 is pretty much auto-tangles. You can build a whole interlocking nest of awful around SB and off-hand dagger.

You should have predator’s onslaught up continuously.

This is amazing.

Did someone else notice freakin planets orbiting around you??? amazing animations!!!

Nike.2631:

Ancient Seeds and shortbow #5 is pretty much auto-tangles. You can build a whole interlocking nest of awful around SB and off-hand dagger.

You should have predator’s onslaught up continuously.

Nike can I go with SB/Axe-Dagger Instead of Sword for more bleed condi?

Mono.7320:

Nike can I go with SB/Axe-Dagger Instead of Sword for more bleed condi?

I’m not Nike, but still :P

There’s nothing really stopping you, though my experiments with it make getting everything you want for an Axe/Dagger or Axe/Torch Malice build really difficult with Druid. Either you give up ALLDAFIRE from Skirmishing’s Trapper’s Expertise, extra Malice and cooldown reductions for the Torch and Dagger from Ambidexterity in Wilderness (as well as Wilderness Knowledge), or you give up Winter’s Bite in Beast. You can’t take all three lines and still be a Druid, and each of those is generally pretty heavily leaned on in the Malice builds I know of.

You can probably go Skirmish/Beast/Druid if you want if you want a Malice Druid, but you almost have to take Verdant Etchings and multiple glyphs. Which really isn’t a bother, I suppose, VE is amazeballs and some of those glyphs are pretty intense. Still, the axe doesn’t work nearly as well without Winter’s Bite. Hrmm…will be interesting to see where the math falls out on that.

Ditch the staff and the glyphs. Use survival/signet and non-staff weapons depending on power/condi build. Pick up druid trait.

You’ll have a pretty good selfish offensive druid.

hell yes, offensive druid is possible. I thought about staff/GS synergy only a few minutes into the reveal. the great thing about the druid is that it actually gives us SUSTAIN, which we’ve never had before. so now we can actually use our best melee weapon offensively. not to mention that it will make for a sick frontline build.

Nike.2631:

Ancient Seeds and shortbow #5 is pretty much auto-tangles. You can build a whole interlocking nest of awful around SB and off-hand dagger. You should have predator’s onslaught up continuously.

the synergy is interesting, and I’ll look for any excuse to love SB. but I still feel the weapon is far too weak, and that we have better options.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Mono.7320:

Nike can I go with SB/Axe-Dagger Instead of Sword for more bleed condi?

I’m not Nike, but still :P

There’s nothing really stopping you, though my experiments with it make getting everything you want for an Axe/Dagger or Axe/Torch Malice build really difficult with Druid. Either you give up ALLDAFIRE from Skirmishing’s Trapper’s Expertise, extra Malice and cooldown reductions for the Torch and Dagger from Ambidexterity in Wilderness (as well as Wilderness Knowledge), or you give up Winter’s Bite in Beast. You can’t take all three lines and still be a Druid, and each of those is generally pretty heavily leaned on in the Malice builds I know of.

You can probably go Skirmish/Beast/Druid if you want if you want a Malice Druid, but you almost have to take Verdant Etchings and multiple glyphs. Which really isn’t a bother, I suppose, VE is amazeballs and some of those glyphs are pretty intense. Still, the axe doesn’t work nearly as well without Winter’s Bite. Hrmm…will be interesting to see where the math falls out on that.

Wilderness Knowledge/Skrimishing/Druid with 2 Glyphs and Sharpening/Entangle should do it. I can run S/T-A/D or SB-A/D (Don’t really care about Beastmastery)

Also consider on the Lone Pine what happens when you cast Entangle followed by either glyph… Boom: instant 5 target Ancient Seeds with its FX hidden under the Entangle briars. They specifically called out that if you trigger Ancient seeds with an AoE it procs on everybody before going into ICD. Bleed-o-rama with hidden barbs dialing it up even further.

Mono.7320:

Nike can I go with SB/Axe-Dagger Instead of Sword for more bleed condi?

I run SB/Axe + Horn right now so I’m not gonna say ‘no’ . If the layer upon layer of cripple and immobilize works as well as I hope, you may not need a melee weapon at all, making axe an excellent alt weapon while waiting for the bigger SB stunts to cool off.

Moment of Clarity pairs with Ancient Seeds soooo well .

Nike.2631:

Also consider on the Lone Pine what happens when you cast Entangle followed by either glyph… Boom: instant 5 target Ancient Seeds with its FX hidden under the Entangle briars. They specifically called out that if you trigger Ancient seeds with an AoE it procs on everybody before going into ICD. Bleed-o-rama with hidden barbs dialing it up even further.

Add Runes of the Mad King to this plus the new bleed spam pet. We’ll make a kill zone of thorns and death.

Ehecatl.9172:

Nike.2631:

Also consider on the Lone Pine what happens when you cast Entangle followed by either glyph… Boom: instant 5 target Ancient Seeds with its FX hidden under the Entangle briars. They specifically called out that if you trigger Ancient seeds with an AoE it procs on everybody before going into ICD. Bleed-o-rama with hidden barbs dialing it up even further.

Add Runes of the Mad King to this plus the new bleed spam pet. We’ll make a kill zone of thorns and death.

Yeah, was thinking this too; The Ancient Mad Druid haha! That is gonna be crazy good.

I wanna make new builds so bad with Druid(Theorycraft). But http://en.gw2skills.net/editor don’t have Druid yet :/

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ehecatl.9172:

Add Runes of the Mad King to this plus the new bleed spam pet. We’ll make a kill zone of thorns and death.

Yeah, was thinking this too; The Ancient Mad Druid haha! That is gonna be crazy good.

Yes! Let the blood of our enemies fuel new life. Let the birds feast on the dead as they hang rotting beneath the rising sun! It is the dawn of a new era. The time of the Mad Druid has come!

most def. Its the thing that will help rangers get into meta level in pvp i hope. Ranger can do dmg now, but dont provide anything else, so you always take thief/mesmer/engi. But with druid ranger can do dmg+support+control, its amazing, plus you get a good bump to self sustain. Those heals are strong even without HP, pop in celestial form to daze, heal allies, clear condis, slow. In 2v2 and teamfights you are useful outside of dmg, you can heal allies in trouble for substantial amounts, you can be a big help in rezing/stomping situations. Offensive druid now has a clear and UNIQUE role – good dmg alongside strong team heals (no other marauder/zerker/carrion class can heal like druid). Works on condi and power builds. Lots of options and potential, cant wait to try it out

Copied over for convenience

MAD-SEED DRUID

Weapons: Giver’s Shortbow/Rabid Axe + Giver’s Dagger
Pets: Jungle Spider (multiple immobilizes), Krytan Drakehound (CC triple threat)
Sigils: Sigil of Hobbling +20% cripple duration (Bow and Dagger), Sigil of Incapacitation cripple on crit (Bow), Sigil of Corruption stacking condition damage on kill (Axe)
Runes: Mad King (power, condi duration, bleed duration, ravens on Elite)
Heal: Troll Unguent
Utility: Glyph of Alignment — Glyph of Equality — Signet of Stone
Elite: Entangle

Marksmanship

• Opening Strike Cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat.
• Alpha Training Pets have Opening Strike.
• Precise Strike Opening strike always critical hits.

• Predator’s Instinct Apply cripple to foes you hit while they are below 50% health.
• Moment of Clarity Gain an attack of opportunity for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. Daze and stun durations you inflict last longer.
• Predator’s Onslaught You and your pet deal increased damage to disabled or movement-impaired foes.

Skirmishing

• Tail Wind Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat.
• Furious Grip Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat.
• Hunter’s Tactics Increased chance to critically strike while attacking from behind or the side.

• Sharpened Edges Chance to cause bleeding on critical hits.
• Hidden Barbs Bleeding you cause is more dangerous.
• Light on your Feet Damage and condition duration is increased for a while after dodging. Short bow skills recharge faster and your arrows pierce.

Druid

• Celestial Being Celestial uh-oh mode.
• Live Vicariously Healing your pet heals you. (screw those other guys! )
• Natural Mender Stacking heal buff when you heal.

• Druidic Clarity Entering celestial form removes all conditions.
• Natural Stride Reduce duration of cripple/immobilize. +33% speed when not crippled/immobilized.
• Ancient Seeds Hitting a CC’d enemy applies immobilize and bleed.

This is gonna be a kiting immobilize/cripple/bleed machine .

…
…
….wow….

Nike.2631:

Copied over for convenience

MAD-SEED DRUID

Weapons: Giver’s Shortbow/Rabid Axe + Giver’s Dagger
Pets: Jungle Spider (multiple immobilizes), Lashtail Devourer (stuns)
Sigils: Sigil of Hobbling +20% cripple duration (Bow and Dagger), Sigil of Incapacitation cripple on crit (Bow), Sigil of Corruption stacking condition damage on kill (Axe)
Runes: Mad King (power, condi duration, bleed duration, ravens on Elite)
Heal: Troll Unguent
Utility: Glyph of Alignment — Glyph of Equality — Signet of Stone
Elite: Entangle

Marksmanship

• Opening Strike Cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat.
• Alpha Training Pets have Opening Strike.
• Precise Strike Opening strike always critical hits.

• Predator’s Instinct Apply cripple to foes you hit while they are below 50% health.
• Moment of Clarity Gain an attack of opportunity for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. Daze and stun durations you inflict last longer.
• Predator’s Onslaught You and your pet deal increased damage to disabled or movement-impaired foes.

Skirmishing

• Tail Wind Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat.
• Furious Grip Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat.
• Hunter’s Tactics Increased chance to critically strike while attacking from behind or the side.

• Sharpened Edges Chance to cause bleeding on critical hits.
• Hidden Barbs Bleeding you cause is more dangerous.
• Light on your Feet Damage and condition duration is increased for a while after dodging. Short bow skills recharge faster and your arrows pierce.

Druid

• Celestial Being Celestial uh-oh mode.
• Live Vicariously Healing your pet heals you. (screw those other guys! )
• Natural Mender Stacking heal buff when you heal.

• Druidic Clarity Entering celestial form removes all conditions.
• Natural Stride Reduce duration of cripple/immobilize. +33% speed when not crippled/immobilized.
• Ancient Seeds Hitting a CC’d enemy applies immobilize and bleed.

This is gonna be a kiting immobilize/cripple/bleed machine .

But lashtail stun is only underwater.. Any more suggestions?

Yeah, I already made up my mind.

I refuse to be anyone’s heal bot

I’ll grab what I need from druid and ignore the large healing stuff and stick to my zerker gears. I would not try to heal heal heal to no end for you.
I’ll grab the cleanse and mobility and move on.

Screw the heal bot.

The skill balance panel earlier today made WHAO absolutely rediculous and, coupled, with the not-unsubstantial damage on the staff’s autoattack and the range of its heals, has me convinced that a backline power-based offensive support Druid might be possible.

For those unaware, WHAO now shares boons between the ranger and pet. All boons on the pet goes to the ranger, all boons on the ranger go to the pet. This is in addition to the heal, obviously.

Will be experimenting with this and reporting my findings. I’m a rookie at theorycrafting though so any help would be appreciated!

StickerHappy.8052:

But lashtail stun is only underwater.. Any more suggestions?

Upon consideration Krytan Drakehound is BETTER than I could hope for. Cripple, knock down & AoE immobilze? Sold?

…Though I might use the new spikeback dinosaur in that slot because it’s adorable .

(…and flings bleeds like a tiny loveable serial killer)

Looking at the tool tip Staff auto has a cast time of 1 and a quarter seconds. I don’t know where you are getting good damage from.

Aomine.5012:

Screw the heal bot.

you don’t need to heal anyone but yourself. use celestial form for its utility and to heal yourself up. druid trait line enhances just about every offensive build.

Levetty.1279:

Looking at the tool tip Staff auto has a cast time of 1 and a quarter seconds. I don’t know where you are getting good damage from.

Irenio was doing about 2.5k damage with no stats, just with the AA.

mistsim.2748:

Aomine.5012:

Screw the heal bot.

you don’t need to heal anyone but yourself. use celestial form for its utility and to heal yourself up. druid trait line enhances just about every offensive build.

Hows it enhance the standard LB/GS

Wilderness survival +signet of stone offers better utilities/heals.
Beastmaster has the better cc + damage combo.
Then for the third trait line you have:
Nature Magic is better defense.
Marksmenship/Skirmish offer much better options for damage (what with druid having none).

mistsim.2748:

Irenio was doing about 2.5k damage with no stats, just with the AA.

He also refered to signet of stone as a glyph. You are all pretty naive if you think a weapon based around healing is going to have ranged damage on par with longbow.

Levetty.1279:

Looking at the tool tip Staff auto has a cast time of 1 and a quarter seconds. I don’t know where you are getting good damage from.

1.25 second channel. Hits 3 times in that period.

Levetty.1279:

mistsim.2748:

Aomine.5012:

Screw the heal bot.

you don’t need to heal anyone but yourself. use celestial form for its utility and to heal yourself up. druid trait line enhances just about every offensive build.

Hows it enhance the standard LB/GS

Wilderness survival +signet of stone offers better utilities/heals.
Beastmaster has the better cc + damage combo.
Then for the third trait line you have:
Nature Magic is better defense.
Marksmenship/Skirmish offer much better options for damage (what with druid having none).

The F5 gives you a ton of support for your allies in teamfights, something ranger lacked the most. Even without healing power, you get a ton of heals and AoE daze, slow & immobilizes. The elite glyph has a lot of damage & healing potential in teamfights too.

The Druid traits are useful for power rangers, the immob when you hit a cc’d target is strong, the stealth & superspeed when leaving F5 form opens up a lot of utility.
The grandmaster traits are all pretty good, really depends on the enemy team comp which one you choose here.
Ditch Nature Magic or Beastmastery for druid, less self sustain or damage/cc, but in return you get to be a LOT more useful in teamfights.

Tentative setup here, critique more than welcome. [F]irst time theory crafting, be gentle.

May I present: My Beams Bring all the Boys to the Yard Backline Power Druid. Name is a work in progress.

Beastmastery:

Minors:
Pack Alpha
Loud Whistle
Pet’s Prowess

Majors:
Companion’s Might
Wilting Strike
Zephyr’s Speed

Marksmanship:

Minors:
Opening Strike
Alpha Training
Precise Strike

Majors:
Clarion Bond
Brutish Seals
Remorseless

Druid:

Minors:
Celestial Being
Live Vicariously
Natural Mender

Majors:
Primal Echoes
Natural Stride
Ancient Seeds

Weapons:

Longbow
Staff

Utilities:
We Heal as One
Signet of the Wild
Signet of Stone
Signet of the Hunt
Strength of the Pack

Pet:
Jungle Stalker
Red Moa

The idea behind this is a combination of disgustingly selfish might stacking through opening strike, signet and F2 abuse. Keep pet on passive initially. Pop Stalker’s F2 for five stacks of might. Switch to Moa. Enter combat, pop opening strike. Use Moa’s F2 to regain opening strike, switch BACK to Stalker, set pet to aggressive. Pop all signets, pop SotP, use WHAO.

Haven’t done the math yet, but I’m preeeeetty sure that puts you at 25 stacks. Maintain might by swapping pet when available and using signets as they come off cooldown.

Druid traits are there to both boost your staff skills and provide a safety net in case enemies get too close, as you’re not carrying any melee weapons. Longbow 4 + Ancient Seeds is a hilariously trollish combination. Celestial Avatar is an “oh kitten” button.

Thoughts?

ninja edit: pls forgive kitten formatting, am on phone.

Nice thoughts and I like solo PVE and world content. Also roaming WvW. But for the majority, what group is going to want a DPS druid? In my experience from other games no one. I quit playing healers altogether after 3 years because of the way players treat them. Not to mention how boring it is. Guild always demanding that I play healer “this time,” but my turn to play another toon never came. I don’t think human nature has changed. Also I have yet to see a game that rewards healing commensurate with damage. Finally what happened to the GW2 design innovation of no healers?

You have given me some hope, but the bottom line is how bad will the expansion nerf the offensive specializations and the other weapon and utility skills. Furthermore if the druid turns out to be great at 1v1 duels, other players will start yelling about play balance. They will complain about play balance regardless. What matters is what is left two months after the expansion goes live.

My impression (not based on testing) during beta is that the changes have greatly increased the dps of the other classes. With the announcement of the druid now, it appears that the plan is to balance the increased dps by the other classes by adding a healer profession to the game. I cannot think of another reason to take a 3-year step backward in game design. I suspect that a designer who wants to force druids to heal would reduce the attractiveness of any other alternative. All it would take is to make rangers less effective at dps than the other eight professions. Then parties would take anyone but a ranger as dps.

Logically if you give rangers greater healing abilities than the other eight professions, something else has to be made worse than the other eight professions. The days of rough parity between the professions are gone.

mistsim.2748:

Aomine.5012:

Screw the heal bot.

you don’t need to heal anyone but yourself. use celestial form for its utility and to heal yourself up. druid trait line enhances just about every offensive build.

Levetty.1279:

Looking at the tool tip Staff auto has a cast time of 1 and a quarter seconds. I don’t know where you are getting good damage from.

Irenio was doing about 2.5k damage with no stats, just with the AA.

Looking at the live stream again its pretty obvious he was talking about the tooltip. He isn’t doing 2.5k hits with 0 stats. He certainly isn’t critting that much with the base 4% crit chance you have with no precision.