Guild Wars 2

Zealot’s gear is EXPENSIVE! especially since it will be the best gear for Druid once HoT drops the price has skyrocketed. Also unless ascended trinkets are released as part of the HoT LS, similar to the way sinister was introduced, we’ll still need an option for trinkets.

The best I’ve been able to come up with so far has been either a cleric’s/zerker mix or a full celestial set. The full celestial route actually has some good points but you really sacrifice personal dps this way. I’m really hoping Anet introduces some method of getting sprockets again or the recipes but if they don’t the prices will rise again.

Any other thought’s or suggestions for a decent dps setup?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnMqA1sitqAmsCEtgFDBDerOWLrOtumVPgJAsuaAlMs0A-TxRBABXt/QZK/QUXQjKBHV9HAuCA59IACAgAMxJmEnYgJOxJOxJOxm4En4En4ELFgf7tA-e

Prophet.1584:

Zealot’s gear is EXPENSIVE! especially since it will be the best gear for Druid once HoT drops the price has skyrocketed. Also unless ascended trinkets are released as part of the HoT LS, similar to the way sinister was introduced, we’ll still need an option for trinkets.

The best I’ve been able to come up with so far has been either a cleric’s/zerker mix or a full celestial set. The full celestial route actually has some good points but you really sacrifice personal dps this way. I’m really hoping Anet introduces some method of getting sprockets again or the recipes but if they don’t the prices will rise again.

Any other thought’s or suggestions for a decent dps setup?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnMqA1sitqAmsCEtgFDBDerOWLrOtumVPgJAsuaAlMs0A-TxRBABXt/QZK/QUXQjKBHV9HAuCA59IACAgAMxJmEnYgJOxJOxJOxm4En4En4ELFgf7tA-e

Celestial isn’t great for PvE. The 600 healing power is pretty low. Also, as runes go, Monk’s imo, are the best solely for the 10% outgoing healing %. There isn’t a lot of equipment with that ability and % modifiers are flat out better than healing power.

They did say there will be some new stats but… from Josh’s statement he may have simply been referring to PvP getting some of the PvE stats because his examples were trapper runes and sinister armour.

Anyways, this is my primary build – mainly healer, secondary dps.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmYD7keVogVsmVwVFgoVsYIYwb1waZ1p1F76BMBg1VD4klcOJA-ThCBABX8AAeUJoW7PImyvB1BA9kittenjAgqq/knmhAOIAkCwv9WA-e

I went for power because although condition builds may be better on paper (need 2 stats vs 3), the best ranger condi build (A/T) needs weapon swap to get the most out of bonfire and seeing as staff will still be the best weapon to build astral force, I couldn’t justify it. If they add some condi’s to staff, I could revisit it, but for now, as long as staff remain a power based weapon, I will go with a power build.

Compared to say your celestial build, it will outheal it by a decent amount because of twice the healing power. With regards to dps, I haven’t done any numbers but both have a 41% crit rate but by using sword my build has more support (from warhorn), higher base dps from the sword. I’m not sure there will be a huge difference in dps, mine has more power, your’s has more ferocity but neither will do high dps.

Note: You could just buy the zealot insignia and stat change another set. The stat change will be expensive (like 80g ish for 6 pieces because of the watchwork mechanisms) added to the 100g for the insignia (put a buy order), but that will still make the total cost for the ascended set around the 630g mark – roughly the same as a full light armour set so it’s not completely unobtainable.

Edit: Sigil of night won’t work in raids

Can you just use your current zerker armor or whatever you have, and use laurels, fractals, and badges to get healing power trinkets? I have a bank overflowing with every kind of ring I could want.

Don’t forget that if you want to transmute a set of ascended armor in the forge to Zealots stats, you still need to buy the recipe for making the exotic insignia as they are account bound and that is currently 130g also.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge#Ascended_equipment_prefix_change

Hopefully they add these recipes back to the game. Seems they will add Zealots amulet to PvP, so maybe in PvE also.

The way John Smith talked about ‘certain items, having unintended Scarcity’, i’m kitten sure they add a way to get them. They will keep it rare (aka you have to work to get em) but they will get again available, 90% certain of that.

Why are people so obsessed with zealot on druid? You are losing a lot of damage for a slight increase in healing. I think sinister or berserker will be the way of the future even on druid.

Photinous.4628:

Why are people so obsessed with zealot on druid? You are losing a lot of damage for a slight increase in healing. I think sinister or berserker will be the way of the future even on druid.

Because Anet made their stance clear that they want berserker meta to go away.
If after raid gets launched, people still go for full party zerker/sinister, they will probably raise boss damage to force you go for defensive stats.

While in WvW, I can see a mixed up of zealot/zerker/knight being good for both druid and herald, at least for roaming. To make things worse, there are no zealot amulets or rings available. You can use cleric instead but will lose out a lot of crit chance.

Dunno where everyone’s getting the idea that Zealots is going to be the best, but clerics is the way to go. You don’t play a druid in raids to do damage, you play one to heal and gimping your healing to do some terrible DPS is not worth the trade off

Photinous.4628:

Why are people so obsessed with zealot on druid? You are losing a lot of damage for a slight increase in healing. I think sinister or berserker will be the way of the future even on druid.

For me the answer is quite simple. To heal as a druid you have to do it in CA form. CA form provides virtually 0 dps. From my experience with raids, you spend longer in CA form than you do dps ing.

To add to this, healing power does make some difference (more with Irenio’s proposed changes). Basically take the glyph heal in CA form in the following 3 circumstances (assume druid traitline 2 – 2 – 1):

• Max Dps/ full zerk – 0 healing power + 20 healing % – 5.9k to 4 allies + 1.2k cult synergy + 600 seed = 7.7k aoe heal

• Zerk with monk runes + rice balls + furious crystal – 375 healing power + 20 healing % – 7.3k to 4 allies + 1.4k cult synergy + 960 seed = 9.7k aoe healing

• Full cleric – 1757 healing per + 40 haling % – 9.2k to 4 allies + 1.9k cult synergy + 1.9k seed = 13k aoe heal.

The synergy between outgoing heal % and healing power is important too. Some people might say a 13k aoe heal is overkill, but if the content is as hard as they say and druids first priority is to keep everyone up, I’d much rather be in full cleric than full berserker.

You have to also factor in, even druids take damage and you will be using heal skills on yourself as well. Healing power and healing % buff all your outgoing heals meaning even if you wasted the big self heal on yourself, you could use the heal on say glyph of alignment which in full zerk is a 3k heal vs full cleric for a 7k+ aoe heal.

We’ll have to see how tough the raid encounters are, but a full cleric druid can heal for roughly 2x what a berserker can. The key to this point, is that the berserker heals are already on the high side (but have been nerfed a bit according to Irenio) so you are looking at <7k from zerker aoe heals Vs 13k+ from clerics.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Dunno where everyone’s getting the idea that Zealots is going to be the best, but clerics is the way to go. You don’t play a druid in raids to do damage, you play one to heal and gimping your healing to do some terrible DPS is not worth the trade off

It depends on how much healing is needed. It might make sense to take a damage support druid that uses sword or LB or something for when the party is ok, and then goes healer mode when things aren’t ok. If the party does fine without a ton of healing most of the time (which seems likely to me but we’ll see) then a pure healing druid is actually the wasted spot.

I think you could play off that with other professions too. Have several guys that can get the party back to full health, but are mostly there for damage, sort of like the current zerker staff eles.

Atleast as far as hybrids go. Using zealots armor/weapons will prob be a good start. and swapping healing accessories in as necessary if the primary support player can’t handle the output. Prob around 700 healing power for a hybrid would be a good goal as far as I can tell.

Otherwise though. You can manage that by going with cleric/magi accessories.

Atleast what ill be running at first is Zealot armor/weapons. Either strength runes or a utility rune. and assassin’s accessories with zerk/magi rings/backpiece depending on content. Ill be running a self might shout build in order to make use of pet dmg to make up for my lack of ferocity since pets have a good survival rate in the boss fight we know about. My goal for healing power will be 700ish which with the new scaling should be enough to have the heals be useful without going all in to them kind of like an off healing druid in the old wow days.

For a full on healer though. Id have to reccomend a cleric/magi mix. You don’t want to have the max toughness if your going to be in melee. Or else youl pull agro from the boss.

@OP for the atlernative. Youl prob be okay going assassin’s armor with magi accessories. Youl use self mighting to get your power back up to pre might zerk levels. Your dps won’t be high but it won’t be nonexistent either and you’l still have high crit chance for procs.

Fluffball.8307:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Dunno where everyone’s getting the idea that Zealots is going to be the best, but clerics is the way to go. You don’t play a druid in raids to do damage, you play one to heal and gimping your healing to do some terrible DPS is not worth the trade off

It depends on how much healing is needed. It might make sense to take a damage support druid that uses sword or LB or something for when the party is ok, and then goes healer mode when things aren’t ok. If the party does fine without a ton of healing most of the time (which seems likely to me but we’ll see) then a pure healing druid is actually the wasted spot.

I think you could play off that with other professions too. Have several guys that can get the party back to full health, but are mostly there for damage, sort of like the current zerker staff eles.

You could potentially just heal through the damage instead of dodging or avoiding it which is also a DPS loss. Even in current content, playing with a cleric player opens up new strategies and makes for potentially cleaner/consistent runs, but people are just close minded and so obsessed with speed and want to continue playing the same way they play dungeons in raids, which if tuned correctly shouldn’t work.

Also, you may laugh but the toughness will help in progression when you don’t know the encounters.

Sure. I just don’t think we can say definitely what druid will be doing after only seeing 1 boss that most people didn’t even get to try.

Yes, but we do know that raid difficulty isn’t trivial, healing power scaling and base heals are changing, and that raid encounters are designed with damage you can’t “just dodge”

Terra.8571:

Photinous.4628:

Why are people so obsessed with zealot on druid? You are losing a lot of damage for a slight increase in healing. I think sinister or berserker will be the way of the future even on druid.

For me the answer is quite simple. To heal as a druid you have to do it in CA form. CA form provides virtually 0 dps. From my experience with raids, you spend longer in CA form than you do dps ing.

To add to this, healing power does make some difference (more with Irenio’s proposed changes). Basically take the glyph heal in CA form in the following 3 circumstances (assume druid traitline 2 – 2 – 1):

• Max Dps/ full zerk – 0 healing power + 20 healing % – 5.9k to 4 allies + 1.2k cult synergy + 600 seed = 7.7k aoe heal

• Zerk with monk runes + rice balls + furious crystal – 375 healing power + 20 healing % – 7.3k to 4 allies + 1.4k cult synergy + 960 seed = 9.7k aoe healing

• Full cleric – 1757 healing per + 40 haling % – 9.2k to 4 allies + 1.9k cult synergy + 1.9k seed = 13k aoe heal.

The synergy between outgoing heal % and healing power is important too. Some people might say a 13k aoe heal is overkill, but if the content is as hard as they say and druids first priority is to keep everyone up, I’d much rather be in full cleric than full berserker.

You have to also factor in, even druids take damage and you will be using heal skills on yourself as well. Healing power and healing % buff all your outgoing heals meaning even if you wasted the big self heal on yourself, you could use the heal on say glyph of alignment which in full zerk is a 3k heal vs full cleric for a 7k+ aoe heal.

We’ll have to see how tough the raid encounters are, but a full cleric druid can heal for roughly 2x what a berserker can. The key to this point, is that the berserker heals are already on the high side (but have been nerfed a bit according to Irenio) so you are looking at <7k from zerker aoe heals Vs 13k+ from clerics.

So going by this statement Celestial gear would be decent, heals with monk runes and rice balls should average in the 10-11k range and it will be able to provide more dps than a full cleric ranger? I’m not dead set on Celestial by any means, i’m still grinding out the daily charged quartz and it’s going to take a while to get enough for a full set. I really do hope they introduce a way to get sprockets again, I already have the recipe’s but at ~12 gold per inscription that’s a pretty high cost to stat switch my gear and I have to remove my current upgrades so that I don’t have to grind fractals again for AR.

I wonder if we’re going to have to completely kitten our dps and go full heals or start getting all the blame when raids fail

Prophet.1584:

I wonder if we’re going to have to completely kitten our dps and go full heals or start getting all the blame when raids fail

One of my GWAMMs in GW1 was a monk. Brace yourself for some rage if the party wipes. I actually quit one of my long term guilds in that game because of it, and I was an outstanding kitten monk if I may toot my own horn.

Prophet.1584:

Terra.8571:

Photinous.4628:

Why are people so obsessed with zealot on druid? You are losing a lot of damage for a slight increase in healing. I think sinister or berserker will be the way of the future even on druid.

For me the answer is quite simple. To heal as a druid you have to do it in CA form. CA form provides virtually 0 dps. From my experience with raids, you spend longer in CA form than you do dps ing.

To add to this, healing power does make some difference (more with Irenio’s proposed changes). Basically take the glyph heal in CA form in the following 3 circumstances (assume druid traitline 2 – 2 – 1):

• Max Dps/ full zerk – 0 healing power + 20 healing % – 5.9k to 4 allies + 1.2k cult synergy + 600 seed = 7.7k aoe heal

• Zerk with monk runes + rice balls + furious crystal – 375 healing power + 20 healing % – 7.3k to 4 allies + 1.4k cult synergy + 960 seed = 9.7k aoe healing

• Full cleric – 1757 healing per + 40 haling % – 9.2k to 4 allies + 1.9k cult synergy + 1.9k seed = 13k aoe heal.

The synergy between outgoing heal % and healing power is important too. Some people might say a 13k aoe heal is overkill, but if the content is as hard as they say and druids first priority is to keep everyone up, I’d much rather be in full cleric than full berserker.

You have to also factor in, even druids take damage and you will be using heal skills on yourself as well. Healing power and healing % buff all your outgoing heals meaning even if you wasted the big self heal on yourself, you could use the heal on say glyph of alignment which in full zerk is a 3k heal vs full cleric for a 7k+ aoe heal.

We’ll have to see how tough the raid encounters are, but a full cleric druid can heal for roughly 2x what a berserker can. The key to this point, is that the berserker heals are already on the high side (but have been nerfed a bit according to Irenio) so you are looking at <7k from zerker aoe heals Vs 13k+ from clerics.

So going by this statement Celestial gear would be decent, heals with monk runes and rice balls should average in the 10-11k range and it will be able to provide more dps than a full cleric ranger? I’m not dead set on Celestial by any means, i’m still grinding out the daily charged quartz and it’s going to take a while to get enough for a full set. I really do hope they introduce a way to get sprockets again, I already have the recipe’s but at ~12 gold per inscription that’s a pretty high cost to stat switch my gear and I have to remove my current upgrades so that I don’t have to grind fractals again for AR.

I wonder if we’re going to have to completely kitten our dps and go full heals or start getting all the blame when raids fail

No one knows where the balance will lie. Think of it like a scale, dps at one end, healing at the other. The meta will always want the least amount of healing to complete job X as then you can increase your dps. If that least amount is closer to the full dps side of the scale then full zerker will be meta. If it’s close to healing, it may well be full clerics.

I currently have my sight set on a healer scewed spec but with zealot armour and zerker weapons for S/Wh while cleric for staff (see above for a linkmy first post above somewhere).

Basically, full cleric does roughly half the dps of a zerker build whilst if I make the weapons zerk and the armor zealot I can still get 41% crit rate with 2.3k power. It’s not great but its a considerable dps boost from full cleric. But because my staff is cleric and my healing power is only 120 less than full clerics, I still have 95% of the healing capacity as a full celric when I have the staff equiped.

The obvious alternative is to have 2 gear sets, one for trash, the other for bosses. It might be better off letting guilds like DnT do the testing and wait for metabattle to be updated. However, as stat changing exists, it’s not that expensive to try your own builds.

If you want a full dps role I wouldn;t recommend druid, go either power ranger, condi ranger or a different dps class e.g. Rev’s or engi’s. Rev will be my dps main whilst druid is going to be a healer.

Yeah I kind of laugh at zealots. A glass cannon healer that is more glass than cannon? Run a sane gear stat then tailor runes/sigils/traits to improve druid healing as needed.

Photinous.4628:

Why are people so obsessed with zealot on druid? You are losing a lot of damage for a slight increase in healing. I think sinister or berserker will be the way of the future even on druid.

Power primary stat, Precision secondary, Healing Power secondary. Pretty much.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Dunno where everyone’s getting the idea that Zealots is going to be the best, but clerics is the way to go. You don’t play a druid in raids to do damage, you play one to heal and gimping your healing to do some terrible DPS is not worth the trade off

Clerics has too much toughness, if you are in a raid with a bunch of players in zerker gear, you will pull agro. Most likely Cleric has too much healing power if used with Monk/Delicious Rice/Benevolence too. Also, CAF has a 10s CD and a 20s Duration, so you will be out of CAF and wanting to contribute to damage 33% of the time. Having a LB/Staff will allow you to drop out of CAF and Quickdraw RF, Barrage and then swap back to staff, that is a large DPS increase, actively helping the group.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Dunno where everyone’s getting the idea that Zealots is going to be the best, but clerics is the way to go. You don’t play a druid in raids to do damage, you play one to heal and gimping your healing to do some terrible DPS is not worth the trade off

Clerics has too much toughness, if you are in a raid with a bunch of players in zerker gear, you will pull agro. Most likely Cleric has too much healing power if used with Monk/Delicious Rice/Benevolence too. Also, CAF has a 10s CD and a 20s Duration, so you will be out of CAF and wanting to contribute to damage 33% of the time. Having a LB/Staff will allow you to drop out of CAF and Quickdraw RF, Barrage and then swap back to staff, that is a large DPS increase, actively helping the group.

You can easily plan around that by having a tank with more toughness in the group

TurtleDragon.3108:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Dunno where everyone’s getting the idea that Zealots is going to be the best, but clerics is the way to go. You don’t play a druid in raids to do damage, you play one to heal and gimping your healing to do some terrible DPS is not worth the trade off

Clerics has too much toughness, if you are in a raid with a bunch of players in zerker gear, you will pull agro. Most likely Cleric has too much healing power if used with Monk/Delicious Rice/Benevolence too. Also, CAF has a 10s CD and a 20s Duration, so you will be out of CAF and wanting to contribute to damage 33% of the time. Having a LB/Staff will allow you to drop out of CAF and Quickdraw RF, Barrage and then swap back to staff, that is a large DPS increase, actively helping the group.

You can easily plan around that by having a tank with more toughness in the group

So the toughness is just wasted stats, then.

It may as well be damage stats rather than damage mitigation stats that you are not using.

Something like this build is what I’ll be using when they release Asc Zealots trinkets, 1250 healing power +40% outgoing healing is tons, it also has 2400 power and 55% crit chance. Miles better for the group than Clerics.

If you call gearing for survivability a waste then sure. You and 9 other players can just play perfectly for 9-10 minute fights, and at that point you probably don’t even need the druid.

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you call gearing for survivability a waste then sure. You and 9 other players can just play perfectly for 9-10 minute fights, and at that point you probably don’t even need the druid.

Build your Druid how you like mate, I’ll be using Zealots because I will not be taking attack damage, due to positioning, dodges and never getting agro. I’ll only be taking environmental damage that is unavoidable and most likely armor ignoring anyway.

It is the environmental/unavoidable damage that needs to be healed and the reason for Druids existence, all other damage can be mitigated without stats. Which is why I think Zealots is the way to go. It will not take long for people to learn everything about the Raids and run all Zerker/Sinister again, in which case, Clerics is even worse again.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you call gearing for survivability a waste then sure. You and 9 other players can just play perfectly for 9-10 minute fights, and at that point you probably don’t even need the druid.

Build your Druid how you like mate, I’ll be using Zealots because I will not be taking attack damage, due to positioning, dodges and never getting agro. I’ll only be taking environmental damage that is unavoidable and most likely armor ignoring anyway.

It is the environmental/unavoidable damage that needs to be healed and the reason for Druids existence, all other damage can be mitigated without stats. Which is why I think Zealots is the way to go. It will not take long for people to learn everything about the Raids and run all Zerker/Sinister again, in which case, Clerics is even worse again.

Well, I don’t have a choice with my builds as my guild’s theorycrafter elected to min max healing, then damage afterwards (not that I disagree with him). I don’t plan on face tanking with my druid, but the extra buffer for mistakes is something we put more value on.

I do disagree with everyone being Zerker/Sinister glass cannons when the content is on farm since the current meta is just a by product of encounters just being plain undertuned, old, power creep and being neglected since development. It is harder for twice as many players to play with yolo speed clear strategies in fights that last 10 minutes. The player itself does not get stronger with the rewards from the raid, only more experienced. If there are nerfs or power creep again, then I could see it happening.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you call gearing for survivability a waste then sure. You and 9 other players can just play perfectly for 9-10 minute fights, and at that point you probably don’t even need the druid.

Build your Druid how you like mate, I’ll be using Zealots because I will not be taking attack damage, due to positioning, dodges and never getting agro. I’ll only be taking environmental damage that is unavoidable and most likely armor ignoring anyway.

It is the environmental/unavoidable damage that needs to be healed and the reason for Druids existence, all other damage can be mitigated without stats. Which is why I think Zealots is the way to go. It will not take long for people to learn everything about the Raids and run all Zerker/Sinister again, in which case, Clerics is even worse again.

Well, I don’t have a choice with my builds as my guild’s theorycrafter elected to min max healing, then damage afterwards (not that I disagree with him). I don’t plan on face tanking with my druid, but the extra buffer for mistakes is something we put more value on.

I do disagree with everyone being Zerker/Sinister glass cannons when the content is on farm since the current meta is just a by product of encounters just being plain undertuned, old, power creep and being neglected since development. It is harder for twice as many players to play with yolo speed clear strategies in fights that last 10 minutes. The player itself does not get stronger with the rewards from the raid, only more experienced. If there are nerfs or power creep again, then I could see it happening.

I would never be in a guild like that. Allowing someone else to tell you what gear you have to use and what build? Never.

There are videos of the 1st raid boss completed where every person there was in zerk gear, including the Druid and they complete it fine. I’m sure the other bosses will be harder, but once everyone knows what is coming, they will be able to play glassy, it happens every time content is released and people get better at completing it and creating specific strategy for countering the mechanics.

They have scaled the base healing of druid down by about 15-25% but upped the healing coefficients by about 45% so depending on the bosses, running healing gear may be optimal but I highly suspect that just running an extra druid with full zerk or sinister will be the meta for some raids especially with the changes to summons in PvE.

The way they say ascended required/zerker meta gone/no more just dodge to survive, makes me think there will be gear checking mechanics. Expecting not to take dmg because you are fighting at range may not be realistic for an entire raid. Expecting toughness agro to carry the glass may not be realistic either. And at the same time I don’t think its going to be viable to go full nomad just everyone face tank with heals and get it done in a longer time period the safe way. There is probably going to be some time caps stylized as mechanics.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you call gearing for survivability a waste then sure. You and 9 other players can just play perfectly for 9-10 minute fights, and at that point you probably don’t even need the druid.

Build your Druid how you like mate, I’ll be using Zealots because I will not be taking attack damage, due to positioning, dodges and never getting agro. I’ll only be taking environmental damage that is unavoidable and most likely armor ignoring anyway.

It is the environmental/unavoidable damage that needs to be healed and the reason for Druids existence, all other damage can be mitigated without stats. Which is why I think Zealots is the way to go. It will not take long for people to learn everything about the Raids and run all Zerker/Sinister again, in which case, Clerics is even worse again.

Well, I don’t have a choice with my builds as my guild’s theorycrafter elected to min max healing, then damage afterwards (not that I disagree with him). I don’t plan on face tanking with my druid, but the extra buffer for mistakes is something we put more value on.

I do disagree with everyone being Zerker/Sinister glass cannons when the content is on farm since the current meta is just a by product of encounters just being plain undertuned, old, power creep and being neglected since development. It is harder for twice as many players to play with yolo speed clear strategies in fights that last 10 minutes. The player itself does not get stronger with the rewards from the raid, only more experienced. If there are nerfs or power creep again, then I could see it happening.

I would never be in a guild like that. Allowing someone else to tell you what gear you have to use and what build? Never.

There are videos of the 1st raid boss completed where every person there was in zerk gear, including the Druid and they complete it fine. I’m sure the other bosses will be harder, but once everyone knows what is coming, they will be able to play glassy, it happens every time content is released and people get better at completing it and creating specific strategy for countering the mechanics.

Why not? It’s no different than using the right Talents/gear in WoW, LAS in Wildstar etc. Raids aren’t play how you want environments, and using the right builds or playing to your teams wishes is pretty standard.

I will be using ascended celestial with ascended cleric trinkets. It’s a lot cheaper than Zealot, which i have the recipe, but no money to buy the sprockets right now.

TurtleDragon.3108:

…Why not? It’s no different than using the right Talents/gear in WoW, LAS in Wildstar etc. Raids aren’t play how you want environments, and using the right builds or playing to your teams wishes is pretty standard.

It’s totally different because stats do not matter near as much here as elsewhere. This whole game is a play how you want environment, stats have nothing to do with being viable, they only make you more efficient. You can literally complete all content currently in the game with no armor or traits whatsoever. Raids will be harder, but I’m betting not as hard as people are expecting. They certainly will not be gear gated.

My point was that your guild wants you to run Cleric gear, so I wouldn’t want to be in that guild because I don’t want to run Cleric gear. 1250 healing power and +40% healing is ample, so, the rest of the stats are put into damage. Same as if they wanted me to run Soldiers for WvW or Sinister for dungeons. I don’t let people dictate to me how to play the game, I just play with people who know what they are doing, but are easy-going.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

…Why not? It’s no different than using the right Talents/gear in WoW, LAS in Wildstar etc. Raids aren’t play how you want environments, and using the right builds or playing to your teams wishes is pretty standard.

It’s totally different because stats do not matter near as much here as elsewhere. This whole game is a play how you want environment, stats have nothing to do with being viable, they only make you more efficient. You can literally complete all content currently in the game with no armor or traits whatsoever. Raids will be harder, but I’m betting not as hard as people are expecting. They certainly will not be gear gated.

My point was that your guild wants you to run Cleric gear, so I wouldn’t want to be in that guild because I don’t want to run Cleric gear. 1250 healing power and +40% healing is ample, so, the rest of the stats are put into damage. Same as if they wanted me to run Soldiers for WvW or Sinister for dungeons. I don’t let people dictate to me how to play the game, I just play with people who know what they are doing, but are easy-going.

Stats and gear definitely do matter. If you don’t enjoy playing that way, it’s cool. But I do enjoy being in an environment where everyone is running the meta and trying to be efficient and the best player they can be for the team. We are preparing for the worst case scenarios where raids are actually hard instead of being under prepared and surprised. I maybe should have mentioned that my guild is participating in the world first race as well.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

…Why not? It’s no different than using the right Talents/gear in WoW, LAS in Wildstar etc. Raids aren’t play how you want environments, and using the right builds or playing to your teams wishes is pretty standard.

It’s totally different because stats do not matter near as much here as elsewhere. This whole game is a play how you want environment, stats have nothing to do with being viable, they only make you more efficient. You can literally complete all content currently in the game with no armor or traits whatsoever. Raids will be harder, but I’m betting not as hard as people are expecting. They certainly will not be gear gated.

My point was that your guild wants you to run Cleric gear, so I wouldn’t want to be in that guild because I don’t want to run Cleric gear. 1250 healing power and +40% healing is ample, so, the rest of the stats are put into damage. Same as if they wanted me to run Soldiers for WvW or Sinister for dungeons. I don’t let people dictate to me how to play the game, I just play with people who know what they are doing, but are easy-going.

Stats and gear definitely do matter. If you don’t enjoy playing that way, it’s cool. But I do enjoy being in an environment where everyone is running the meta and trying to be efficient and the best player they can be for the team. We are preparing for the worst case scenarios where raids are actually hard instead of being under prepared and surprised. I maybe should have mentioned that my guild is participating in the world first race as well.

(stealing my way into your convo hope youl forgive me) I see your point. However I believe that non meta builds aren’t necessarily a hindrance. I believe its mostly up to playstyle.

When I was in Battle Knights in WoW I played a BM hunter. That was pretty much the build I only played. Ever..much like how I play a shout ranger in todays game. The reason for that is because it fit my playstyle the most. I was simply better at that build than I could be at any other build.

At first this was an issue for me. BM hunters weren’t meta except for a very small window in the burning crusade expansion. Typically survival or marksmanship rangers were the top dogs.

However I never had an issue finding a raid team. The reason for this is that I set myself a rule and made a bet with every raid team I joined. I’d always end my lfr posts with “If I am not in the top 3 dps on the meters I will pass on all loot”. I only had to pass on loot less than 10 times in the 7 years I played the game.

The reason for that is I played the build I knew with a 99%+ efficiency rate according to the recount meters (it would sometimes bug on certian fights and say I was at 110-120% due to boss mechanics). I knew exactly how to make the most of the build I was using. And I did it regularly. Also my build enabled me to do some unique things no one else could (offtanking a raid boss with a pet for a short time in order to finish it after the healers die so the tank could recover for one thing).

Now that isn’t the norm by any means. I was a no lifer who pretty much gave up any social life to play that game haha. But it does show that sometimes its more important to match a build to a playstyle than to run what is theoretically the best. I could theoretically have done around 17k more dps than the build I was running when I quit. However In actuality I probably would have done around 12k less.

What im saying is. While I firmly believe your right in most situations. Keep an eye out for the exceptions to the rule. There are some REALLY good players out there that run non meta builds to higher efficiency rates than the mast majority of meta players. So I have to reccomend not dismissing someone if there absolutely certain they can do better playing a different way. Give it a shot first and see if it works. If it doesn’t you were right. suggest that he go back and give the meta another shot. Atleast then youl have tried something new and he can also be satisfied for having made the attempt. That way he won’t feel bitter about playing a build he simply does not enjoy. Hel understand on a personnel level that theres a reason for it. And not just an arbitrary “I told you to do it so do it”

TurtleDragon.3108:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

…Why not? It’s no different than using the right Talents/gear in WoW, LAS in Wildstar etc. Raids aren’t play how you want environments, and using the right builds or playing to your teams wishes is pretty standard.

It’s totally different because stats do not matter near as much here as elsewhere. This whole game is a play how you want environment, stats have nothing to do with being viable, they only make you more efficient. You can literally complete all content currently in the game with no armor or traits whatsoever. Raids will be harder, but I’m betting not as hard as people are expecting. They certainly will not be gear gated.

My point was that your guild wants you to run Cleric gear, so I wouldn’t want to be in that guild because I don’t want to run Cleric gear. 1250 healing power and +40% healing is ample, so, the rest of the stats are put into damage. Same as if they wanted me to run Soldiers for WvW or Sinister for dungeons. I don’t let people dictate to me how to play the game, I just play with people who know what they are doing, but are easy-going.

Stats and gear definitely do matter. If you don’t enjoy playing that way, it’s cool. But I do enjoy being in an environment where everyone is running the meta and trying to be efficient and the best player they can be for the team. We are preparing for the worst case scenarios where raids are actually hard instead of being under prepared and surprised. I maybe should have mentioned that my guild is participating in the world first race as well.

Stats and gear definitely do not matter in the slightest, unless you are trying to set records or be totally efficient. Literally anything is viable if you are aware of the game mechanics.

I do like to be efficient. I like to be the best I can for the team as well. This is why I think Clerics is a bad choice. It has 400 less power and base crit chance so it deals miniscule damage. Not only that, but imo, the toughness is just a wasted stat, mostly undesirable in that instance anyway due to the possibility of pulling agro. The trade off is a mere 400 healing power. Really not worth it imo.

I just see Zealots as FAR superior if you actually want to contribute to the raid and not just push out heals that will be only fractionally better. Remember that 400 healing power with a scaling of 0.1-0.25 is 40-100 healing, so near negligible that it just does not matter when you are offsetting that with so much more DPS. If a 40-100 heal increase is what is keeping your team alive, then they need to find better tactics.

Cosmic Ray with full ascended Clerics heals for 1141, with Zealots it is 1062, so a difference of 80 or 7% (these numbers will change with launch, but not by much). When I can build to do 7% less healing for 50% more damage, the choice to me is obvious. My $0.02 anyway.

During phases when I am out of CAF, which is 33% of the time at least, I will want to contribute DPS to help the party. Also, DPS will still be important for trash mobs and all other content. I just know how bad Clerics damage truly is from running Cleric Guard in Fractals, its fun to heal and make the runs smoother, but its such terrible damage.

Shadelang.3012:

snip

No offense, but you are the exactly the type of player (The people who play a pure and are not flexible with their spec choices) I wouldn’t want to be in the same team with. And that is perfectly okay if our goals are different as long as we found the right team for us. It’d be like joining a zerker speed run when you are clerics and want to kill everything.

I do understand your point, but that just doesn’t apply to world first guilds and is less true the higher the skill of your guild is. I used to play an elemental shaman, which is usually mediocre or low DPS on simcraft, but I still managed to be top DPS on a lot of fights for many reasons. 1. I was a good player and knew how to pad/cheese meters. 2. Other players in the guild were worst than me 3. The guild in general wasn’t skilled enough to beat encounters pre nerf or without over gearing encounters. #2 and #3 were the main reasons why I was able to top meters on a class that doesn’t sim well, if I was in a decent guild I would have been last on meters.

Also, there is no meta yet for raids. We have to make ourselves cause it’s new content. Your guess for what good is as good as mine is, and things can and will change from beta.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Shadelang.3012:

snip

No offense, but you are the exactly the type of player (The people who play a pure and are not flexible with their spec choices) I wouldn’t want to be in the same team with. And that is perfectly okay if our goals are different as long as we found the right team for us. It’d be like joining a zerker speed run when you are clerics and want to kill everything.

I do understand your point, but that just doesn’t apply to world first guilds and is less true the higher the skill of your guild is. I used to play an elemental shaman, which is usually mediocre or low DPS on simcraft, but I still managed to be top DPS on a lot of fights for many reasons. 1. I was a good player and knew how to pad/cheese meters. 2. Other players in the guild were worst than me 3. The guild in general wasn’t skilled enough to beat encounters pre nerf or without over gearing encounters. #2 and #3 were the main reasons why I was able to top meters on a class that doesn’t sim well, if I was in a decent guild I would have been last on meters.

Also, there is no meta yet for raids. We have to make ourselves cause it’s new content. Your guess for what good is as good as mine is, and things can and will change from beta.

Haha no offense taken. Likewise I tend to see your viewpoint as equally inflexible just in a different form. Its one of the reasons I typically try to stay out of this type of convo. Becuase ultimately its two opposing viewpoints. I tend to base my playstyle on what I can realistically expect which I believe ill encounter most often. But its true in a “perfect” scenario my absolute capability is less in a specialized situation. The build I am intending to run will be a hybrid after all. I made it under the assumption that something does go wrong. Not on the assumption that everyone I play with will be perfect or near perfect. I hope to cover for the imperfections.

I ran with some extremely skilled guilds in my wow days. And I took part in the AQ40 rush for server first (we were late by 6 minutes -.-) so I very much understand your viewpoint. I don’t agree with it and part of me thinks it will cause a collapse at some point based on my previous experience. But at the same time I understand it and I believe your logic is sound. However.. I believe your logic is colored pretty heavily by the content we have available to us at this time. And assumptions made on future content. While I ended up with an opposing viewpoint based on my previous raiding experience.

Im not under the illusion that what I do will be best for a world first attempt. Infact Im not even going to attempt that for this raid (I probably will make the attempt for the next wing provided I find a team to run with). I tend to focus more on the stable approach.

In the end I feel its a difference in method of play. Which is interesting when ya think about it.

Edit: also Im not entirely inflexible with my spec choice haha. Im inflexible with my utility choice. Which is one part of a larger build. I know the utilities I use best. My traits are all subject to change. The only line I feel is mandatory for my playstyle is beast mastery. Its what I know best after all.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Stats and gear definitely do not matter in the slightest, unless you are trying to set records or be totally efficient. Literally anything is viable if you are aware of the game mechanics.

Well, we are going for world first so we are trying to set records or be totally efficient.

I do like to be efficient. I like to be the best I can for the team as well. This is why I think Clerics is a bad choice. It has 400 less power and base crit chance so it deals miniscule damage. Not only that, but imo, the toughness is just a wasted stat, mostly undesirable in that instance anyway due to the possibility of pulling agro. The trade off is a mere 400 healing power. Really not worth it imo.

I just see Zealots as FAR superior if you actually want to contribute to the raid and not just push out heals that will be only fractionally better. Remember that 400 healing power with a scaling of 0.1-0.25 is 40-100 healing, so near negligible that it just does not matter when you are offsetting that with so much more DPS. If a 40-100 heal increase is what is keeping your team alive, then they need to find better tactics.

Cosmic Ray with full ascended Clerics heals for 1141, with Zealots it is 1062, so a difference of 80 or 7% (these numbers will change with launch, but not by much). When I can build to do 7% less healing for 50% more damage, the choice to me is obvious. My $0.02 anyway.

Hate to pull numbers out of thin air, but staff DPS with Zealot Armor/Weapons + Cleric trinkets is only like 400 dps better than full clerics. Hardly worth it since you currently cannot got ascended zealot trinkets.

During phases when I am out of CAF, which is 33% of the time at least, I will want to contribute DPS to help the party. Also, DPS will still be important for trash mobs and all other content. I just know how bad Clerics damage truly is from running Cleric Guard in Fractals, its fun to heal and make the runs smoother, but its such terrible damage .

That is the exact reason I’ve been advocating clerics. The enrage timers aren’t so unforgiving that you need everyone to be doing as much dps as they can and run 10 glass cannons. That’d be counterproductive to their goal of destroying the zerker meta.

But hey, if you want to build your druid differently that is cool with me. I’m open to all suggestions and will be trying out many things before raids are released.

Right now I’m hoping for a zealot’s re-release.

One of the biggest turn-offs for the druid is the fact that I have to make a new gear set to use them effectively. If Zealot’s doesn’t get a re-release, I’m not sure I’ll touch the spec.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

There are videos of the 1st raid boss completed where every person there was in zerk gear, including the Druid and they complete it fine. I’m sure the other bosses will be harder, but once everyone knows what is coming, they will be able to play glassy, it happens every time content is released and people get better at completing it and creating specific strategy for countering the mechanics.

The Sickest Guild cleared the instance with a Cleric’s Druid. Afterwards their druid even went on to reddit with his own video that he made advocating for Cleric’s gear over ‘zerker, even if the healing scaling wasn’t going to change.

What it boils down to for me is a case of it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Your raid won’t fail from you over healing the dps/tank. It will however fail if you under heal.

If your raid group only takes one dedicated healer I think generally you’ll see that player take a lot of healing power, most likely Cleric’s. There is of course always the possibility that teams figure out how to split the healing load between players so you may have 2 or 3 hybrids. I doubt we’ll see this though as typically in this game, in order to hybridize you give up much of what makes you good and useful.

Shadelang.3012:

Haha no offense taken. Likewise I tend to see your viewpoint as equally inflexible just in a different form. Its one of the reasons I typically try to stay out of this type of convo. Becuase ultimately its two opposing viewpoints. I tend to base my playstyle on what I can realistically expect which I believe ill encounter most often. But its true in a “perfect” scenario my absolute capability is less in a specialized situation. The build I am intending to run will be a hybrid after all. I made it under the assumption that something does go wrong. Not on the assumption that everyone I play with will be perfect or near perfect. I hope to cover for the imperfections.

I ran with some extremely skilled guilds in my wow days. And I took part in the AQ40 rush for server first (we were late by 6 minutes -.-) so I very much understand your viewpoint. I don’t agree with it and part of me thinks it will cause a collapse at some point based on my previous experience. But at the same time I understand it and I believe your logic is sound. However.. I believe your logic is colored pretty heavily by the content we have available to us at this time. And assumptions made on future content. While I ended up with an opposing viewpoint based on my previous raiding experience.

Im not under the illusion that what I do will be best for a world first attempt. Infact Im not even going to attempt that for this raid (I probably will make the attempt for the next wing provided I find a team to run with). I tend to focus more on the stable approach.

In the end I feel its a difference in method of play. Which is interesting when ya think about it.

Edit: also Im not entirely inflexible with my spec choice haha. Im inflexible with my utility choice. Which is one part of a larger build. I know the utilities I use best. My traits are all subject to change. The only line I feel is mandatory for my playstyle is beast mastery. Its what I know best after all.

Well, most of my raid experience is in the last 5 years, so I probably raided after you quit WoW. I’m familiar with current and recent raids but not vanilla-TBC-early wotlk. Different times and styles I guess which may be why our experience and mindsets are fairly different.

Also, the part that’s confusing me slightly is that you keep switching back between WoW and GW2 lol and I don’t know which side you were on for druid builds. Lucky for you, the build we used on our Vale Guardian kills contains Beast Mastery and we think it is viable/good for druids.

The only way I see a healing druid doing useful dmg (one of its weapon is lol staff) is maybe condi traps lol. Apothecary.

It comes down to, healing power/x/x stats. Power builds use 3 stats and conditions use 2stats, one of which is only found on giver’s weapon/runes/sigils/traits/foods/utilities.

thinking:

axe/torch, staff,traps
generate af with staff/use traps and swap to axe/torch, pop into celestial form.
leave celestial form and drop bonfire/split blade and swap into staff/use traps.
generate af and swap into axe/torch and enter celestial form.
leave cf and drop bonfire/split blade and swap to staff/use traps.
on and on and on

jewishjoyride.4693:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

There are videos of the 1st raid boss completed where every person there was in zerk gear, including the Druid and they complete it fine. I’m sure the other bosses will be harder, but once everyone knows what is coming, they will be able to play glassy, it happens every time content is released and people get better at completing it and creating specific strategy for countering the mechanics.

The Sickest Guild cleared the instance with a Cleric’s Druid. Afterwards their druid even went on to reddit with his own video that he made advocating for Cleric’s gear over ‘zerker, even if the healing scaling wasn’t going to change.

What it boils down to for me is a case of it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Your raid won’t fail from you over healing the dps/tank. It will however fail if you under heal.

If your raid group only takes one dedicated healer I think generally you’ll see that player take a lot of healing power, most likely Cleric’s. There is of course always the possibility that teams figure out how to split the healing load between players so you may have 2 or 3 hybrids. I doubt we’ll see this though as typically in this game, in order to hybridize you give up much of what makes you good and useful.

We are discussing the merits of Clerics and Zealots, not Zerker. I stated the VG has been downed with every class playing in zerker, that the other bosses will be harder, but after a while everyone will get so good that majority will be able to focus on damage for gear. While traiting for support/DPS/whatever. To me, this includes the Druid.

Since the healing scaling is changing, you will need healing power to heal effectively. I didn’t say otherwise. I’m just saying that giving up so much damage for a small amount of healing is not the most effective way of contributing towards a raid, imo.

I just did the math and Zealots unbuffed will do, on average, 32% more damage than Clerics and the gap only gets bigger when you start adding Spotter, Fury, Might, Banners, EA, GoTL, GoEmp, Frost Spirit and Assassins Presence. It will end up a lot more damage (At least 50% more) once you take buffs into account.

The additional healing provided by the 400 healing power from Clerics will give you about 7% more healing, from Cosmic Ray for example, and slightly more from the heals that will scale better.

Like I stated earlier, if the raid fails because of 7%, or so, less healing on the Druid, it was never going to succeed anyway and the additional 30-50% damage you can output will help far more.

Clerics is currently orders of magnitude cheaper, so currently, in practice at least, its best because it is affordable. Once people improve at the Raids, it will not be necessary. I’m just intending on jumping the gun. If Zealots recipes are re-introduced, there is no reason to run with Cleric to me.

Imo.

Do you have some Ascended armor ? Easy change prefix ?
NO?

ok , dont choise Zealot.
enough Zerk with Cle acce mix.

(difference)
Power 163
Healing 112

Zealot very bad cost performance.

With zealots, you are basically paying 200g to make your staff #1 pulse for 1322 dmg instead of 981

numberbb.8724:

Do you have some Ascended armor ? Easy change prefix ?
NO?

ok , dont choise Zealot.
enough Zerk with Cle acce mix.

(difference)
Power 163
Healing 112

Zealot very bad cost performance.

You still are up for an arm and a leg to change any ascended into Zealots Ascended.

Zerk/Clerics is a decent choice, but you are still wasting the toughness, imo. Druid will already have insane sustain without any toughness because of Live Vicariously, it has no ICD and will be healing you continually.

I’m doing all my calculations from all zealots gear, since I believe they will add the trinkets. I also believe they will add back the recipes or even add an additional way to make sprockets or zealots armor because of how expensive it is. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m assuming it is not crazy more expensive, because until it isn’t, Clerics is really the only way to go, like I stated in my last post.

TurtleDragon.3108:

With zealots, you are basically paying 200g to make your staff #1 pulse for 1322 dmg instead of 981

Yeah, and with Clerics, your Cosmic Ray heals for 1141, instead of 1062. Pitiful increase for such stat investment. The difference in damage over a 10 minute boss fight is like 180,000 damage. Actually, its about the same increase in damage on one target as the Cosmic Ray heal increase from Clerics would heal if you spammed it on 5 people every second.

Plus, I’d have a LB on swap so when I drop out of CAF, I can Quick Draw Rapid Fire to put 20 stacks of Vulnerability up, Barrage, then swap back to staff. Either that or I would be with the melee and using S/WH. Both benefit greatly from the precision and additional power.

People will not need heals all the time, so while you do not need to heal, I believe you should be able to deal good damage. I just can’t see Druid needing to fulfill a Monk role as pure healer.

Justine.6351:

The only way I see a healing druid doing useful dmg (one of its weapon is lol staff) is maybe condi traps lol. Apothecary.

It comes down to, healing power/x/x stats. Power builds use 3 stats and conditions use 2stats, one of which is only found on giver’s weapon/runes/sigils/traits/foods/utilities.

thinking:

axe/torch, staff,traps
generate af with staff/use traps and swap to axe/torch, pop into celestial form.
leave celestial form and drop bonfire/split blade and swap into staff/use traps.
generate af and swap into axe/torch and enter celestial form.
leave cf and drop bonfire/split blade and swap to staff/use traps.
on and on and on

I tried this, a condi/ healer because o the exact same logic – condition damage needs 2 stats, power needs 3. However, when testing it, sustained dps was non existent because of one key factor, not being able to weapon swap to the second torch meant no second bonfire = really hurt dps (much lower than pure zerker power builds). Since CA form now has a 10s cd means you don’t want to waste it as a weapon swap to get that second bonfire.

The fact that the vale Guardian and I assume future bosses don;t sit in the bonfire also hurt dps.

The biggest weakness though was the staff having no condi damage on it. You basically need the staff to get into CA form. So much so, you spend 90% of fights with either staff or in CA form. The few times you get to use a condi burst, the dps is average but really suffers from not using condi foods and condi runes = duration’s are not capped.

If they don;t add conditions to the staff, then power builds are the way to go. I was trying a bleed short bow variant too but had to take Ancient seeds to get some decent dps. Given that ancestral grace is now pretty much mandatory in groups, again I don’t think a short bow druid will work.

Terra.8571:

Justine.6351:

The only way I see a healing druid doing useful dmg (one of its weapon is lol staff) is maybe condi traps lol. Apothecary.

It comes down to, healing power/x/x stats. Power builds use 3 stats and conditions use 2stats, one of which is only found on giver’s weapon/runes/sigils/traits/foods/utilities.

thinking:

axe/torch, staff,traps
generate af with staff/use traps and swap to axe/torch, pop into celestial form.
leave celestial form and drop bonfire/split blade and swap into staff/use traps.
generate af and swap into axe/torch and enter celestial form.
leave cf and drop bonfire/split blade and swap to staff/use traps.
on and on and on

I tried this, a condi/ healer because o the exact same logic – condition damage needs 2 stats, power needs 3. However, when testing it, sustained dps was non existent because of one key factor, not being able to weapon swap to the second torch meant no second bonfire = really hurt dps (much lower than pure zerker power builds). Since CA form now has a 10s cd means you don’t want to waste it as a weapon swap to get that second bonfire.

The fact that the vale Guardian and I assume future bosses don;t sit in the bonfire also hurt dps.

The biggest weakness though was the staff having no condi damage on it. You basically need the staff to get into CA form. So much so, you spend 90% of fights with either staff or in CA form. The few times you get to use a condi burst, the dps is average but really suffers from not using condi foods and condi runes = duration’s are not capped.

If they don;t add conditions to the staff, then power builds are the way to go. I was trying a bleed short bow variant too but had to take Ancient seeds to get some decent dps. Given that ancestral grace is now pretty much mandatory in groups, again I don’t think a short bow druid will work.

This is why they need to add a burn to each tick of Solar Beam, Apothecary would work then. Otherwise you need Precision to proc Sharpened Edges and sigils.

I think Zealot’s will be the best gear for a healing/damage hybrid by far.

I think Cleric’s will be the best pure healing gear.

To me what make’s Zealots far more desireable that Cleric’s is that I won’t need to make a second ascended set to do old content or world bosses. For any old content the healing and dps buffs the Druid brings will be nice but DPS is still king in old content. Zealot’s brings that more than Cleric’s does.

The first portion of the content should be doable in exotic gear but as we move forward ascended gear is going to make things more efficient.

The reason I started the thread was to find a “second best” dps option in case they do not release a new way to get sprockets. I do believe that they will release Zealot’s trinkets with HoT but unless the marionette event becomes a fractal there doesn’t seem to be a good way to get them again that fits the coming story. Celestial seems decent to me or a mix of zerk and cleric to bring some damage while also getting good heals.

Terra.8571:

Justine.6351:

The only way I see a healing druid doing useful dmg (one of its weapon is lol staff) is maybe condi traps lol. Apothecary.

It comes down to, healing power/x/x stats. Power builds use 3 stats and conditions use 2stats, one of which is only found on giver’s weapon/runes/sigils/traits/foods/utilities.

thinking:

axe/torch, staff,traps
generate af with staff/use traps and swap to axe/torch, pop into celestial form.
leave celestial form and drop bonfire/split blade and swap into staff/use traps.
generate af and swap into axe/torch and enter celestial form.
leave cf and drop bonfire/split blade and swap to staff/use traps.
on and on and on

I tried this, a condi/ healer because o the exact same logic – condition damage needs 2 stats, power needs 3. However, when testing it, sustained dps was non existent because of one key factor, not being able to weapon swap to the second torch meant no second bonfire = really hurt dps (much lower than pure zerker power builds). Since CA form now has a 10s cd means you don’t want to waste it as a weapon swap to get that second bonfire.

The fact that the vale Guardian and I assume future bosses don;t sit in the bonfire also hurt dps.

The biggest weakness though was the staff having no condi damage on it. You basically need the staff to get into CA form. So much so, you spend 90% of fights with either staff or in CA form. The few times you get to use a condi burst, the dps is average but really suffers from not using condi foods and condi runes = duration’s are not capped.

If they don;t add conditions to the staff, then power builds are the way to go. I was trying a bleed short bow variant too but had to take Ancient seeds to get some decent dps. Given that ancestral grace is now pretty much mandatory in groups, again I don’t think a short bow druid will work.

I’m pretty sure CA triggers quickdraw. If using the staff trait with a staff using a sigil of geomancy you can apparently proc aoe ancient seeds.

Using both staff and CA as swaps you should be able to drop a bonfire every ~10sec.

Geomancy/earth, same difference ;-)

You’d need Hydromancy and or Geomancy because they deal damage on swap as well as apply conditions.

Just found out that the Pact Mastery will give access to old recipes that are discontinued, and they will be tradeable, so that may help out with getting Zealots armor. Just need a more regular source of Sprockets.