Guild Wars 2

So, I’m aware that a lot of people say tanks are useless in GW2 due to the lack of aggro pull. But, the reason I want to use a tank build is more for convenience rather than party support. Since the mobs are so gank-y in the HoT maps, I want to be able to hold my own when roaming, or doing solo content.

My real issue, besides deciding if I want to do a tank build in the first place, is mostly what stats to choose. I prefer not to mix, but right now I’m looking at Clerics or Soldiers. Druid focuses on healing, so I’ve been thinking that Cleric may be optimal.

For now, I’m going to take a gamble and see how this works out for me. It may be niche/gimmicky, but hell, metas are boring.

Any thoughts or inputs on this would be kindly accepted.

You might want to consider a stat combination with condition damage too.
If you are up close to mobs, might as well hit them with burning and bleeding.

Some advice from my set up if you’ll indulge me.
I do, run a mix of mostly clerics and some magi, or the other way round I forget.
Anyway my point is that my toughness is high but hp low around 18.5k so I can take physical hits all day long but any condi on me and I’m hard put to survive.
I’d like to go back and balance my toughness and vitality closer to 50/50 to help survive with the condition mobs of higher level pve.

Hope that my mistake helps you

A golden advice :
The longer your target lives – the more damage you take. And that graph is steeper than damage negated by stats.

Tank stats without damage will actually only make your days more difficult. If you don’t intend to make people kill stuff for you while you comfortably run around tagging loot, that is.

If you don’t intend to support people with heals and buffs – you should definitely go for at least condition damage stat. Like apothecary (Healing, Toughness, Condi) or something of that matter. If you die in 3 hits instead of 1 and your damage is so low that you take 25 hits instead of 5 in berserker mode – your experience as a solo roamer will only become a nightmare.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQRAnf8fnUqAlrgVsCurAUtglCB7JBEtCAwb1x6alZAU6eAn45HFB-TxSFABIcgAEZ/BDeCA4o8bUlgAcAFm18n2HggO0/kwJBgF1fIFwn7sA-e

This is my PvE build for the jungle. It has good condition dmg good healing power and vitality. Because of the runes you are pretty fast in CAF and this goves you the most sustain you want. The utilities are there to compete with a lot of enemies at once and it has good cc too.

If you want to change to condition this is a good balanced build and worked very well for me.

Tragic Positive.9356:

A golden advice :
The longer your target lives – the more damage you take. And that graph is steeper than damage negated by stats.

Tank stats without damage will actually only make your days more difficult. If you don’t intend to make people kill stuff for you while you comfortably run around tagging loot, that is.

If you don’t intend to support people with heals and buffs – you should definitely go for at least condition damage stat. Like apothecary (Healing, Toughness, Condi) or something of that matter. If you die in 3 hits instead of 1 and your damage is so low that you take 25 hits instead of 5 in berserker mode – your experience as a solo roamer will only become a nightmare.

That should be the GW2 Golden Rule: the longer stuff lives the more it can hurt you.

if zerk feels too squishy you could mix in marauder gear or magi trinkets for more vitality. I find vitality more important on the HoT maps than toughness by far.

The trait that converts 14% of healing to power is OP.

Also, in response to the “kill faster > mitigate damage”, you can’t kill anything if you’re dead.

Sometimes the best solution is to go glass cannon to burn ASAP. A lot of times, I’ve found building (basically) full clerics, allows you and your pet to face tank with little to no danger, while also allowing allies not to have to worry at all about anything but DPS.

Seriously though, full support damage is kind of broken considering you’re virtually invincible in PvE. WHaO, that halling → power trait is crazy strong.

I know you mentioned solo rather than team support, but yesterday I ran a dungeon with a healing druid and although no one ever went down it was pretty much the worst experience of my life. It was just sooooo slow. Be prepared for that, since ranger have very low damage to begin with. Going tanky means you’re not going to kill anything.

InsaneQR.7412:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQRAnf8fnUqAlrgVsCurAUtglCB7JBEtCAwb1x6alZAU6eAn45HFB-TxSFABIcgAEZ/BDeCA4o8bUlgAcAFm18n2HggO0/kwJBgF1fIFwn7sA-e

This is my PvE build for the jungle. It has good condition dmg good healing power and vitality. Because of the runes you are pretty fast in CAF and this goves you the most sustain you want. The utilities are there to compete with a lot of enemies at once and it has good cc too.

If you want to change to condition this is a good balanced build and worked very well for me.

I run a very similar build on my condi druid, although I used Carrion to have a bit more power but still a confortable extra of vitality. But its not the Vitality that keeps me safe, insteads its the many interupts combined with the aoe. Usually even if I go down I’m soon up again because of the rally. So I can definitly recommand something like this.

Recently I have made a (boon) power ranger with full zerker stuff and I must admit it plays even a bit smoother than my condi druid, simply because of the damage output. (But I do miss the many interrupts)

So there is no denying Tragic Positivs golden rule.

Fluffball.8307:

I know you mentioned solo rather than team support, but yesterday I ran a dungeon with a healing druid and although no one ever went down it was pretty much the worst experience of my life. It was just sooooo slow. Be prepared for that, since ranger have very low damage to begin with. Going tanky means you’re not going to kill anything.

I have to agree with Fluff…I have built my druid as a pure healbot…I can keep everyone alive no problem…but I have 0 damage – Literally highest healing Druid build but absolutely no damage output.

You either need to already have a party that enjoys the heals and doesn’t mind slow runs, or be upfront with your party about your build and offer to bow out if that is not what they want…just the courteous thing to do.

It’s a trade off, but if you are looking for a total face tank build with 0 dmg (keep everyone alive while they down bosses) here ya go:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FvNAQNBmOD7keVomVskVwgVgoVsgJYw30e6Q1Jx14qZNLrBQAoi3eA-TBSDABOcRAMUJYWK%2F0T3wlq%2FgxRAAgHAgK7PEAABYjbMNWjBjckjckjckNyROyROyRWKgv1bB-e

Thanks for the ideas, everyone.

I’ve decided to go Clerics as of yesterday, and although I’ve been missing my crit chance, it hasn’t been a nightmare so far. My issue is, I don’t feel substantially less squishy. I’m stuck around 18k health right now, which is to be suspected given I went with Clerics.

However, it may just be the fact that toughness is something that isn’t very obvious, but I still feel like I’m being mauled at times. On the plus side, my healing has increased, so that’s nice.

My build, as of right now: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnUqAVsiNsAWsAEtilEBD+q2VDrOpuUwU7JAsCmZVoEJ-TBCBABAcFACS9na0EUxjAQClgGpMDQdAQp0AA-e

GussJr.1643:

Fluffball.8307:

I know you mentioned solo rather than team support, but yesterday I ran a dungeon with a healing druid and although no one ever went down it was pretty much the worst experience of my life. It was just sooooo slow. Be prepared for that, since ranger have very low damage to begin with. Going tanky means you’re not going to kill anything.

I have to agree with Fluff…I have built my druid as a pure healbot…I can keep everyone alive no problem…but I have 0 damage – Literally highest healing Druid build but absolutely no damage output.

You either need to already have a party that enjoys the heals and doesn’t mind slow runs, or be upfront with your party about your build and offer to bow out if that is not what they want…just the courteous thing to do.

It’s a trade off, but if you are looking for a total face tank build with 0 dmg (keep everyone alive while they down bosses) here ya go:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FvNAQNBmOD7keVomVskVwgVgoVsgJYw30e6Q1Jx14qZNLrBQAoi3eA-TBSDABOcRAMUJYWK%2F0T3wlq%2FgxRAAgHAgK7PEAABYjbMNWjBjckjckjckNyROyROyRWKgv1bB-e

It is impossible to have “absolutely no damage output” unless you put your pet on passive, and only use staff 3, 5 and CA form 1-4. In which case you are doing it wrong.

Razor.9872:

GussJr.1643:

Fluffball.8307:

I know you mentioned solo rather than team support, but yesterday I ran a dungeon with a healing druid and although no one ever went down it was pretty much the worst experience of my life. It was just sooooo slow. Be prepared for that, since ranger have very low damage to begin with. Going tanky means you’re not going to kill anything.

I have to agree with Fluff…I have built my druid as a pure healbot…I can keep everyone alive no problem…but I have 0 damage – Literally highest healing Druid build but absolutely no damage output.

You either need to already have a party that enjoys the heals and doesn’t mind slow runs, or be upfront with your party about your build and offer to bow out if that is not what they want…just the courteous thing to do.

It’s a trade off, but if you are looking for a total face tank build with 0 dmg (keep everyone alive while they down bosses) here ya go:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FvNAQNBmOD7keVomVskVwgVgoVsgJYw30e6Q1Jx14qZNLrBQAoi3eA-TBSDABOcRAMUJYWK%2F0T3wlq%2FgxRAAgHAgK7PEAABYjbMNWjBjckjckjckNyROyROyRWKgv1bB-e

It is impossible to have “absolutely no damage output” unless you put your pet on passive, and only use staff 3, 5 and CA form 1-4. In which case you are doing it wrong.

lol I guess if you want to take it as literally as possible…. -eye roll- I guess for you I should have used “negligible damage”

NEVER use hyperbole on the internet.

Fluffball.8307:

NEVER use hyperbole on the internet.

haha so true!

GussJr.1643:

Fluffball.8307:

NEVER use hyperbole on the internet.

haha so true!

Just want to be as accurate as possible

Razor.9872:

GussJr.1643:

Fluffball.8307:

NEVER use hyperbole on the internet.

haha so true!

Just want to be as accurate as possible

Hey, that’s my role here! >.>

welp, as per our last discussion about the Druid
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/How-does-one-Druid-properly/6175869

i have been running around with two different setups.
1) DPS zerker Ranger
2) Cleric/Soldier Druid

I find myself mainly using the DPS ranger set up because it is much faster killing mobs and plowing through the jungle (no to mention crazy fun), but whenever i encounter a situation where i cannot solo it with zerker, i always switch to my cleric build.

Tragic Positive.9356:

A golden advice :
The longer your target lives – the more damage you take. And that graph is steeper than damage negated by stats.

While this is true, just because you are taking a ton of damage over time does not mean you are necessarily in danger of dying when running a cleric build. With pretty much perma regen, signet of the wild, and a super tanky pet taking aggro you can outlast most bosses solo. Just keep on healing, evading, switching pets, condi cleans, and attacking and eventually you will kill the enemy. Just keep in mind that this will take a REALLY REALLY LONG TIME, and it gets kinda boring.

Note: Trying to solo a boss that can self heal will not work if you are running Cleric, you just can’t cause damage fast enough to kill it. You will just go back and forth forever and eventually get bored and quit.

LittleHorn.6728:

While this is true, just because you are taking a ton of damage over time does not mean you are necessarily in danger of dying when running a cleric build.

You don’t have to remind me. I had a great use of Cleric equipment throughout all game modes. But each one was situational.

I refrain from giving advice that can’t be applied to everyday situation. Cleric helps you survive but doesn’t help you “do stuff” you came for. You roam around to kill stuff and get your rewards. Cleric is a choice for only a very specific part of that environment.

But the thing is that Cleric would waste more time and make you rusty than going berserker if you are solo-roaming. Cleric is definitely something as a go-to option for content that requires babysitting. But it’s neither the most efficient nor the fastest way to do things. The only things it makes faster are situations where people are incompetent. And it’s okay to be incompetent. None of us was born skilled. But that’s just how things work.

I have soloed much HoT with the build from this thread. Good survival-ability, Damage is all Condi but things melt pretty quick even after the fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid/page/2#post6180929

Very good build for joining Meta Events.