Guild Wars 2

Weapons
Shortbow, Staff

Utility Skills
We Heal As One, Glyph of Equality, Glyph of Alignment, Viper’s Nest, Strength of the Pack

Traits
Wilderness Survival: Expertise Training, Refined Toxins, Poison Master
Beastmastery: Resounding Timbre, Natural Healing, Zephyr’s Speed
Druid: Druidic Clarity, Verdant Etching, Ancient Seeds

Pets
Smokescale, Bristleback

Equipment
Carrion Amulet, Superior Rune of Thorns, Sigil of Venom/Geomancy (Shortbow), Sigil of Energy/Geomancy (Staff)

Build Link

Build Description
I kind of stumbled across this build while fooling around in unranked/1v1 arenas. I know there have been poison master builds before but they always felt mediocre to me due to focussing on a rather limited amount of conditions in a relatively tanky meta. Before Heart of Thorns the build basically took away all our condi removal since both main anti condi traits are in the competing slots. Now glyph condi removal and the full clear with celestial form made Poison Master a much more legit choice.

Btw Superior Runes of Thornes make sense for poison damage enhancement but the passive effect turns out surprisingly good aswell. Usually it will give you between 100 and 200 free condi damage in fights which adds up considering the usualy might stacks of a shout ranger build.

Playstyle
The meta is squishy. You don’t have to hit people with a full condi burst (including burn) anymore. This build can easily result in 3k poison ticks which is already deadly for thieves and such. Constant bleeds continuisly eat away hp on glassy targets. The high hp pool with bark skin and the ability to apply weakness to enemies that jump you generate a decent amount of defense. The usualy high druid sustain which in this case includes traited glyphes completes the build. Your weapons require you to be at about midrange so you also wont take the full cleave of all the AoEs that melee professions have to deal with. Staff is great for disengaging and creating a relatively safe haven with your waterfield wall. Zephyr’s Speed could be exchanged for taunt but I personally don’t like it that much with HOT pet f2 skills.

The defensive options are similiar to previous druid builds so you guys should already be kind of familiar with how to survive. Ofcourse shortbow #3 is a nice addition for some unexpected dodges. Offensively you should get used to your poison applying skills. Shortbow #2, the Glyph and the Trap all hit hard if they connect. Stuff like Ancient Seeds and pet knockdown help here. For finishin pressure the usual celestial form #5 + pet burst work.

Have fun!

This is a nice build. Have you tried Viper or Sinister Amulets with it? Yesterday I was messing around the 1v1 arenas with this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8YnEqAlsiFsCOsActglOBz5vFAKcwr0Z6OtJYt3OZl480A-TZBGABGcRAK4IAU/+DA8AAKvMAA

Close to what you have except I took NM line instead of BM line for the extra spike damage reduction. I’m also using Sw/D instead of Shortbow. Along with Sinisters Amulet. It works really nice for 1v1’s.

I think Viper and Sinister are both too squishy atm facing all those condi and thief spikes.

Beastmastery is just too good to drop atm in my opinion due to the supreme pet dmg and the fact that WHAO and SOTP are both just great skills that get their cooldown reduced by that line. With NM I wonder which heal you used? Personally I feel like almost never is it worth it to not go for a traited heal with a build. Since we run Poison Master we cannot trait survival skills, since we don’t run Skirmishing we cannot trait Healing spring (and it honestly is too weak healing anyway). The glyph heal would actually be very fitting but is just too weak too. So shouts it it. A 20% cd reduction on your heal effectively increases your health pool by like 20% in my experience.

I agree. I’m still playing around with different trait lines. I threw this together at work yesterday and was excited to try it out when I got home. Was very surprised to see the synergy between Rune of Thorns and Poison Master which works quite well.

When I saw the headline I formerly thought someone bumped my former poison master thread.

I have been formerly thinking about a build using that particular trait and I brought it to a good effect. This is a nice variation of it, though.
Unlike my build this has much better roaming potential. Less damage but the trade-off is well worth it.

Unfortunately, as I’ve been playing around with Rune of the Thorns before, I have to say I wasn’t persuaded about the choice at all. You might as well be better of with rune of the Nightmare. Also, have you tried this build with Sage Amulet? I’m not sure how much healing scales with so few damage mitigation mechanics but it’s worth a thought.

Sage amulet might be better indeed. It makes the staff a lot more useful.
Although I tried some poison master builds myself, I never was convinced. Especially the Refined Toxins trait is quite disappointing. The ICD is too high if you ask me. Its fun to play a poison build though, but I question the true effectiveness of it.

HeadCrowned.6834:

Sage amulet might be better indeed. It makes the staff a lot more useful.
Although I tried some poison master builds myself, I never was convinced. Especially the Refined Toxins trait is quite disappointing. The ICD is too high if you ask me. Its fun to play a poison build though, but I question the true effectiveness of it.

Yea… I thought something similar myself about refined toxins.
In a real fight … you’ll proc the trait… twice. Once from you and once from pet, then you never get to full HP again. Too disappointing for a trait if you ask me. Then I thought it might be a PvE trait but then we have Ambidexterity and Toxins fall apart once again.

Honestly many amulets seems like they could work with the build. I still think the super glass cannon options are too much of a one trick pony though and between the more tanky stuff I think Carrion is best.

I will continue to look at more amulets. Btw exchanging staff with sword/dagger obviously works and increases damage in a 1v1 situation. Also feels pretty bad to run around with a no condi dmg weapon in a condi build like this one but I still think staff feels like the better option. While with sword/dagger/torch you would be constantly swapping in and out staff is more situation oriented. In some situations dealing damage is just not the main goal and you want to stand back which staff does better.

I am really sad that the ICD of runes of thorns is so high. For a build like this one the effect should be indeed a bit more rewarding than pretty much ‘what a few might stacks do’. Then again it still helps imo and adds more condi damage than for example runes of Scavenging and it does stack on top of might.

Nightmare certainly works too especially if the build would mix more different condis in but thorns actually increased the dmg of each tick instead just the duration.

Refined toxins procs whenever you swap pet too. Certainly could be replaced with Shared or Ambidexterity if you run offhands but hey, I just look at it as 1-2 additional poison stacks. It adds up.

Please check the builds thread Tagged at the top of the ranger page , the Poison master build style is listed there too.

I’ve finished my version of the Thorn poison master build with the marsh drake i can get up to 17-20 poison stacks when comboed correctly.

>PBS>huntershot>(close gap)>swap weapons S/D+Petswap f2+Viper nest > AA (roots ancient seeds)>sword 3 or dagger 4 . (if the drake is already out and the poison master is pre-prepaired, you can swap pets right after the f2 for a quick extra 2 stacks)

adding the refined toxins with the LB pumps out weakness+1 poison vs single targets apply sigil of earth for cover bleeds , just using LB AA alone adds 2 cover conditions or 3 if you include barrage.

I have still been using Vipers Amulet , skirmisher/druid/wilderness with the same Utility set up, but as of late i’ve swapped Druid for Nature magic and added heal as one + S&R , viper nest ,Sun spirit(traited)

condi clears maybe low so it Enchances the Evading style will having higher/quicker Poison+burn+cover condi combos.

for a kicker i even use Most dangerous game and draw out 2-8seconds then heal as one for a good rotation of 15-25might each heal as one.

>version Nature poison master (add a average of 20 might every 20seconds)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8YnUqANrg1CCerActgBHhy/8PoF6GIWLaOAG6L/keE+HA-TpxBQBGc/BAcEAoXZALcBAcwDAYZHEAA

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

>version Nature poison master (add a average of 20 might every 20seconds)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8YnUqANrg1CCerActgBHhy/8PoF6GIWLaOAG6L/keE+HA-TpxBQBGc/BAcEAoXZALcBAcwDAYZHEAA

I find MDG obsolete in current meta. You die in 4 seconds if you are at full health if you are caught off-guard in glass builds.
And since Celestial is no more… well…

MDG in combination with Viper aint worth it indeed.

A few Ifs there , for some it may not be worth as that players skill can’t Handle the Pressure and makes that Fatal mistake but for me I’ve had Success in doing so .

its not a matter of its not worth it or it is , its about the play style and if that play can or can not Handle it.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

A few Ifs there , for some it may not be worth as that players skill can’t Handle the Pressure and makes that Fatal mistake but for me I’ve had Success in doing so .

its not a matter of its not worth it or it is , its about the play style and if that play can or can not Handle it.

It’s not about playstyle.
It’s that your enemies have to be really bad if they let you live glassy for 4+ seconds.

And if you are forced to evade/retreat/heal/rotate/whatever then you are on defensive and you have 0 use of might.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

A few Ifs there , for some it may not be worth as that players skill can’t Handle the Pressure and makes that Fatal mistake but for me I’ve had Success in doing so .

its not a matter of its not worth it or it is , its about the play style and if that play can or can not Handle it.

It’s not about playstyle.
It’s that your enemies have to be really bad if they let you live glassy for 4+ seconds.

And if you are forced to evade/retreat/heal/rotate/whatever then you are on defensive and you have 0 use of might.

you know a Rangers methords of evade are not Stop attacking but attack through the attack thats what sword 2>3 dagger 4 is for and a gs is for too , unlike other classes we can attack+evade at the same time thats the whole point of MDG its a Risk each time you attack and it rewards greatly (if a person cant handle that they shouldn’t use MDG ) its not a case of they are bad if they let you stay alive for 4 seconds .

its the fact the ranger Failed to stay alive for 4 seconds with those evades (you dont have to stop attacking to evade on those weapon sets)

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

you know a Rangers methords of evade are not Stop attacking but attack through the attack thats what sword 2>3 dagger 4 is for and a gs is for too , unlike other classes we can attack+evade at the same time thats the whole point of MDG its a Risk each time you attack and it rewards greatly (if a person cant handle that they shouldn’t use MDG ) its not a case of they are bad if they let you stay alive for 4 seconds .

its the fact the ranger Failed to stay alive for 4 seconds with those evades (you dont have to stop attacking to evade on those weapon sets)

You are failing to recognize that MDG competes with Quick Draw. Which means more damage, more evades, more everything and doesn’t encourage suicide bombing.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

A few Ifs there , for some it may not be worth as that players skill can’t Handle the Pressure and makes that Fatal mistake but for me I’ve had Success in doing so .

its not a matter of its not worth it or it is , its about the play style and if that play can or can not Handle it.

It’s not about playstyle.
It’s that your enemies have to be really bad if they let you live glassy for 4+ seconds.

And if you are forced to evade/retreat/heal/rotate/whatever then you are on defensive and you have 0 use of might.

you know a Rangers methords of evade are not Stop attacking but attack through the attack thats what sword 2>3 dagger 4 is for and a gs is for too , unlike other classes we can attack+evade at the same time thats the whole point of MDG its a Risk each time you attack and it rewards greatly (if a person cant handle that they shouldn’t use MDG ) its not a case of they are bad if they let you stay alive for 4 seconds .

its the fact the ranger Failed to stay alive for 4 seconds with those evades (you dont have to stop attacking to evade on those weapon sets)

You don’t have healing power or thoughness to stay a reasonable amount of time under that 50%, nor do you have any vitality to boost your HP-bar to be longer under 50%. Also, where are your condi cleanses apart from evasive purity? Without staff or GS your escaping possibilities are very limited as well. In any reasonable tier of PvP this build won’t work.

Hey Dojo/Everyone, thanks for the thread. Dojo, your build is fun! :-)

You inspired me to try with what I normally run and I’ve been having a good time. Here’s my inspired variation.

I swapped Carrion with Mercenary Amulet, Thorns with Krait, and Poison Trap with Fire Trap and sunk in Glyph of unity. This way you can poison and bleed them with the elite. The idea up is to hit them with poison, fire, and bleed evenly. Thanks for the post, I am having fun with this! Just pelt them from a distance with staff and burst at close range.