Guild Wars 2

Hey all! Stopping over from the Mes forum with some questions. First, no I am not an uber-leet player (I rate slightly above average in Unranked with around a fifty-five percent win rate atm; don’t play ranked since i have to solo queue quite a bit). I was on my Reaper alt and I ended up fighting against a really skilled druid player. It seemed like no matter what I was doing, they would either evade for days, or just out-heal the incoming damage. I am not calling for nerfs here; I have always advocated that the best way to deal with a problem is knowledge. So in the spirit of understanding, how do you think they pulled off what they did? What amulet/skills/etc…? Any tells I should be looking for? Anything would be appreciated (not only for me, but I also have a buddy returning to the game who wanted to know more about Druid and I have no idea how to start with good build-crafting for this spec)! Ty for taking a look and have a good one!

Yeah no problem, welcome to the Ranger forum. Could you tell what weapons they were using? If you know that it would be helpful. Also were they using traps, survival skills, or glyphs even?

Edit: also if you could tell if they were running condis or a power build would be helpful and pet information too

Mcrocha.3891:

Yeah no problem, welcome to the Ranger forum. Could you tell what weapons they were using? If you know that it would be helpful. Also were they using traps, survival skills, or glyphs even?

Ty for the welcome! Sad part is that it is hard to say (I am really unfamiliar with Ranger in general beyond GS/LB). I know they were using staff. It was hard to get further details during the match since the Druid was often followed by the rest of their team (safe to say that it was specc’d with support in mind). Other than that, I don’t know unfortunately; I am fairly certain that they popped celestial for a few of the encounters and just heal tanked me, but that is the extent of what I know (and doesn’t explain the evades… maybe from a teammate rather than from druid?).

did he have any spirits out like a sun spirit at all , traiting a sun spirit can give a ranger perma Vigour if he is within 240 yards of it, activating the sun spirit would also blind ( lookd like a large sun flare)

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

did he have any spirits out like a sun spirit at all , traiting a sun spirit can give a ranger perma Vigour if he is within 240 yards of it, activating the sun spirit would also blind ( lookd like a large sun flare)

No, I don’t think so. Didn’t see anything like that. I was getting a lot of “evade” results when attacking them though.

It was probably s/t staff minstrel. Decap it and ignore it. When 2 of or more of you are there, CC and burst it. Expect nerfs for it soon though.

Happicakes.2054:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

did he have any spirits out like a sun spirit at all , traiting a sun spirit can give a ranger perma Vigour if he is within 240 yards of it, activating the sun spirit would also blind ( lookd like a large sun flare)

No, I don’t think so. Didn’t see anything like that. I was getting a lot of “evade” results when attacking them though.

did you see a Sword+dagger , Sword= rolling to the right animation and the dagger has a spin attack on it like a Parry which also evades? if he had those with Striders defence + off-hand training you can evade for a long amount of time quite Often too , one evade every 10seconds on average if linked in order.

striders reduces sword cooldowns by 20% which also has a 20% chance to Destory projectiles wll using a melee weapon , off hand training reduces dagger by 20% and adds 150 condi damage while using a dagger.

so if he was using a sword+dagger on a Condi/support druid that would = tanky / evasive with decent support.
while he has staff out is the counter to this Druid will likely on this set up have one Stunbreak and thats it or you/d have to keep check on his Survival skills if he has quickness or does a large leap backwards , which would mean his using wilderness knowledge which cures 2 conditions on Survival skill use = so that would mean it would have 2-3 stun breaks but less support.

AoE effects and CC while staff is out just watch out for the astral grace (wisp orb moving) try aiming for open areas away from team Aoes , most use this to avoid damage rather than landing into damage.

With HOT, A.net introduced some very very tanky builds for most professions, I hven seen 3 playes in PVP tring to kill tank Chronomancer with shield for like 5 min. With druid is kinda the same, they can eat alot of punishment but most of the time if you cant kill them, they cant also kill you.
The template of the build u were facing ( lots of variations) is probably:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQFAmiUqAXLUmFMYaoPBgumRkG-TZAZAAQZAA
The missing info is room for the variations.

A fully specced Druid with for example minstrel of settler amulet is pretty much unkillable in a 1v1. Even in a 2v1 its hard to kill them. You have the best chance to kill them by using both dps and condi pressure, since it is harder for them to spec both for condi cleanses and dps mitigation. Still it might take some time then to kill them, so if the point is already in posession of the Druids team and the Druid is on that point, don’t even bother to 1v1 him.

Eurantien.4632:

It was probably s/t staff minstrel. Decap it and ignore it. When 2 of or more of you are there, CC and burst it. Expect nerfs for it soon though.

I will have to look into the nuts and bolts of that build a bit deeper then; ty for giving me an idea of what to look into. Cheers!

LughLongArm.5460:

With HOT, A.net introduced some very very tanky builds for most professions, I hven seen 3 playes in PVP tring to kill tank Chronomancer with shield for like 5 min. With druid is kinda the same, they can eat alot of punishment but most of the time if you cant kill them, they cant also kill you.
The template of the build u were facing ( lots of variations) is probably:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQFAmiUqAXLUmFMYaoPBgumRkG-TZAZAAQZAA
The missing info is room for the variations.

Ty for the build to check out! I have to agree about the Chrono; I had to switch to shield on mine to give me some breathing room and you can stay bunkered up for quite a bit of time. I think that the mes block should maybe have the block channel time shaved by a little (unpopular idea on my native forum), but I guess we will see what happens with that.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Happicakes.2054:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

did he have any spirits out like a sun spirit at all , traiting a sun spirit can give a ranger perma Vigour if he is within 240 yards of it, activating the sun spirit would also blind ( lookd like a large sun flare)

No, I don’t think so. Didn’t see anything like that. I was getting a lot of “evade” results when attacking them though.

did you see a Sword+dagger , Sword= rolling to the right animation and the dagger has a spin attack on it like a Parry which also evades? if he had those with Striders defence + off-hand training you can evade for a long amount of time quite Often too , one evade every 10seconds on average if linked in order.

striders reduces sword cooldowns by 20% which also has a 20% chance to Destory projectiles wll using a melee weapon , off hand training reduces dagger by 20% and adds 150 condi damage while using a dagger.

so if he was using a sword+dagger on a Condi/support druid that would = tanky / evasive with decent support.
while he has staff out is the counter to this Druid will likely on this set up have one Stunbreak and thats it or you/d have to keep check on his Survival skills if he has quickness or does a large leap backwards , which would mean his using wilderness knowledge which cures 2 conditions on Survival skill use = so that would mean it would have 2-3 stun breaks but less support.

AoE effects and CC while staff is out just watch out for the astral grace (wisp orb moving) try aiming for open areas away from team Aoes , most use this to avoid damage rather than landing into damage.

Could be it (or some variation thereof). Will check it out; ty!

I’ll try to explain some general things for you and maybe you can figure out what they were doing.

Staff. I’ll list the 5 skills and what they do and some possible plays on them. Do note also that the staff doesn’t really have any damaging skills on it. If the Ranger is going for damage with staff they will most likely try to just auto attack spam(effective at stacking might) and maybe lock you down with skill 4, which I will cover.

1) Auto. Of noteworthiness is the fact that it gives very small heals to allies through which the beam passes ~100hp or so. It also works similar to Mesmer GS in that the beam pierces through enemies to reach its target(actually very useful in cleaving down clones ironically). Also note that it is not a projectile so reflect won’t work on it. However, mainly the auto is very good at proccing one of the new GM traits we have: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lingering_Light. This trait gives the Ranger a lot of sustain with blind spam and heals. If you notice a lot of blinds coming from the Ranger, this is probably the cause. Honestly, I expect this trait to be brought down because it is quite good and quite random atm.

2) Astral Wisp- Not much going on here. It fires a wisp at the target that circles around the target and heals allies that are around the target.

3) Ancestral Grace- Now this is the big one. This is where some of the evade you were talking about comes in to play. What it does is it basically is like a Blink that instead travels to a ground-target up to 1200 range instead of teleporting(doesn’t stun break). But while the skill is being used the Ranger turns into a wisp and evades throughout the movement frames. You will see a big wisp(larger than skill 2) with a streak coming out of it. The skill heals the Ranger and also counts as a blast finisher.

4) Vine Surge- This is a skill shot that immobilizes enemies(1s) it hits, not very much damage. You will see a big line of vines coming out of the ground at you. It is difficult to hit with and has a long cast time. It also cleanses chill, cripple, and immob on allies it passes through(of note though, it does not cleanse those conditions on the Ranger himself). Might want to dodge this skill if you don’t want to be rooted.

5) Sublime Conversion- This is a line skill that absorbs projectiles that pass through it and turns them into little balls of water that heal the Ranger. If you see this then you might want to hold off on say auto attacking with scepter bc it could heal the Ranger if they are behind the line or standing inside of it. If you see this skill and the Ranger is staying close to it you might want to consider aoe to move him off of it especially if you want to move him somewhere a DH for instance could hit him with LB. Note that the line acts as a water field so it can be blasted by Skill 3 or allies as well.

If you come up to a bunker Druid then I recommend ignoring it as you most likely won’t be able to kill it 1v1. if you can decap, then do so, but move on unless you have numbers.

Mcrocha.3891:

I’ll try to explain some general things for you and maybe you can figure out what they were doing.

Staff. I’ll list the 5 skills and what they do and some possible plays on them. Do note also that the staff doesn’t really have any damaging skills on it. If the Ranger is going for damage with staff they will most likely try to just auto attack spam(effective at stacking might) and maybe lock you down with skill 4, which I will cover.

1) Auto. Of noteworthiness is the fact that it gives very small heals to allies through which the beam passes ~100hp or so. It also works similar to Mesmer GS in that the beam pierces through enemies to reach its target(actually very useful in cleaving down clones ironically). Also note that it is not a projectile so reflect won’t work on it. However, mainly the auto is very good at proccing one of the new GM traits we have: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lingering_Light. This trait gives the Ranger a lot of sustain with blind spam and heals. If you notice a lot of blinds coming from the Ranger, this is probably the cause. Honestly, I expect this trait to be brought down because it is quite good and quite random atm.

2) Astral Wisp- Not much going on here. It fires a wisp at the target that circles around the target and heals allies that are around the target.

3) Ancestral Grace- Now this is the big one. This is where some of the evade you were talking about comes in to play. What it does is it basically is like a Blink that instead travels to a ground-target up to 1200 range instead of teleporting(doesn’t stun break). But while the skill is being used the Ranger turns into a wisp and evades throughout the movement frames. You will see a big wisp(larger than skill 2) with a streak coming out of it. The skill heals the Ranger and also counts as a blast finisher.

4) Vine Surge- This is a skill shot that immobilizes enemies(1s) it hits, not very much damage. You will see a big line of vines coming out of the ground at you. It is difficult to hit with and has a long cast time. It also cleanses chill, cripple, and immob on allies it passes through(of note though, it does not cleanse those conditions on the Ranger himself). Might want to dodge this skill if you don’t want to be rooted.

5) Sublime Conversion- This is a line skill that absorbs projectiles that pass through it and turns them into little balls of water that heal the Ranger. If you see this then you might want to hold off on say auto attacking with scepter bc it could heal the Ranger if they are behind the line or standing inside of it. If you see this skill and the Ranger is staying close to it you might want to consider aoe to move him off of it especially if you want to move him somewhere a DH for instance could hit him with LB. Note that the line acts as a water field so it can be blasted by Skill 3 or allies as well.

If you come up to a bunker Druid then I recommend ignoring it as you most likely won’t be able to kill it 1v1. if you can decap, then do so, but move on unless you have numbers.

Appreciate the in-depth look. It is starting to look more and more like it was quite a bad match up for my reaper build (not enough hard cc and slow attacks; looks like my mes will have an easier time with this build style though). Ty all for the help everyone, and grats on the new spec looking like it is pretty good; Rangers need some love too!

The Ranger has some incredible healing now with Druid and condi cleansing on par with other professions (or at least options for it). Things to note about a Druid’s healing:

— Our condi cleansing options are passively transferring them to our pet every 10 seconds, entering Celestial Avatar Form to immediately remove all condis, Seeds of Life (I’ll get back to this), using our utilities (survival is 2, shouts is 1 via runes, glyphs make seeds of life and one of our signets dumps our condis on our pet and stunbreaks), “We Heal as One” for the same reasons as other shouts, Troll Unguent as a survival healing skill or standing in a healing spring. If you can identify a Ranger’s utilities, you can identify their condi cleanses.
— A druid using Seed of Life or Healing Spring will want to stand in that area, especially so for Seeds of Life. If you see a blue bulbous object or a spring, you can be sure the Druid will be hesitant to move off that spot. Only our off-hand dagger evade and Greatsword block can protect us while we’re waiting for the seed to grow without leaving the area, so it’s a great opportunity to open up with a stun.
— Since Astral Force doesn’t decay while out of combat, if you aren’t confident you can hundred to zero a Druid before they can respond they’re likely to enter CAF and heal away your efforts. If you are going for it, a key skill to interrupt is when they start channeling orbiting planets, that water field is an incredibly powerful AoE heal. The other key interrupt is their heal skill, all other Ranger heals outside of CAF are weak.
— Ranger stunbreaks usually double as our condi cleanse skills, so victory is yours if you can force them out of their 3 utilities and CAF (which glows blue), all of these are on a ~40 second cooldown except CAF. A signet above the head removing all condis (signet of renewal), dodging back in a crack of lightning (lightning reflexes), suddenly gaining quickness and superspeed (quickening zephyr), “Protect me!” and a stunning explosion with no tell (glyph of equality) are our stun breaks. A ranger can also transfer your first hard CC on them to their pet at a 60s cooldown using a trait, this will prevent you from interrupting them so be wary. A Druid using a stunning glyph of equality will be even less likely to respond to a stun breaking counterattack due to the seed of life, so that’s an extra card up your sleeve.
— On top of our increased endurance regen from wilderness survival, for evades we have serpent strike and hornet sting on our sword (dashes away from the target that channel that spirit) which are on low cooldown, swoop and the third hit in the auto chain are our greatsword’s evades which also has a long block with a melee counterhit on skill 4, our off-hand dagger also comes with an evade a spinning step to our right that stabs you with a lot of poison, shortbow can perform an evasive backhop at any moment and staff can do similar with wisp form that also blasts a heal. The only evading utility is dodging backward with a crack of lightning, the survival skill lightning reflexes.
Only GS and dagger can dodge/block without moving about so depending on the situation a Ranger might be unable to or be at a disadvantage if they use their dodges. A sword ranger will be locked into using kick or pounce, the second and third attacks in the auto chain, as they are leaps forward so those are perfect opportunities for a counter attack, S/D evades always move to your left, so watch for that.

There are a lot of things the Druid could be doing to do what you said, so, that’s the best I can give. If they were using condition damage primarily they were likely using a Settler’s amulet, while physical damage could be a few different options. I’m sorry I can’t give more specific information here, but it’s likely you can identify a few different things the druid was doing from this.