Guild Wars 2

So, I have been thinking about playing a druid, and I would like to ask a few questions to help me perform well in PVE raids.

1. Is the Druid focused on healing or damage dealing?
I’ve heard that the healing is attached to offensive abilities, so you mainly focus on combat, but it is mainly about doing damage, or is healing people your top priority? Or is it a choice of whether you heal or damage deal.

2. If I wanted to be a more healing focused Druid (If there is such a thing), what gear should I use?
I think the need to use a staff due to the healing ability makes it essential, but what would be the other weapon? Also, what is the stat priority? Is it focusing on healing power, or just Berserker gear?

Thank you for your time.

Druid is focused on healing and damage boosting (with Glyph of Empowerment and Grace of the Land, in addition to the Ranger’s Frost Spirit and Spotter). A Druid’s dps is moderate at best.

In the order of more damage-y to more heal-y, It would likely be:

Berzerker
Zealot
Magi
Clerics

I personally use Zealot, mixed with Berzerker trinkets, but to each his own. you may try Zealot mixed with Magi trinkets.

If you are going for more healing, I would use sword/warhorn (traited with windborne notes), as the alternate weapon-set to your staff.

This is the closest build I use related to your desires. Modify as you wish.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmYD7keVoiVsmVwVFgoVswIYwP1qaW1Z0V6aaMhrvVAoEPGG-TRyDQBPZ/BuoEsJK/+k6PA4IAAvHAQn0NwgLAQCPIABAQA24GDAIFgf7tA-e

1. the druid can be made into anything you choose healing focused / primairy damage focused / condi focused / Beastmastery focused , its not that much about healing that is just one option we have acess to , the MAIN point about druid is providing support in ether form of your choice through healing or CC or Buffs or a combination of these three.

2. if you wanted to be more healing focused i’d aim to use Zealots + beserkers for PvE or Zealots+ Crusader stats for WvW (this will be healing+power stat focused with Critical damage as damage support) in this set up you would use Marksman+Beastmastery+druid LB+GS using shouting to pump out regen and then use the Celestial form to pump out High end healing support+ damage on Celestial 5.

you can easly make a build without Staff if you spec for healing power+damage , the only time Staff becomes a requirement is if you have Very little External sources to generate healing ticks , aka Regen x amount of targets .

firstly you’ll need to understand how Asteral force works.

1. Asteral Energy is generated by a % per tick or skill used , so effectively more ticks and scaling higher the better with is then Spread over 5 targets if using shouts , spread those shouts out over 15 targets for pvp/wvw and you’ll have Very Stable Energy Gain from that you can afford to drop the staff, to go for more Offensive weapons.
2. the Trait Natural Mender Applies 1x mender stack for healing targeting yourself this also includes ticks , glyphs ect setting up through regen or Troll ungenet you can maintain 10 stacks to boost outgoing healing by 20% , which will also boost a shouts heal per tick , so higher the outgoing the better , so even then Max healing stats are not required to gain effective healing .

^ hence why i mentioned Zealots+crusaders/beserkers and a LB/GS its one way of building a druid .

3. Staff is defo for sure the most Optimal way of generating Energy outside of Full build designs not taking a staff Restricts you to other healing sources to gain asteral energy e.g glyphs+shouts and Troll ungent/heal as one (troll ungent counts as 10x healing ticks ) so as you can see some skills can heal for more but generate less Asteral energy leading to less often Celestail avatar activation.

a lot of new druids do the mistake of just using Beserker gear with a staff , the hind sight of using staff with zerkers has way more cons than pros.

1. does less damage , less high bursts and the weapon can not kill any decent player its damage dps is too low with no burst to use.
2. the staff and the linked build type is build for CC+sustain , battle of attrition through means of Rapid healing to gain energy to use Celestial form to heal back to max high risk as you’d be very Vunrable outside of CA form which is even worse if you go with full beserker gear , as soon as you leave CA form you’ll be Spiked dead before the next CA.
3. going into Beserker gear on a druid most likely means you’ll need Signet of stone as protect me does not do enough Damage migration for a Glass cannon to survive , and by so it also means you have to use 1x utiltiy slot for extra defences when just having 700-800 healing power frees up that Utility slot for anything of your choice , glyphs? more Natural mender stacks+ light fields and if traited 2x condi clear worth the trade off , i think so.

for example Quick draw Power druid , skirmishing , beastmastery , druid (using a condi spec) you can use staff+ Sword/Torch and a high bleed stacking pet to burst condi rotations at a high pace while still using shouts to generate Asteral Force , meaning Tanky , evasive (striders defence 50% chance to avoid projeciles while using sword in melee) also grants you high sustain if you choose a Saga amulet for example .

the damage is recovered through faster rotations+pet damage.

advise: keep reading look for builds outside of meta battle , druids a Vast complex web of builds each only slightly altered but clearly different due to trait lines used .

there are plenty of druid builds on the ranger fourms and don;t discount them because they are not 100% this or 100% that , its all about the Role you choose to provide which is a choice of Main support then damage or damage then support , then pick the stat type you want to play + the associated weapons to those trait lines.

example skirmishing using sharpen edges+viper gear+quick draw and Zyphers speed for Quickness = massive Condi burst using Sword+torch> pet swap f2 , the Staff AA then becomes an AA beam which can apply 5-8 bleeds to a chain of targets due to its piercing effect.

Thank you for the advice and the build!