Guild Wars 2

I was curious to see if any druids here have tried out whether a mix or full spec build with Minstrel, Cleric, and Nomads and see which of the 3 or mix of, would be the most beneficial for a Raid team. It’s hard to speculate since we only have the previous BETA experience and won’t know anything until release. But coming from the 3 stats, cleric will out the most healing power while still having power built into the stats to do some damage. while the other two are full tank with one have boon duration increase (even tho its bugged atm).

Coming from a Guard who use to roam around in WvW with nomads + cleric and I loved doing it, heals boons, condi removal. What more could you ask for. But now it seems Druids are way better on paper which actually makes me a bit upset since it seems like they’ll outdo what Guards could have. I mean lunar impact 5cd with 2.5k base heal? I mean even with the healing power in this game has the worst conversions, that’s still a lot on top of all the other avatar and regular healing abilities. I mean you got guards with wings of resolve hitting for 3.8k with 30cd, dodge roll heals, resolve passive, AH, and receive the light all that stuff but I have yet to test any of this since I don’t have the proper gear for the Druid to compare it to.

What does the druid players think? Not saying Druids should be classified as a Healer in all areas of the game but if one were to play that type of role, would Druids be the better choice over a Guard for example.

DrNub.1072:

I was curious to see if any druids here have tried out whether a mix or full spec build with Minstrel, Cleric, and Nomads and see which of the 3 or mix of, would be the most beneficial for a Raid team. It’s hard to speculate since we only have the previous BETA experience and won’t know anything until release. But coming from the 3 stats, cleric will out the most healing power while still having power built into the stats to do some damage. while the other two are full tank with one have boon duration increase (even tho its bugged atm)…

I really do not think that Clerics armor will be the best, toughness is not desired and maxing out healing power isn’t either. Will most likely result in over-heals a lot of the time. Better to put those stats into Power and damage. Imo, Zealots will be best for a raid healer. There is a lot of damage that needs to be done, so everyone will need to contribute as much as possible.

I put this build up the other day. Could use some tweaking imo, but it seems to be about the best group support available. http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_Raid_Spirit_Support

Main thing you need is the 2 outgoing healing modifiers from Monk runes + Delicious Rice Balls. 3.8k Wings of Resolve every 30s is nice, but you can go double staff and Quick Draw your Ancestral Grace and get more heals out of it that way. Druid does more healing than a guardian, there’s no doubt about that.

Since you were wondering about “proper druid gear” my ancestral grace heals around 4.5k and glyph heal in Celestial Form around 9.5k in full ascended clerics gear. My zealots set does around 500 and 700 less healing on those skills. Interpret that as you will.

You don’t actually need everyone to contribute damage to beat the raid encounters and swapping off staff to do DPS may limit your ability to heal reactively if you ever get stuck on your DPS set while needing to heal. Druids primary role is to heal, damage and your own survivability come second. There was no raid encounter so far where the Druid absolutely had to contribute damage and leave staff. Most people on this forum are going to tell you otherwise.

tl;dr: Staff camping = Gear with healing power main stat. Otherwise gear with healing power secondary stat.

I am testing out 50% cleric and 50% power, precision, toughness with strength runes and sigil of might to supplement damage. So far i find it very enjoyable and capable of bursting fairly well considering how tanky it is.

TurtleDragon.3108:

You don’t actually need everyone to contribute damage to beat the raid encounters and swapping off staff to do DPS may limit your ability to heal reactively if you ever get stuck on your DPS set while needing to heal. Druids primary role is to heal, damage and your own survivability come second. There was no raid encounter so far where the Druid absolutely had to contribute damage and leave staff.

I feel this way too. I was recently invited to a Guild that was looking for Raiders, but was told I would be more optimal as a Zerker Druid. So far, I found myself pretty happy with my Cleric Ascended set (side note, I didn’t join that Guild). I’ll change it if it becomes more optimal for a different stat but I think as of right now, no one truly knows what meta will be.

All I know is if I’m in any other weapon besides Staff, my Astral Force regen is almost non-existent. In addition, I love being able to take advantage of Grace of the Land, Glyph of Empowerment and Frost Spirit. I apply Grace of the Land on CD, which I can only do at the mercy of AF, which is always up when I’m using a Staff but it is a struggle with any other weapon.