Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fnUqANsgFsCWsCctglOBD+lOTzpOBuAQh7pFk4WYl8s0A-TpBFwAKOIAEeAALOCAt2fAaZAAXAAA

This build basically attempts to maximize the hybrid nature of the Druid spec and also take advantage of insane might stacking capabilities of HaO to keep up a regular 16-25 stacks. Glyphs provide emergency condi removal as well as preventing res attempts by enemies (AoE poison and AoE daze), and a low cooldown stunbreak.

The basic Might stacking rotation is simply a pet swap into your Smokescale f2, followed by HaO which will usually net 15-16 stacks, Using Strength of the Pack followed by a Bristleback F2 will stack a lot of might without even using Heal as One

Healing immediately after swapping pets will also net you an extra 2.5 seconds of quickness. (About 5.5 seconds of quickness every pet swap)

Torch is included because it adds a lot of value to celestial, provides a fire field blastable by staff 3 and is amazing for cleaving downed bodies. (Without torch, good luck keeping downed bodies from being ressed).

This build can put out extremely high damage and healing numbers while having very fast mobility from Sword 2 and Staff 3 and perma swiftness from Heal Shout.
In a full length game with lots of teamfighting/skirmishing, you can expect numbers of above 300K in both allied healing AND damage, which imo is very good.

Edit: Also credits to Hitzer (Elxdark) who was running a very similar build to this which I took and modified slightly after a discussion.

This build is nice, the traits are where it’s at.

I like Bristleback with “Protect Me” good spike damage and works 100% with “Protect Me”.

But this build works really solid on side points great survival. Has decent damage output.

I saw you wailing on a golem in the mists yesterday. I’ll give it a go. My current mission is to see whether druid or tempest fulfills a cele bruiser/healer/teamfighter better, and this build might be stronger than the more heal oriented cele builds I’ve tried that melt to focus fire.

Like that you ditched WS for NM and took glyphs over the survival poular utilities. Your weakness OFC are Condies and your boons are reapers food. Even If you change primal cehos to druid calirty(which you should), it takes time to build AF and not sure the 2 seeds of life+EP can carry you up to that moment(unless the 2 glyphs realy help out in building AF).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fnUqAlsgFsCWsCUtgFKBD+nWUXqP/gNXHrJAUqiAl8g0A-TpBFwAMOIAEeAALOCAt2fAaZAAXAAA

if condis become a problem you can swap out nature protection for Wildy Survival. It also adds in some extra condi dmg on your torch and pet. With even more quickness and CC.

It’s probably good, but I hate celestial with a passion so won’t be trying it out. Condi spikes/heavy condi pressure probably give this build a headache though.

LughLongArm.5460:

Like that you ditched WS for NM and took glyphs over the survival poular utilities. Your weakness OFC are Condies and your boons are reapers food. Even If you change primal cehos to druid calirty(which you should), it takes time to build AF and not sure the 2 seeds of life+EP can carry you up to that moment(unless the 2 glyphs realy help out in building AF).

The good news is that condi builds aren’t being played much currently → Reaper, Scrapper, Dragonhunter, Mesmer, Thief all are primarily power based damage at the moment.

If I was facing consistent condi pressure I would most likely swap out Signet of Stone for Signet of Renewal and take Druidic Clarity. Really though, Glyphs are better condi removal than they seem: It’s basically 4 conditions off every 20 seconds, and you can cleanse poison, cripple, weakness with Evasive Purity before the seed bursts, so they normally remove important condis like burn or torment. Another thing is that the build have very high healing output with permanent regen and Heal as One, as well as additional glyph healing and the Master tier minor druid trait, you also can leap and blast finish the staff 5 water field.

Would this build lose a 1v1 to a condi duelist build like shatter condi mesmer? Probably yeah, but it isn’t really a big deal, because it can reset on most condi builds with staff/sword mobility anyway. Would I really want to fight a Reaper on point with it? Nope, I would want to kite the Reaper and daze him as soon as he gets close to me.

Sol.4310:

This build is nice, the traits are where it’s at.

I like Bristleback with “Protect Me” good spike damage and works 100% with “Protect Me”.

But this build works really solid on side points great survival. Has decent damage output.

I haven’t experimented much with Bristleback, but melee pets have become kind of a personal preference of mine. Bristleback definitely looks strong, and ranged pets are almost certainly better with Protect Me. However, I’ve always hated the functionality of Protect Me, whenever I really need it my pet usually dies and I don’t like losing nodes due to the invulnerability. I also like the fact that Stone gives passive toughness.
Protect Me is also better in a Marauder kiting build like you run where the goal isn’t so much to be able to stand in the middle of a big fight and hold a node.

Tried this build out real quick before I get caught up with real life. I can already tell that it has much greater potential than most of the other WS oriented Druid builds I’ve seen so far.

Also why did you put damage oriented sigils on staff? I feel like transference would be invaluable on staff.

nearlight.3064:

Tried this build out real quick before I get caught up with real life. I can already tell that it has much greater potential than most of the other WS oriented Druid builds I’ve seen so far.

Also why did you put damage oriented sigils on staff? I feel like transference would be invaluable on staff.

For one, Blood sigil procs Lingering Light on yourself, meaning a blind and 700 healing. For two, Air and Blood do a lot of damage at 25 might stacks, and I like the amount of ranged pressure staff can output when fully might stacked.

Basically I prefer having higher single target damage at ranged, because Staff is exceptionally good at pressuring a target across the map: You can chase them with #3, immob with 4, while doing lots of damage with Staff auto.

Transference might be a good choice if you are trying to heal more, especially if you always remember to enter CA while in staff, so that it still applies, but air/blood are always immediate value on a build that has a decent crit chance.

it’s a solid all-around build. i spent a few hours on it over the weekend, and the damage output isn’t quite there. you’ll also struggle with one stun break and no on-demand condi wipe, which makes the build not “next leve”. might stacking is also very dependent on SoTP, which isn’t really up often enough, to get you to the 20+ might range.

but overall, solid, id run it.

infantrydiv.1620:

nearlight.3064:

Tried this build out real quick before I get caught up with real life. I can already tell that it has much greater potential than most of the other WS oriented Druid builds I’ve seen so far.

Also why did you put damage oriented sigils on staff? I feel like transference would be invaluable on staff.

For one, Blood sigil procs Lingering Light on yourself, meaning a blind and 700 healing. For two, Air and Blood do a lot of damage at 25 might stacks, and I like the amount of ranged pressure staff can output when fully might stacked.

Basically I prefer having higher single target damage at ranged, because Staff is exceptionally good at pressuring a target across the map: You can chase them with #3, immob with 4, while doing lots of damage with Staff auto.

Transference might be a good choice if you are trying to heal more, especially if you always remember to enter CA while in staff, so that it still applies, but air/blood are always immediate value on a build that has a decent crit chance.

Duly noted. I’ll probably default to transference/air then just because the group I usually run with generally either expects me to be playing hybrid support or point holder role so I think that will help me be slightly more versatile.

I played cele for quite a bit but staff just has too low dmg to make alle the offensive stats work imo.

Having some insane sucess with trap druid at the moment.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fjEqQLL2uCerAVLWYEM4o6Vtr2MuqVhAmCwlLAUyzSD-TZhAwArLDsc/BOPBAAHEgOXAAA

The AoE pressure makes him excellent for holding points and with skirmishing the leaps almost put him on thief mobility level. Try it!

Just played this for a few matches. Having a lot of fun. Should be even better if the ooc drain gets removed.

Dojo.1867:

I played cele for quite a bit but staff just has too low dmg to make alle the offensive stats work imo.

This has been my experience as well. Even with 25 stacks, which isn’t easy to achieve when SoTP is on CD, cele staff just doesn’t have the pressure. Arguably, we have torch as well but the field is situational and #4 is only 2 stacks.

Lets look at what chronos, scrappers, reapers and heralds are offering. This level of utility and damage is what we have to strive for. As someone else mentioned in my thread, cele is inefficient on the ranger because we don’t output enough Condi damage. This leaves us with marauder simply leaving cele in the dust especially with might stacking in terms of raw power dmg output. And minstrel does a much better job supporting… 1400 healing power vs. 700 is a huge difference on the druid. 2k toughness vs. 1500 is also a big difference. Anyway, that’s my 2c.

I tried it and I’m liking it.

Dojo.1867:

I played cele for quite a bit but staff just has too low dmg to make alle the offensive stats work imo.

Having some insane sucess with trap druid at the moment.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fjEqQLL2uCerAVLWYEM4o6Vtr2MuqVhAmCwlLAUyzSD-TZhAwArLDsc/BOPBAAHEgOXAAA

The AoE pressure makes him excellent for holding points and with skirmishing the leaps almost put him on thief mobility level. Try it!

Im doing something very similar but it went largely under the radar cause ranger forum hates me or something cause I love druid.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Condi-StealthTrap-GlyphHeal-Druid-Build-vid/first#post5661009

@infantrydiv.1620, thanx for answer, sounds good.
I kinda like you @Justine.6351

So you think it would be viable to run axe over sword for more might and bleed?

nearlight.3064:

So you think it would be viable to run axe over sword for more might and bleed?

Its dangerous. Sword mobility and evades are not something to dismiss even in pve. Especially in HoT with huge ground AoE. No matter what weapon you are in, swapping to sword and hitting hornet sting will either evade that attack or put you outside of its range pretty fast. Even staff’s ancestral grace is limited in this way, the fastest you can evade an aoe is to move forward with it and its ground targeted so hope you are pretty accurate with good terrain.

If you go axe main paired with torch then pickup an energy sigil for +1 dodge.

nearlight.3064:

So you think it would be viable to run axe over sword for more might and bleed?

I’m gonna go ahead and say that Sword is pretty much clearly better in this build for a few reasons:

1. Weapon set evades + extra mobility: Axe makes you very vulnerable to Immobilizes (this build lacks immediate immob clear like Lighting Reflexes), Sword 2 leap + Staff 3 can get you between points very fast.

2. Sword leap finisher can be paired either with Bonfire or Sublime Conversion for might or healing. Axe has projectile finishers, but they aren’t nearly as good.

3. The axe auto isn’t really good, even though it can get you to 25 might stacks fairly quickly, it doesn’t have much of an effect on the course of a team fight, and it scales very badly with power anyway. Bleeds are also very bad right now, they received something like a 20-30% nerf when the recent condition changes were made for an unknown reason.

4. The attacks you want to be using in this build from range are on staff: Staff auto + Astral Wisp are good single target pressure at high might stacks and allow you to remain at range. You actually want to stay out of sword/torch until you have a reason to use the evades or Bonfire on a downed target (although placing bonfire on a node early is great too).

5. Going in for an unexpected sword auto chain at 20 might stacks and with quickness from pet swap can net you way more damage than Axe could. It’s not good to go around sword autoing everything for obvious reasons, but sometimes to finish a low and on the run target, sword can be good, and it’s also better downed body cleave than axe (it is Ranger’s highest DPS weapon).

Okay thanks for the explanation. I tried it briefly and while maintaing might was a tad easier to do, the autos on axe were more like tickling the opponent than throwing an axe at their face… so yeah hahaha.

This has been the druid build I’ve felt the most useful running. I’ve seen other better rangers than me (got matched against eurantien today.. it hurt) running cele builds with longbow and ancient seeds that force decaps like hell, but I kind of prefer your setup for more condition pressure, surviability (protective ward is huge), and blind spamming.

nearlight.3064:

Okay thanks for the explanation. I tried it briefly and while maintaing might was a tad easier to do, the autos on axe were more like tickling the opponent than throwing an axe at their face… so yeah hahaha.

This has been the druid build I’ve felt the most useful running. I’ve seen other better rangers than me (got matched against eurantien today.. it hurt) running cele builds with longbow and ancient seeds that force decaps like hell, but I kind of prefer your setup for more condition pressure, surviability (protective ward is huge), and blind spamming.

I was fighting Eura tonight in queue and his build is definitely annoying to deal with. This spec is somewhat weak to immobilize since it doesn’t have immediate condi clear which makes it a real pain if you get stuck in ancient seeds.

I personally think that while Longbow/Staff with Ancient Seeds is a decent pairing and super strong for dueling, the amount of blinds and allied healing you can put out with Lingering Light, as well as the additional cleave you get from Torch and glyphs is better in a lot of situations.

Justine.6351:

Dojo.1867:

I played cele for quite a bit but staff just has too low dmg to make alle the offensive stats work imo.

Having some insane sucess with trap druid at the moment.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fjEqQLL2uCerAVLWYEM4o6Vtr2MuqVhAmCwlLAUyzSD-TZhAwArLDsc/BOPBAAHEgOXAAA

The AoE pressure makes him excellent for holding points and with skirmishing the leaps almost put him on thief mobility level. Try it!

Im doing something very similar but it went largely under the radar cause ranger forum hates me or something cause I love druid.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Condi-StealthTrap-GlyphHeal-Druid-Build-vid/first#post5661009

The thing about traps is that they just aren’t that great of a use of a utility spot.

In fact, Flame Trap received a huge damage nerf in the burning patch (since one stack of burn now does about half of what it used to). Snake and Spike traps are decent, but I really only see trapper builds becoming more common if Spike trap had something like a 25 second base cooldown and Flame Trap had 2 burn stacks per pulse instead of 1.

Don’t get me wrong, Traps are very fun and you can win games with them, but I don’t see them entering the meta as a top tier build right now.

What stats do you usually use? For some reason it’s not showing uo. Mending maybe?

Andrewski.9123:

What stats do you usually use? For some reason it’s not showing uo. Mending maybe?

It’s not showing up because it’s 8 moths old