Guild Wars 2

Hey all I wanted to make a thread to get some feedback on a theoretical Druid version of the common Condition Survival build.

Basically it trades Nature Magic for the Druid traitline. This is mainly for the two traits Natural Stride and Ancient Seeds and possibly a couple glyphs (in that case, Verdant Etching too).

Natural Stride Version (Muddy Terrain can be swapped but it’s really nice if you use it strategically)
Verdant Etching (Glyphs) Version

I won’t detail the core aspects of what the build is based on— you can find that in the Metabattle link. I’ll just look into the pros and cons of the traitline change.

First off, the main cons (in order of severity) are losing Protective Ward, Lingering Magic, Evasive Purity, and Fortifying Bond. Allies’ Aid and Rejuvenation are made up for and then some with Celestial Avatar and Cultivated Synergy. To make up for Protective Ward you can use Glyph of Alignment for Weakness application but the Protection will be lost. The inherent self healing of Celestial Avatar does kind of make up for that however as long as you rotating well. Evasive Purity is partially made up for with either of the Master traits and good condi’ cleanse timing.

Now with that out of the way, let’s look at the pros:

Your immobilization game is through the roof if you have maintain a good rotation, and it doesn’t revolve around the stars aligning for it to be so. Ancient Seeds can be processed every 10s (in a perfect situation) which not only immobilizes but also applies 5 bleed stacks. The reason it can be processed so frequently is Smokescale’s low cooldown (20s) knockdown and the shortbow’s Concussion Shot’s (daze/stun) same cooldown (20s with Light on your Feet). So with them alternating you will probably have a good process rate. You can also optionally switch one of your utilities for Spike Trap for bleed burst if you process Ancient Seeds from its knockdown or Glyph of Equality for daze. Otherwise, you have Wolf/Greathound’s knockdown if you’re switched from Smokescale.

Beyond Ancient Seeds, there’s Entangle’s immobilize, Drakehound/Wolf’s immobilize/fear, Muddy Terrain’s immobilize, and Natural Convergence’s immobilize. Considering all this you can pretty much spam immobilization naturally, making you annoying as kitten in a 1v1 and on capture points (makes it much easier to push Bonfire, Splitblade, and Poison Volley to their full effects) and makes you annoying as hell against fleeing opponents.

Also, an innate movement speed boost is so good. In fact I use Rune of the Traveler over Rune of the Krait in current SPvP just because of it. So Natural Stride’s 33% increased movement speed is pretty major for my own playstyle, considering this build doesn’t have such great escape/chase options (Quick Shot’s swiftness is incredibly minimal, Quickening Zephyr has a long cooldown, no leaps, etc.).

I played this exact build BWE3 and I had the exact same thought process behind every point you’re making and even had the same reasoning behind giving up nature magic. Also for a while was doing the same thing with my runes but gave them up for Balthazar because I picked up settler ammy instead. I probably going to do something very similar but with settlers and traps with krait runes.

Ah cool! Just wondering— how was it?

It was exactly what I thought it might be. Super annoying 1v1. But trapper is already pretty annoying to deal with 1v1. Disengaging from this build should be near impossible lol. But I only played a few matches. Will test more on release.

Well the thing about trappers is that they are so incredibly predictable. I find them to be a lot less effective in ranked play after the first minute when opponents realize they can just… not walk onto traps. This is a nightmare when you’re against someone who can just chunk you down at range with their autoattack. With this build you’re much more adaptable I think. Though of course you don’t have as much AoE.