Guild Wars 2

in PvE, that is

All staff druids seem to be using sword/axe. Axe offhand has higher damage than warhorn, but seeing as your build equipment Magi’s/Cleric’s your damage is basically irrelevant anyway, so it shouldn’t matter.

Meanwhile warhorn provides better vuln stacking, and Call of the Wild, which seems particularly good since support Druids don’t run Markmanship to get Clarion Bond. You also have Windborne Notes to reduce warhorn skill’s cooldowns.

What axe has over warhorn in terms of utility is the projectile reflect and the pull on 4, but how important is it?

Everything you mentioned is covered by other classes or other options outside of warhorn.

Tiger F2 gives perma fury and its attacks stack vulnerability. PS warrior gives might and stacks vulnerability. Tempests stack vulnerability as well.

On the other hand, anything that can contribute to dealing with breakbars (axe 4) is crucial to success in those encounters, and reflects are a rare-ish commodity that other classes have to give up a lot more utility to run, whereas Ranger/Druid gets a really decent reflect on its best DPS set, which it should be mentioned that Sw/wh has a lower base power total than Sw/a so it hits for less damage out of the game (not that the support build is really focused on damage).

Warhorn isn’t necessarily a bad weapon or choice though, it’s just that everything that it provides gets covered in a group running metabuilds.

For rando-pugs that need the boons, if you keep your inventory open and care enough to go through the effort, you can use torch bonfire, manually change torch for warhorn to blast, then change to axe for the encounter. That used to be a thing way back in the day for dungeons/fractals, but I doubt the clicking is worth it considering how trivial everything has become with power creep.

jcbroe.4329:

and reflects are a rare-ish commodity that other classes have to give up a lot more utility to run, whereas Ranger/Druid gets a really decent reflect on its best DPS set

In regards to the reflect aspect of axe #5, it’s a shame they reduced the duration from five seconds to ~3. Other than that, the changes were good.

Fluffball.8307:

For rando-pugs that need the boons, if you keep your inventory open and care enough to go through the effort, you can use torch bonfire, manually change torch for warhorn to blast, then change to axe for the encounter. That used to be a thing way back in the day for dungeons/fractals, but I doubt the clicking is worth it considering how trivial everything has become with power creep.

Would be great to have weapon sets available in the ui, kinda like what existed in GW1. And some quickslots where you could drag things like food, showels for chestfarms in SW etc.

I dont use warhorn because of Clarion Bond. If you have that and are pet swapping regularly then warhorn really loses its purpose. That, and i like pulling off combos with offhand axe and combo fields (either my own or pets).

I use traited warhorn also, occasionally in raids on berserker build.

In fotm, I usually run berserker gear and use Axe as the pull and reflect are AMAZING at higher levels. As mentioned above, clarion bond on pet swap is plenty for warhorn 5 procs. Just stow your pet before running into the fight and it’ll proc as soon as the pet pops out. Just because it’s berserker doesn’t mean I’m not a support druid. Healing power is never required here.

For raids, a lot of groups bring mirror double druids. Especially with two condi PS and two chronos, the buffs you mention aren’t needed as fury from FGJ and tiger gets shared with SoI by the chronos. Perma regen from chronos. Might won’t be a problem in organized groups.

However, I am often the solo raid healer druid in my guild group and it’s progression/training so a lot of people take damage often. Warhorn is great in this situation. The tiger is 15 seconds of fury to 5 ppl every 10 seconds but unless you position the tiger to be near the chrono tank (who flanks the boss), it’ll give the fury to non-chronos first due to proximity. If warriors are power instead of condi, no FGJ giving chronos fury. That means no SoI sharing of fury and that Tiger is not enough to cover 10 ppl alone. Warhorn is great for both more fury in general but also easier position to ensure chronos receive it to then share it.

Warriors messing up rotations or having to res etc. means might can drop below 25. In general warriors don’t actually cap 25 might to the group: usually closer to 20 stacks. Boon duration (Monk runes, nature magic and sigil of concentration) with traited frost spirit and warhorn 5 help a lot here.

Heals hit 5 ppl but there are 10 taking damage that I need to take care of. Regen from me is stronger than regen from the Chronos and helps with Scholar buffs.

So warhorn has uses for support druids but I find that it’s only in specific raid circumstances that make it worth it over axe.

where have u placed sigil of concentration? on wh?

Pavlarian.4389:

where have u placed sigil of concentration? on wh?

Yup. Quick draw wh5 with Sigil of concentration if the boons are low then go into CA. Otherwise I camp staff then quickdraw CA4 for more gotl across 10 ppl.

Something to say, is if you want to maximize healing, warhorn is used on ranger traited for the long duration regen that allows the ranger to out class the mesmer boon.
But the same can be done with a concentration sigil on a staff, and traited healing spring, with monk runes.

I played a condi support druid in fractals. Used spirits with the traits, axe/torch and axe/warhorn. Would blast the fire field from torch with call of the wild from warhorn for lots of boon support.

Fluffball.8307:

For rando-pugs that need the boons, if you keep your inventory open and care enough to go through the effort, you can use torch bonfire, manually change torch for warhorn to blast, then change to axe for the encounter. That used to be a thing way back in the day for dungeons/fractals, but I doubt the clicking is worth it considering how trivial everything has become with power creep.

Sounds like a hassle new players especially. Still do it myself, even when blasts are being taken care of by tempest. A force of habit from my elementalist speedclear days. It simply feels awkward to just stand there instead of doing something constructive even if pointless sometimes.