Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, can you all help me on choosing build for low level frac, dungeon and raid? I saw a lot of build about zerker and condition but I can’t make a proper decision whether to go for zerker or condition build. I now currently using zerker build with exotic gears (still hunting materials for ascended gears atm). I’m kinda semi-new to this game, start playing like few months ago. Hopefully any pros can provide some good explanation on following which build.. :-D

A good (or bad) thing about druid is that there’s not a “one size fits all” option for everything. I would recommend having your first ascended set be condition based (Viper’s) as that’s arguably the best for fractals, and you’ll need it ascended in order to slot agony resistance for that game mode. As a general guideline I recommend the following:

Dungeons

• Full power damage is nearly always best here (Berserker’s). You can easily make do with the exotic set that you already have for now.

Fractals

• I’d recommend condition damage builds here as they bring superior damage for large HP pool bosses, which you find often in fractals.
• Remember that your gear needs to be ascended quality in order to reach the high fractal levels due to the required agony resistance.

Raids

• A simple and effective set to get would just be exotic Magi’s for the raid healing role. You can pretty much use this at every boss however experienced groups may want you to switch to something with more damage.
• Condi, power and healing builds all find their use within raids. Ideally you’ll want all three sets eventually, but condi would be a good one to start with since power/healing can easily be exotic quality.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for your explanation!

I have one question regarding the armor rune for condition build. Is it a must to choose Superior Rune of the Nightmare or there are some alternatives rune that can replace it since Superior Rune of the Nightmare requires time to obtain it from Mystic Forge or farm it from TA dungeon.

EterNaLChaOs.7894:

Thanks for your explanation!

I have one question regarding the armor rune for condition build. Is it a must to choose Superior Rune of the Nightmare or there are some alternatives rune that can replace it since Superior Rune of the Nightmare requires time to obtain it from Mystic Forge or farm it from TA dungeon.

There were a few posts suggesting that rune of thorns is a decent alternative for raids, I haven’t tested it myself though. Berserker runes could also be good, though you’d lose out on some condition duration.

Overall nightmare runes are probably your best bet, you can salvage them from the exotic TA headpieces which are 120 tokens each. So you don’t need too much time for a full set (You only need 4 nightmare runes). You can also do the PvP/WvW reward tracks for tokens.

Rune of the Krait for a condi ranger especially if you’re using a shortbow. Its a good solid and cheap starter. I still use it for that bleed duration.

As for gear progression: Get yourself a full set of rabid, then add in Viper’s gear when able. Rabid will give you one heck of a defense while learning the fights.

something like http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV3fjEqQ7KWzCmsAXLG2Dq92DgEgvgcf37CuHGiTCS5hA-TRSAQBK4IAIGlfBUHAh0M0GlghS9HKcRAAwDAoH7PEA4Agd3d3d3d3A-e

gain stacks if corruption on adds and then pound the bosses with a shortbow. This build also allows stacks of invulnerability. Marksmanship can be swapped out to druid with a small reduction to dps

About rune of the krait on the Vipers Raid build. I was wondering yesterday how that would be less effective in raids than 4x nightmare and 2x trapper? Considering everything krait offers: +% duration bleeds (don’t we deal most dmg via bleeds?) +condi dmg. Keep popping your elite: bleed, torment (how good/bad is torment on raid bosses, anyone?) and poison which all sync well with our traits for specific condi dmgs (SK bleefd, WS poison).

Maybe I’m missing something obvious.

PS sorry for a bit off topic

Bast Bow.2958:

About rune of the krait on the Vipers Raid build. I was wondering yesterday how that would be less effective in raids than 4x nightmare and 2x trapper? Considering everything krait offers: +% duration bleeds (don’t we deal most dmg via bleeds?) +condi dmg. Keep popping your elite: bleed, torment (how good/bad is torment on raid bosses, anyone?) and poison which all sync well with our traits for specific condi dmgs (SK bleefd, WS poison).

Maybe I’m missing something obvious.

PS sorry for a bit off topic

About 40% or so of the condi dmg is burning. So only having bleed duration will hurt your dmg hard.

And about rabid, some bosses in raids and even in fractals agro the player with highest thoughness. So running rabid will make you the tank. Not really what you want.

rabid or rampagers would work if you’re not going into raids for the time being. also corruption sigils aren’t very good for anything outside of dungeons or open world pve because you don’t maintain stacks as long because you don’t have a lot of trash kills.

Metabattle builds are “optimal” once you understand the reason behind the trait, stat and sigil choices you can make changes to the build to suit your own playstyle.

condition duration is very important and that’s why the nightmare/trapper mix gives you the best dps. trapper runes are easily craftable and just collect your nightmare runes over time.