Guild Wars 2

Hi,

as a player who has played minstrel druid now for over half a year in raids I want to share my experience with you related to the recommendation using this built by [qT].

At first, I have to say that I didn’t used the exactly same build. My experience is based on sigill of concentration (only on the sword/horn) and the pre patch food which gains boon duration. This allowed me to run not only minstrel. In addition, I didn’t run 4 spirits, sunpirit was usally taken by a condi ranger.

One big change is the huge thougness that you will have with a full minstrel build. If you don’t have another full minstrel chrono in your squad you will have to tank. So I want to give you are some hint what are the differences as tanking with a healer.

• Vale Guard: The biggest problem here is your lack of dodging/blocking as a druid, wihtout chaging the position, so vg will do some small steps. You have to care about healing yourself, because vg does really a lot of damage. Tanking at the wall is very easy, because you can dodge against it without changing the position. If you run a beginner comp, the condi druid will maybe struggle in healing the players doing green circles, in that case I would recommend to use a 2nd main healer.

• Gorseval, KC, Mursaat: Are really easy to tank. Less dps from the boss and always grouped.

• Deimos: Has a high dps output aswell, but it is ok since you have really high toughness and vitality. Because the chrono now can get green (chrono would be the black kiter in this case) you need a backup chrono or handkite is blackkite during this phase. If you don’t want to change anything the 2nd chrono has to take well of protection as well. Instead I would recommend to use another well for the chronos and GS+sword/warhorn to have a block on ur own, chronos have shield 4 anyways and can therefore run their build as usual.

• Xera: This is the only boss I have not tanked until now. The reason behind it is that I don’t think it is possible to tank xera as a druid, even with full minstrel. There are a couple of attacks which you have to dodge without having a wall behind you. If you want to try it, please share your experience with us!

There are other new things comming in beside tanking the boss. E.g. your PS is able to run a more offensive build. I’m pretty sure that it is possible to take a condi beserker instead of one cps because this build is still generating some stacks of might, but hybrid versions will definetly do that job. You are not even forced to take a PS, while cps in supgroup 2 runs both banners, a full condi subgroub with some other might sources (like condi tempest) are valid options, too.

Feel free to give more hints related to the minstrel druid, there is much more details around which might be interesting!

I think mechanics are more important than dps, too. In fact, what I did in those training runs, I forced all players to NOT use bufffood. This gave them the time to train more and avoid one of those “lucky” kills. I wanted all players to be able to kill the boss in a more or less clean way, independent of luck. This should not mean that I’m not using food in general, for daily kills everyone used food.

But back to the composition (I don’t want to talk about my training methods here):

I’m a bit confused. How exactly is a comp supposed to be a reasonable beginner comp when it excludes the vast majority of potential beginners, i.e. everyone who doesn’t (want to) play ranger?

Indeed this excludes those players which are not willing to spend some gold to get into the raid. This sounds a bit hard, but has some nice side-effects:
- At first, a lot of new players don’t have any good raid build and even if everyone have one, there will be 4PS and no healer as an example. It is fair for all players to start at zero and gave me the chance to better compare them while they improve.
- Another point is that every player have to spend some gold for armor etc. and this avoid players joining the group which are not 100% interested. It is similar to the commander symbol. If you pay 300gold for a commander symbol the propability of trolling around with it is less.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I mean, you can get kills with all Guardians, all Necromancers, or even stranger compositions than that. That said, for a beginner group, your composition is making it much harder for everyone than it needs to be. If you have even one player remotely competent at Chronomancer you could carry the rest of the players extremely hard on a Minstrel’s set with permanent protection uptime, distortion sharing, and ancillary healing. Heck, even swapping one ranger in each for a Guardian would be helpful because they can generate some quickness.

Thats is exactly the fact many raid groups didn’t get. You don’t do a new player any favor if you carry him though all wings. People have to learn all mechanics and that includes doging attacks. As an example with, perma protection and double magi druids, you won’t even recognize that it is not a good idea to stay in a red orb @vg or something similar. One important phase of learning is adapt after doing failiures. With this “babysitting” you would not reach that goal.

Hi,

I’m a very active leader of a raid group for beginners and started to run a group of completely fresh players 2 months ago. This time I tried a new off-meta composition, because I think the current Meta doesn’t support new players very well in learning raid mechanics. Therefore I start presenting my idea of a beginner comp and discuss about the benefits afterwards.

The main target was to provide a class for each player that is easy to play and allows to concentrate on the boss mechanics and not on the class rotation. There are several easy Meta builds around but as the raid group consists of only one advanced player and 9 completely new players, this could be not that easy to reach. The second main target I want to achieve is that every player needs only one class at the beginning, this is cheaper for beginners and helps again to concentrate on boss mechanics. In addition, every player should have the possibility to get practical insights into all boss mechanics. As an example a PS Warrior usually gets only insight to mechanics that are directly boss related (e.g. no cannons at Sabetha) or everyone except the healers don’t know what it means to heal the whole group or at least the subgroup.
With that in mind I picked up the condition ranger as a class that has several benefits:
- Easy rotation and still very good DPS
- Still decent damage with low buffs
- Possibility to switch to condition druid without effort
- Some survivability in contrast to tempest for example
- A lot of useful utility-skills

I did a lot of test with different buffs and reached 25k DPS with only the following buffs: 5xGOTL, Sunspirit, Banner of Strength, Banner of Discipline, 25xMight and Fury. With these DPS you can easily kill every boss except KC. So now the question was: How can I gain this buffs with only a low number of persons, in order to take as much condition rangers as possible?
As you can see there are no chrono buffs and if you say condition druid and ranger are the same there are already 7 spots for condition rangers. The other 3 are two PS Warriors and a Magi Druid, which will have to tank. This can be improved even more by using my Might-Druid build, which I introduced here (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Refinement-of-Might-Druid-build-for-raids). So the final build was:
Group 1: Might-Druid | 4x Condi Ranger
Group 2: Condi-PS | Condi Druid | 3x Condi Ranger
If you thought Condi Druid is too hard to play for beginners, this is a simplified composition:
Group 1+2: 4x Condi Ranger
Group 3: Condi PS
Group 4: Might-Druid
And this is basically the composition I played in my raid group now for the last months. Before you all flame me for playing such an off-meta comp, let me explain the benefits I discovered:
- Explaining the rotation and practice them is one of the first things you want to do with raid beginners. Having 8/10 players running the exactly same build, players can practise together, talk with each other about their first experience and the leader can explain the build very deeply.
- The organisation is simplified: Basically, you can handle a pool of 20 players without having troubles in building a composition every evening, there is never the common situation: We are enough people but we can’t build a good composition, because a chrono or something else is missing. Basically, the only kind of ‘bottleneck’ was the Condi PS, but I have a lots of experienced players in my friendlist to close that little gap.
- You can swap special roles every time. PS or Chronos usually never see things like Sabethas Cannons, Sloths Slublings, etc. With this comp you can easily swap roles, depending on which player still struggle in some mechanics and need more practise.
- The comp only uses meta-builds, so after successfully trained one boss/wing players can look into LFG and do their kills there, while the raid group focuses on new bosses/wings.
- Players know the playstyle of their teammates. This is often underestimated: Players who know what are the teammates around them are doing can much better supporting each other.

At the end, I want to make clear that I’m not an enemy of the current Meta in general, this only depends to raid beginners. The above comp should be a starting point for new groups, it is recommended to adapt this after some time. As an example, there are already players which are interesting in playing a 2nd class. One guy wanted to play chrono and this was totally ok for me and the group. The group didn’t depend on that chrono but it is nice to have him in.

Here are some videos of one our first kills (at the moment we are at Sabetha):
VG (~5th kill, already with chrono): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFtq4ROSPjE
Gorseval (2nd kill): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0rgP8tzSMw&t=129s

HotHit.6783:

As I don’t speak german at all, I can’t know for sure the might stacks on the party (as your end goal is not to stack might for yourself). But using your personal might as a reference for it I see another issue with the build, your might generation will prioritise you, who benefits the least from it. Meanwhile, a PS warrior or a similar might stacking DPS build can accurately track their own might generation while being as combat effective as possible because they are one of the damage dealers of the party.

Thanks for your answer. I agree with everything except the last part. If you take a look at the might sources of the group there is only the PS. There is no might I gain to myself only, all skills are too 5 players (or 4 other + me). There is nearly no chance I getting might from PS since subgroup 2 is complete melee @VG. So my personal might displays the group might very well. The comp we played @Gorseval was only done to spread the healing/regeneration better to all subgroups, I would not recommend to look at might stacks here. In addition I have to mention, that condi rangers gain some stacks might to themselves, so the have even a better uptime than me.

Hello,

at first, I have to say that I already explained my build half an year ago, but I trained a lot with it and do some refinements and want to do a fresh presentation, so that even the newer players understand everything.

The main task my build is fulfilling the job of stacking might as good as PS Warrior (condi or berserker), while doing the druid jobs as good as every other druid. The Build is very similar to the Regen-Build which is around. These are the coe differences:
- Weapons have to be Staff + Sword/Warhorn
- You are forced to run Frost Spirit
- You need 100% boon-duration
- You need some firefields in your comp
- You have a rotation

I think you agree, that only the last point could reduce your performance in healing/supporting compared to a standard Regen-Druid. So I will start to explain the rotation which is independent from having quickness or alactricty.

Written (Might is gained allways to 5 players):
- Cast Frost Spirit (6 stacks might for 70s)
- Pet F2 (5 stacks might for 22,5s)
- Staff3 into firefield (3 stacks might for 40s)
- Swap Weapon
- Use Qickdraw on Horn5 into firefield (3 stacks might for 30s, 3 stacks might for 40s)
- Change into Astralform (you will need to have it nearly ready @ beginning)
- Astral3 into firefield (3 stacks might for 40s)
- Do some healing stuff
- Astral3 into firefield (3 stacks might for 40s)
- Leave Astralform
- Use Qickdraw on Horn5 into firefield (3 stacks might for 30s, 3 stacks might for 40s)
- Swap Weapon
- Camp Staff
- Go back to point 3

Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS45L7oIg4E

The whole rotation took ~20s where you gain at least 17 stacks might and max. 32 stacks might depending in how much fire field you blast. In the second rotation
circle this is even better because you have some might stacks of the previous rotation still running. I will talk at the end about the composition and the firefields.
If you get every firefield, you reach 25 stacks after ~2s if you precast frost spirit.

The Build
Beside the weapon change I added the new Food Crystal(https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnanimous_Tuning_Crystal), which fits very well in this build. It gains 100 Healingpower and ~12% Boon-duration. You have 20% Boon-duration on a trait and 15% on the runes. If you wonder why I am running only one sigill of concentration: Basically there is only one blast (the 2nd Astral3) without the 33% extra duration, if you are able to cast Staff3 right after changing weapons. The Build is a mixture of Magi and Minstrel. You are able to run every other common utilityskill instead of stonespirit if you want, glyphs included.
Buildlink(care about wrong food): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhZ6keVomVsVFwXFgoVsYIYMBgRXDAerGWLrOvuYXP4kjZyJA-ThyGQB0T9japMDAHCg+dCA8oSQCq0YI7PoIVQaj+Ay9EACAgA8eun7dPgf+zf+zf+z+5P/5P/5PLFgf7tA-e

Comparison to Regen-Druid
- You have a rotation which means that there will be the point where you have to decide: Do I want to keep the rotation up or is the any special situation where I have to break it?
- You dont need Healing Spring because you gain enought regeneration with horn5 and search and rescue. In addition, Horn5 has a higher range than heal spring
- You have ~100 less healing power than with full magi and have some toughness ~1500
- You will blast no waterfield
- You have a better uptime of protection(stone spirit) or vigor(sun spirit), and of course regeneration
- As mentioned above you have to care about the composition for firefields

Composition
There are a lot of metabuilds around with have a couple of firefields with a long duration, mainly condi druid/ranger, condi PS/Berserker and Staff-Tempest. Classes with other short combos fields like druids are not a problem. Chronomancers have combofields with long duration. However, like I said, you don’t need to cast every field so it is ok based on my expirience. Here are some videos which show the preformance of this build in real boss szenarios, please focus on my rotations and might and not on the performance of the other palyers, cause they are mostly beginners:
Value Guard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFtq4ROSPjE
Gorseval: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0rgP8tzSMw&t
Sabetha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylGu1gaB7bk

Summary
After half a year of playing this build I really like it. The last changes especially to warrior banners were very nice for me and my build. While I still struggeling in
rotations sometimes, I think this is mainly because I run a raidgroup for beginners and have to care about their faults and have to do calls etc. If you have any suggestions or questions feeld free to post it here. It would be very nice to discuss a little bit.

@fluffy, thank you for the hint. I made it a litte bit more clear which group was meant by “same as above”.

I want to argue a bit about the less GOTL stacks, there are multiple reasons for it.
- I don’t running elitle glyph / glyph of empowerment
- Individual missplay: I just forgot to use it.
And of course the refreshing rate of CA is not good at all, but this has basically other reasons.
- Sabetha has a very golem like nature, as long as you don’t do mistakes there is no source of dmg that fills CA. Every druid will have a problem with such bosses, if everyone is full life, your only chance to fill CA is with dps.
- In general, regeneration fills CA as well as other healing skills. If your group is low life, with regeneration CA fills automatically to 100% after a few seconds. I checked my video and 4:52 till 5:06 shows this very well, there you can count very easily the seconds of the regeneration ticks. Of course regeneration and direct heal have different pro/cons, so in some situations regeneration is better and vice versa.
- Another reson is that in this comp I gain regeneration mainly to my subgroup, so if the 2nd group is low they will not fill CA, because they donÄt have (my) regeneration. The build is able to gain regeneration to 10 players with an 100% uptime, so if you want to improve GOTL uptime, put the Condi PS + Might druid in the 3rd subgroub. I would not recommend it, because of the other buffs, but it is an option.

Hi,

I want to do again a short dps comparison because of the last balance patch. To keep things simple I will do very less changes. And the most important point: This comparison is based on SMALL hitboxes, so please don’t remind me tempest do higher dps…

I want to start with a reference comp, which I think has a high chance to get meta for small hitboxes:
Group1: Chrono|Condi-PS|Heal-Druid|Engi|Ranger
Group2: Chrono|Condi-PS|Condi-Druid|Engi|Ranger

I hope you can all agreee with me, that this comp has a good dps in the current meta. I want to show you that the following setup has a higher dps:

Group1: Chrono|Ranger|Might-Druid|Engi|Ranger
Group2: the same as the meta group above

At first I want to compare the dps based on the dps benchmarks published by qT, well known that I have to care about the buffs. I will discuss that later.
The dps of the druid is nearly the same and it is on a low level so I ignore this. The dps of the condi ranger is 6,1k higher than the condi PS, do what I have to show you is that the loss of the other buffs are lower that 6,1k. So here we go. These are the things the comp have to compensate:
- No empower allies on Group1. I did only tests for condi ranger and it was about 200-300dps less than with it. So I be fair and take 5 times the 300, so we are at -1,5k
- The remain Condi PS has to take both banners so he lose his “Shattering Blow”. To be honest I don’t have a Condi PS and can’t check how much dps loss its is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t 3,5k.
- The last point: Whats about the might? I already showed a video about the rota (look above) and preconditions which I need (basically how much firefields to blast). With the upcoming of classes like condi ranger/engi/warrior and the F/A nerf there are much more firefields around than before the patch. If you are still not convinced I already tested the suggested comp on sabetha and the might (in my subgroup) was really good. Please check the video if you don’t trust me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylGu1gaB7bk
There is no source of might which I gain only myself (I don’t run strength runes), so every stack you see in the video are from me or other sources of my subgroup.

Did I forgot something? Please let me know or just discuss about my suggestion

Hi,

I did some dps comparisons today with my condi ranger. I only checked stuff I’m interested in, so here is the table I created:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TAHPY9Vc9tKA31eBroO2OpyDTBOlZdLIoEJ2K_r_CqM/edit#gid=0

Some results of my checks:
Compared to the standard build the traits “Wildernes Knowlege” and “Trappers Expertiese” are still a little bit lower. “Trappers Expertiese” is only meaningful if you wipe on conditions and don’t need to blats fire fileds in your comp.
“Wilderness Knowlege” is playable if you don’t play with Vipers nest. This can occure if you are running only one druid and need sun spirit or protect me! (or search and resceue). But if you need personal condi clear this would be also playable.
I also checked the dps wihtout quickness and alactricity.

If you are interesting in some specific rotation (its nearly allways the same) the ask. I have recorded all tests, but will not upload them if there are no wishes.

I think it depends on how the warrior builds will look like and how much might one warrior could gain with that build. If you are running a PS with GS which is focused on producing might, he will only need a little bit support from other classes. In this case you will not need this build, a staff+s/h or other classes like rev or tempest can close the cap.

However, if you want to run a condi PS, he will need more support to gain might. In that case I would take my presented build. We ran a full condi comp yesterday on sabetha with such a comp. It isn’t a perfect fight but if you want to see how it could work, here is my POV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylGu1gaB7bk

Hi,

due the last balance patch I want to present you my Might Druid again, which was original presented here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Might-Druid-for-raids/first
and here, with respect to the composition:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/New-Raid-Composition-with-higher-DPS/first

As banners of PS warrior are now for 10 targets, you are not forced to run two of them, but you still need a second source of might in your composition. I want to remind you that this is possible with the presented build. Here is one possible version of it:
http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRBMhxG2J9qQNrYrKgvKARrYxQwg3qh1yqTrL21DYCArrGwFzdyE-TxROAB3p8relgGfSAAY/h50P89TAoO1fCAcA8e37e3DO+4jP+4j793f/93fvUA+t3C-e
and how the rotation looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb-SVQ_GIfE

Feel free to discuss about it, but be aware that there are comments around in the previous threads. So, if you want to give an answer which isn’t related to the new balance patch please check the old threads, maybe it is already mentioned there.

NikeEU.7690:

Second only one druid should be minstrel and that one tanking. The second druid should be berserker with strength runes and exotic trinkets and platinum dubloons to lose as little dps as possible from that.

I don’t understand why one should take platinum dubloons. If you take all 6 places for them you get 24% more Boon duration. Do you want to remove the sigill of concentration? I have already created a dps build in my previous thread. I need some more information about how you get the missing 11% boon duration and what sigill you want to put in the free spot.

However I’m not convinced about the dps variant. I didn’t test the dps on my own, but its lower than the normal S/A berserker druid, so I think it is not more than 15k. In my opinion the dps build is just a bad version of a PS, gaining other buffs and do a little bit heal.

I think its better running a normal meta comp in the 2nd subgroup, if you don’t want to have a 2nd “real” healer. Then you are able to take a condi druid or if you want S/A berseker and have more felexibility and I guess more dps. As a reminder, the 1st subgroup stays at suggested with a mistrel tank healer druid.

NikeEU.7690:

After looking deeper the might stacking druid does enable an alternative and viable comp but there are big ways to improve what the OP is doing.

First, the third dps should be replaced with a full dps condi berserker warrior to bring banners and ea (if using eles) and still make very good dps.

Second only one druid should be minstrel and that one tanking. The second druid should be berserker with strength runes and exotic trinkets and platinum dubloons to lose as little dps as possible from that.

At first I have to thank you for the refinement of the composition. It seems that there were too many changes at the same time suggested by me. However, I asked for compositions which would fit into this might build when it was presented some months ago. Unfourtunately no one suggested that build these days.

Reading this calm me down even if the dps is “only” equal. After reading escpeially the last posts it seems that a lot of player make fun of me about my idea.

Finally, I want to explain what I calculated and why I said that the dps of this composition is higher, in order to get a picture of it. The core of the dps comparison is the attached table. I took all dps values there from the qT webside, if you don’t agreee with them then please contact qT and don’t discuss it here. The only value which is from me, is the 29,8k. I did tests on my own in training area and got this value. I think every payer which did comments here plays a condi ranger or at least know someone who does. I assume that it is not that hard to go in the training area and do this test twice: One without banners and a second with banners for evaluation. It seems that a lot of pleople don’t trust me on that value, which I didn’t expect. With comp2 I basically tried to build the highest dps for a meta comp on a small hitbox by simply take the highest dps of the qT table. If I did something wrong by doing this, please let me know. Again, I’m not an expert in any class beside the ranger.

@SuinegTsol, while the core of your example is right you assume that every support class buffs every damage dealer with 40% dps. This is not true, at least not in every case. I do several tests on different classes on how they increase the dps of it. As you can see a condi ranger without banners and “empower allies” do 2,2k dps less than with these buffs which leads to 29,8k. So the warrior buffs only increase the dps of a condi ranger about 6.875%. Doing your simplifyed calculation again with this value instead of 40% leads to the fact that this is not true all the time. If you don’t believe me the only option is to test it on your own ingame. The only thing I did not take into account is that the dps of the chrono will be less than usual. I don’t know how much dps a chrono(tank) but its can’t be that high. Beside that its diffficult to compare druid dps because he uses a complete different build.

I don’t want to discuss about the dps anymore, because under idealasistic circumstances and a small hitbox the dps is better, there is no way around it. But you can discuss about how realistic these idealistic circumstances are. I totally agree if they aren’t and the question is how far?

For all of you how don’t understand how enough might is generated I uploaded the following video:
https://youtu.be/Gb-SVQ_GIfE
I assumed that there is a fire field for every 2nd blast finisher. I didn’t count with any other more or less random sources of might, but there are other blast finisher (astral3) and the chronos of course which generates might aswell. In the video I don’t get might from any other sources, that would not go to every group member.

@Fluffy, thanks for the boss overview, I agree with you on the most points. I’m pretty sure that Sabetha is the best boss for this comp. I’ve never tried cannons with condi, but as long as you do allways the same roation you can try out at which % life you can jump back. I think no one cares about the 1 or 2 more shots on the plattform.

Beside that I think you mentioned only the negative aspects, but the meta ist perfect and it has problems, too. As an example consider gorseval: With a condi setup CC-phase is easier, because you don’t get such high retal dmg.

It seems that there is some skepticism around with stacking might. I will create a video and an overview to make things clear this afternoon.

@thrag, you can run full magi if you want with this build, there is no monk rune and no staff, but I have already compared the healing abilities in the build-thread.

Again, the calculated dps values are without banners! Please check the dps comaprison again. I wrote it there!

Thank you for your anwers. I think I have to repeat some arguments mentioned in the post about the druid build.

Xcorpdog.5618:

While a cool concept, just quick looking says that you’ll realistically maintain 22 might since you’ll be at odds with both the chronos and the poison field on ranger. Beyond that your ramp up on might unless I am mistaken is exceeding long if you rely on druids quick drawing warhorn 5.

You do not need to blast fire fields all the time. Without any combo finisher you reach 20 stacks might with an uptime nearly 100% (pet+horn5+spirit). That means that with two out of 4/5 blasts on a fire field you would already reach 26 stacks. Even if you are running not only condi ranger there are other classes that make sure that there are at least sometimes firefields to blast. Based on my experience I had NEVER any problems with might as long I do the correct rota. That the might last longer than with PS is a benefit if you tought about sabetha cannons for example. And of course you have the chronos which I haven’t taken into account yet.

Xcorpdog.5618:

Losing both warriors from the comp also causes you the issue of making the Rangers pet swap near constantly for break bars by comparison.

This is right. Thats why I took the maximum dps values from the qT table as a comparison even if they are unrealistic, because things like CC or throwing banners do not play a role. I think its legit to do the dps comparison for the rangers then wihtout CC, too.

Xcorpdog.5618:

Not to mention bosses like slothsor cleanse conditions with every break bar hurting all condition builds.

I agree with you in this point. If you want to do a new record on kill timer this is important and I would not run it on sloth.

apharma.3741:

I take it the condi druids are just what qT uses. In that set up it works but would need for bosses to not really be moving as moving would reduce the condi rangers damage a lot.

Moving bosses are a weakness of condi ranger thats right. But for nearly every boss there are tactics around that minimize moving. There is no boss around which is constantly moving around randomly. Beside nearly every dps class lack on some dps if the boss is moving.

Fluffy.1932:

Some notes about your dps comparison:

• Condi Ranger dps benchmarks were done with Banner of Strength which gives 170 condi damage.

I already calculate this in as you can see in the attacked dps table.

Again, this build assumes that you running two healer. I think if you guys do a speedclear you will never run with two healers (with healing power), so please have this in mind. I trained many new players and also think about simplicity of builds for example.

Thanks for the hint. I added the Link at the end of the post.

Hello guys,

last month I presented a new Druid Build for Raids, but unfourtunately it does not fit in the current meta compositions. So I built a completly new comp around it which I want to introduce to you right now. Because its a mirror-comp I will only explain the 5 player group.

The basic Idea
Like I already explained in my previous post, I don’t like the fact that 60% of the players task in raids is to buff 40% damag-dealers. Form my point of view this is not a good balance. On the other hand, I like specialization of roles in raids and want to push this along. The build I introduced here opens the possibility to replace the Warrior in the raid with a third pure dps class. Having in mind that you play wihtout banners and empower allies in your group force you to play a with condis.

The Composition
I’m obviously a ranger/druid main, so I used only condi rangers for condi dps, because I can test this. This is not a bad choice since it has the highest dps of all classes on small hitboxes at the moment.
| Druid | Chrono | Condi-Ranger | Condi-Ranger | Condi-Ranger |

DPS Comparison
For DPS comparison I used the DPS values by qT. I think that these dps values are not realistic, but its up to you to think about that. 22k for Condi-PS and 39k for tempests are too high with respect to a real raid environment.
I took two different comps for comparison: Another pure condi comp and a standard power comp. You can see the dps values in the table attached, I didn’t take the DPS of druid and chrono into account, because they change only minor.

As you can see for big hitboxes the tempest composition is till the best, even if you take lower dps values. For small hitboxes you would usually take thiefs instead of tempests which do less damage than the 2nd comp which is a current meta condi group. However this do less dps than my suggested comp which is the third one. As you can see warrior buffs only reduce the dps of a condi ranger to ~29,8k.

Build Changes
Chrono does not need any changes compared to the current meta, but I’m not a chrono specialist. For Condi Rangers I would suggest to only take Healing Spring if you need the condi remove, because the druids will gain better regeneration with an 100% uptime. I would recommend to use “We heal as one!” to buff your pet in addition, e.g. after swap. Furthermore, one condi ranger needs to run Sun Spirit if you want protection from the druids.

Alternatives
There are several modifications which can be made. At first, since my comp is a mirror comp you can combine it with any other mirror comp. For example you can run one half with this group and the other half with a berserker tempest comp. If you want to replace the chrono with another condi ranger this is possible, but it will reduce the overall dps, since every condi ranger will lose ~6k dps. Furthermore one druid need to tank. As a final remark this comp takes into account that you want to run two druids with at least 500+ healing power. If you are running only one healer you will run with a condi druid I guess and you don’t have a mirror comp anymore. Therefore dps can increase of course.

Video
I evaluated the stuff explained here with a group yesterday. Please notice, that I build this group via LFG and I didn’t checked gear/food/experience. Fruthermore, no one had play in this comp before and some mistakes were done (e.g. one sun spirit was missing). Nevertheless it costs us half an hour to kill gorseval (~4 tries).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFbxJ3LRyrE

Future Work
I need to try more raid bossed than gorseval and I welcome it if someone share the experience with this composition here, because I don’t have the resources at the moment. Furthermore, other condi classes like engi or necro could increase the dps, but I’m not an expert with these classes.

Thank you for the time you read this and feel free to give some comments to my build/composition. I will read them all.

Edit: Link to the Might-Druid build: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRBMhxG2J9qQNrYrKgvKARrYxQwg3qh1yqTrL21DYCArrGwFzdyE-TxROAB3p8relgGfSAAY/h50P89TAoO1fCAcA8e37e3DO+4jP+4j793f/93fvUA+t3C-e

Here are some videos where I play the presented build, there are some little changes in pets and skill 7-10, since it is not in raid, but stuff like rotations should be the same:

Hint: The videos are done for the german community, please don’t get confused about the description and headline.

Boons applied by spirits (e.g. frost spirit) are affected by own boon duration. I just checked it ingame.

You want to reach 100% might duration. You get this from 20% traits, 33% sigil, 1,8% backpiece and 45% rune of strength.

Well this is really annoying.
It seems anet can’t handle the 10 player raid content with their balancing. At the moment a mirror composition is allways better then other comps or at least other comps have to compensate a disadvantage. I hate that fact. It reduces the huge possibilities of team compositions a lot. It’s only a question of the best 5-man group and copy it twice.

Ok I have to live with it. I hope there will be some changes in the future.

With this in mind I would do the group composition this way:
1: PS | Condi-Druid | DPS | DPS | DPS
2: Might-Druid | Condi | Condi
3: Chrono
4: Chrono
The main problem is spotter, since it does not stack in duration. Might maybe too, but here you have more scope (stacks, duration). Like i said before there is no need to put the chronos in the subgroup. In an boss fight there are a lot of this little movement that are enough that allways other players stay in the middle of the well. Further there is no reason to play without a condi-druid as long as he can play with both spirits.

Thank you for your answers.

Basically, I want to achieve with this strange subgroup composition, that every power based DPS in the squad will get the warrior buffs for sure.
I know that healing can “overflow” to other players ff they are full life. Is that the same case with boons and buffs? E.g. If I have 2 Druids with spotter in my team and they both stay at exact the same position. Did they gain spotter allways to the same 4 people around them, assuming that they don’t move, too? Or is it that way that every player get spotter as long as they are in max. range?
The same question with might: If I already have 25 stacks of might and someone next to me gain might again, does it “overflow” to another player? Or did i get it anyways (even if the gained might duration is shorter than every duration of the 25 stacks I currently have)?
Non stacking boons should not be a problem, e.g fury, quickness and alacticity. Before the last changes a 4-4-2 composition was quite usual and everyone got fury from herald and quickness from chrono in a satisfactory way.

To sum up this a little bit, you lose flexibility to gain might. Beside that the changes in healing and damage are minor. If you are running not a healing druid with around 1k healing power I created two alternatives, which could be playable, too (not tested!).
Full Heal/No Dmg
No Heal/Full Dmg

The team composition
The question now is: How much damage you lose without banners and empower allies? For direct damage the answer is: A lot! I do some tests with a tempest and you deal round about 16% less damage without these 3 buffs (two banners, empower allies) even if I take assassins gear to get 100% crit. chance again. In other words a tempest which is do 28k damage, without buffs do only ~23,5k. So you will lose in a subgroup of 5 players together ~12k dps, which isn’t worth. For a reminder Warriors do ~15k dps, tempest ~27k (with the usual buffs). This is based on experience, I know the theoretical maximum is higher.
So this does not lead to any benefit. But: Doing the same tests with condition-based classes fits better. I did some tests with a condi ranger which is able to deal 32k dps. Without banners and empower allies he is doing ~6% less damage, means 30k. Assume you are running a condition group of 4 palyers: condi-druid, chrono, 2xcondition-DPS (one of condi-ranger, condi-engi, necromancer) you would lose only lets say 6k overall dps. So there is a way to get a dps increase of several thousands if you are running a condition subgroup.
In the follwoing video you see a dps test of the composition. First with two Warriors, second with the discussed changes. Please have in mind that we are not a speedclear guild while watching this.
Normal
Only one PS
DPS in detail: I wrote down the average DPS of Group1 (before|after), we did 4 trys with every composition. Chrono: 9,7k|8,5. Druid(no Condi here): 7,6k|5,9k. Ranger: 26k|25,2k. Engi: 22,1k|22,5k. Might Druid: 6,45k|5k
Hint: After tests we found out, that that the description of ‘Grace of the Land’ is wrong: It does not depend on which ally got the heal, instead it behave like any other buff. So the used composition is not optimal, because group1 will get more stacks GOTL. I suggest another composition in the next paragraph, to solve that problem.

Conclusion
I can only speak for my raidgroup but with this new empower druid it is possible to increase our dps, while losing flexibility on only myself. On the other hand, if you are running at least one condition on most of the bosses anyways, your team flexibility increases, because now you have one DPS more and therefore have more opportunities for choosing DPS-classes. In patricular I want to suggest, to do the following change:
Previous:
Group1(Power): Chrono | Power-Druid | Power-PS | Power-DPS | Power-DPS
Group2(Condi): Chrono | Condi-Druid | Condi-PS | Condi-DPS | Condi-DPS
After:
Group1(Power): Power-PS | Power-DPS | Power-DPS | Power-DPS | Power-DPS
Group2: Chrono
Group3: Chrono
Group4: Condi-Druid
Group5: Might-Druid
Group6: Condi

If you want to try out my suggestions please notice that there is a bug: Leaving astral form while canneling a skill will use quickdraw on the interrupted skill if it is available. Please have this in mind.

We have already killed some bosses with this composition. Until now I didn’t recorded them. If I have some material I will add it here.

Introduction
One of my main problem about the current raid meta is the need of 6 players who set up buffs for the left 4 pure dps classes. The fact that these 6 ‘support’ classes in most cases deal only round about the half damage of the dps classes make this even worse. So I started to think about solutions how at least one support class can be removed for a real dps. Sadly there is no alternative for the chronomancers at the moment, so even if they gain ‘only’ qickness and alactricity there is no way around it. So only warrior and druid is left, which both gain powerful buffs which you don’t want to miss on your dps players. In detail there is spotter, grace of the land, spirits healing on the one hand side and banners, empower allies and might on the other hand side. This makes it very hard to kick one of them you of the team composition. However this is exactly what I have tried.

The idea
I’m a ranger main since gw2 realease and playing nearly all variants of druids in raid for almost one year now. I organize a raid group with my guild, but it is definetly not a speedclear guild. Please have this in mind while you are reading this. The fact that a lot of groups uses builds from speedclear guilds without doing changes is one huge missunderstanding at the moment, but this is something what I don’t want do discuss deeper. However I play a nearly full zealot druid (with 2 beserker trinkets) at the moment. So i have a healing power round about 1200 what is enough to repair some mistakes, but not too much in order to learn that some attacks you should better dodge. I think a lot of healers playing with a similar gear. Last month I tested a bit around with my druid build, when the basic idea came up: Is there a way to support my team even more? This leads into the try to gain as much might as a current Phalanx Strength Warrior or at least almost without losing the possibility to heal my team.

The build
Might stack druid
Above there is a link to the build I have created. If you aren’t see how I’m able to gain enough might with this build here is it in detail:
- Pet: 5stacks for 22,5s | every 27-28s (25+3)
- Spirit: 3stacks for 5,5s | every 3s (not included: spirit uptime ~85%, with alactricity 90%)
- Horn: 3stacks for 30s | every 9s
- Fire Blast: 3stacks for 40s | every ???
Assuming that you are blast at least one fire field in 40s (which is very likely), you have round about 23stacks uptime of might for 5players. I want to do a short comparison between this build and a typical zealot druid.
Healing: With Horn you gain regeneration to 10 players with an uptime of 85% this is how you compensate the lack of staff healing. Regeneration fills astral power too, there should be no problem even without using a lot of glyphs. However you don’t have burst healing outside your astral form, which is possible with staff 5+3. To compensate the 175 healing from monk rune there are no berserker trinkets anymore, unfortunatly the 10% can’t be compensate. Healing with staff if difficult to calculate: It is highly based on how good is you and your teams positioning and how often you are in astral form. This means, if you are camping in a good position on staff without using astra form, your healing will be better. However you want to use astral form often in order to gain grace of the land.
Damage: Damage is the same or even higher than with staff + X. Sword autoattack is the best you can have as a druid if you want to do damage. On the other side you lose a lot of dmg-buffs using nature magic instead of marksmanship this is at least 15% and perhaps the 10%. If you are using natural magic anyways, with horn will you deal definelty more damage.
Flexibility: You will lose a lot of flexibilty. As a ususal healing druid I often change weapons (2nd staff for mobility, axe4 to pull, axe5 for reflexion, lb4 to push) to do some special jobs. This is not possible with horn anymore. In addition you are now a melee class (except horn4) which means e.g. a condi druid have to kite at sabetha.
Support: With horn5 you gain fury and swiftness in addition for all players permanently. So there is no need for tigers anymore.
Might: Compared with the might of a standard PS-Warrior, there are some differences. At first my build need some time (~18s) for setup, but for a 9min fight this weight nearly nothing. One benefit is, that the might last longer. From PS all mightstacks run 12seconds, while the druid cast might (except the spirit) for 25s+. This is good, if the group is splitted (e.g. tempest at sabetha). Another benefit is, that with druid you don’t have to attack to gain might. On many bosses there are phases where you can’t attack someone especially with a melee. One pro for the PS: You get healing power for each might stack (max. 250).

Thanks for your answer, this is definetly a good workaround.
However there are cases when its really hard to avoid it (e.g. using skill 4 on low astral power, if you need to use it), so i would be happy if this get fixes soon. It seems that this bug is now in the game for one year!
I do some tests: Interruping normal weapon skills don’t resets quick draw, its definetly a bug.

I forgot to mention that I am using the sword on the first weapon set and the horn on the second one. Maybe this has something to with the bug.

Hi,
i do some experiments with a ranger/druid build and discovered a bug. There are some bugs around that sounds similar, but there are nearly one year old, so i create a new one.

Quick Draw (Ranger Trait) sometimes does not trigger when leaving Astral form. I could life with that but unfortunatly, it seems (im not sure here) that leaving the astral form sets the cooldown back too 9 seconds. I have uploaded two videos about this bug. I used sigill of concentration there, so take a look at the hourclass beside the buffs. Sigill of concentration allways trigger the right way and have a cd of 9 seconds, too.

Video 1: https://youtu.be/CfY_3Gliiak
Video 2: https://youtu.be/0Nbcce_SJx4

There are some cases when this bug does NOT appear, so please test like shown in the videos. Here some cases that are as expected: When i leave astral form before quickdraw coolddown is gone, then i can swap weapons like allways, with quickdraw. When qickdraw triggers at the beginning of astral form.

Please fix this bug as fast as possible. I can’t play my druid build with this bug, because playing around this bug costs me a lot of attention and therefore i do a lot of mistakes during the fight. Thanks!

We had a Megalaser bug today, over 100 player didn’t got the chest. FIX IT!