You’d have to swap the armor and trinkets around though, probably Clerics is the way to go, since Zealots is crazy expensive atm.
If you want to heal, you need staff right now, and since there are no conditions on staff, you need to go power. Unfortunately.
Why no healing spring?
Also, is a mix of zealot and cleric for toughness better?
And water vs monk runes?
The glyph is heaps better for healing imo, it will heal the party for 12k when in CAF so can be used to heal a lot of people to 100% from almost dead. Don’t really need the condi removal from HS in PvE, imo.
I do like water runes, in that build they are decent because the bonus will heal for an additional 750 or so, but the 10% makes a huge difference to the staff heals over time and ofc the other heals also. The additional 5% boon duration on water is decent. If you wanted to focus more on the boons, swap monk for water and the delicious rice balls for choc omnomberry cream for an additional +25% duration. Although with Quick Draw, you do not need to extend the durations on CoTW too much.
You swap to the S/WH before going into CAF, use WH #5, CAF to heal, drop back out and WH#5 will be recharged to use again, then swap back to staff, its only 1-2s out of your healing to maintain these boons.
A blend of Zealots and Clerics is probably a decent idea for more toughness, although I personally do not think it is necessary because I want to be more of an offensive support Druid, rather than a dedicated healer.
So almost every single time I go to use Allies’ Aid the pet doesn’t support with the res is it bugged? or am I just extremely unlucky and my pet gets interrupted every single time.
If you are playing PvE allies aid does not proc with dead people that you can res. Only downed state.
So I’m creating this thread so I (and anyone who feels like it) can just post “okay, this is cool” whenever you find something new you like.
My turn: Superior Sigil of Absorption – Steal up to 3 boons when interrupting an enemy (no icd).
Because lolinterrupts.
Is this in game?
I spotted it in the inventory of the Itzl vendor right at the entrance to the Verdant Brink. So you’ll need to up your Itzl masteries.
Not in sPvP, though, sadly.
If you are running solo or duo its going to charge slowly. Celestial Form is not meant to be a reset button.
If people would like to see Celestial Form become more reliable beyond +5man content maybe instead of AF generation they could just have CF start recharging at beginning of combat on ~15sec cd. Once off CD it can be used for ~7sec? When it ends it goes CD again. Leaving combat it is disabled.
edit:
Vid of me solo and also some allies attacking spvp isle “lordroom” npcs, showing AF generation, low tier potential.
If you are running solo or duo its going to charge slowly. Celestial Form is not meant to be a reset button.
If people would like to see Celestial Form become more reliable beyond +5man content maybe instead of AF generation they could just have CF start recharging at beginning of combat on ~15sec cd. Once off CD it can be used for ~7sec? When it ends it goes CD again. Leaving combat it is disabled.
edit:
Vid of me solo and also some allies attacking spvp isle “lordroom” npcs, showing AF generation, low tier potential.
After playing a healing druid build in sPvP for a few hours, I think it is safe to say that most of the posts on the forums were an overreaction. I’m having just as much fun if not MORE with Druid than BWE3. (I can’t say anything for people trying hybrid builds though, because I’ve only used staff/gs.)
Astral Force is NOT as bad as people are saying. I almost always have it charged when I need it. No, you don’t get to open up fights with it, but it is very easy to build, and it feels way less spammy now. I actually like what they have done with it.
The only thing I wish Anet had done is put a permanent stun break on one of the sigils (by that i mean stun breaks regardless of if you’re in CAF or not.) I would love to be able to make use of the CC given by the glyphs, but giving up some of the other skills is too much of a downgrade. I’m a firm believer that druid needs two stun breaks because for healing druid, you’re always in the thick of the battle.
Bottom line is, Druid is VERY much viable in sPvP, and I don’t know what all the fuss is about. If anything, I think the skill cap is higher now which is a good thing. CAF feels way less like a permanent upgrade that you can go in and out of whenever you want. You have to use it way more situationally and wisely.
AF itself is not the problem.
The problem is Anet Is pigeonholing us to use staff in order to generate Astral Force FASTER and MORE RELIABLE
Its open world pvp. It is not nor should be spvp. You are expected to put time into your character for excellent gear and build.
Gear and build yes, profession mechanic no. Necro’s aren’t expected to run to 25 different maps to unlock death shroud skills. This would be a nice QoL improvement for WvW rangers, especially for the players with multiple rangers.
Dude, you want everything to be handed out to you? Even WoW rangers looked for pets to train.
Yeah I think this build could be the goddess of 1v1s.
Also potentially excited for a sinister burn trap dragonhunter build if the sinister amulet has like 560 vitality on it to make it not completely rambo.
Doesn’t revealed have a shorter duration in WvW than it does in spvp?
Very little wuv roaming/dueling experience here, but maybe with a large window to fight back, trapper runes won’t be as bad as they are expected to be.
Thief traps don’t do direct damage, and as such don’t inflict Revealed.
I think that’s the one thing they need to fix if they don’t want this rune to kill PvP.
Just the opposite. PvE <> PvP A permastealth anything is useless in PvP, especially one that just has traps that don’t do any damage.
If you were to host a private 1 on 1 Tournament what would your “banned list” include. The reality is the game is still not balanced for 1 on 1, but could banning a few traits and utility skills do anything to help?
I’m honestly praying to Melandru that Staff gets a burn on AA. It just needs something. As is, its pretty bad, even with the excellent change to Ancestral Grace.
Sorry I don’t agree about staff 1 getting burn.
Staff 1 actually does pretty decent power damage. It has a damage modifier of 0.3 and pulses 3 times. That is basically a combined modifier of 0.9 of 1.5 seconds.
To put it into perspective. mesmser gs1, a very similar skill, has a combined modifier of 0.945 at 900+ range, 0.54 at less than 300 range. Channel time is also 1.5 seconds(mesmer can abuse stow though).
The damage really doesn’t look any worse on druid staff. You can also confirm that by looking at that initial druid introduction video at twitchcon. The high damage number confirms it(pretty sure they are using berserker amulet).
Why are you comparing the damage of the staff auto to mesmer GS? The reason the GS is strong is due to its abilities’ insane damage and the utility it offers, you do not run around spamming the autoattack to kill people, it’s damage is laughable, and druid staff is actually a bit weaker, if your numbers are correct. The damage on staff is so laughable, no matter how much power you have, that you cripple yourself by using it over GS/LB. The staff is terrible for anything that isn’t a bunker build, or useless healer for pve if you want (when people figure out raids, staff will most likely not be needed for druid, maybe druid won’t be needed at all).
The staff is a pathetic weapon.
You are so wrong. Mesmers spam GS1 a lot. It does decent damage at long distance and good at triggering on crit sigils. It’s already probably the second strongest long-range autoattack after ranger longbow. Mesmer’s GS is also a damage focused weapon. 4 damage skills and 1 utility skill.
Back to ranger’s staff. It is a utility-heavy weapon. 3 and 5 are among the best utility on any weapon set. 1 and 2 do decent power damage + some healing. I would say this is pretty good already. You can’t blame a weapon just because it is not damage-focused. Guardian’s staff is also damage-lacking. But it is still a very strong weapon due to its utility.
From design point of view, I think weapon skills are not meant to do too many different stuff at the same time. Do we really have a weapon autoattack that can do good power damage, good condie damage and also healing at the same time?
I wouldn’t call staff 2 decent power damage ever. Pretty sure it’s a DPS loss to even use it, factoring in travel time (it’s slow) and interrupting the autoattack.
Still, at 2375 power, we’re talking about a cooldown skill that only peaks at 743 damage. That’s less than a lot of autoattacks in this game (including the weapons own 2 hit autoattack).
Regarding what I responded with earlier, either this damage needs increasing, the healing power scale for the skill needs to be upped to a minimum of .5, or the base heal on the skill needs to be doing more than 322 base.
The 3 and the 5 skills, you’re right, great skills. The 2 and 4 skills? They are in desperate need of tuning.
No.1 Also Need tuning, It is underwhelming in all aspects besides healing.
The root is so hard to aim too.
The staff needs condis on it, damaging or not, hell even just vuln. Just ADD something to it.
Otherwise it will be solely used in other builds because of the mobility,
I’m honestly praying to Melandru that Staff gets a burn on AA. It just needs something. As is, its pretty bad, even with the excellent change to Ancestral Grace.
Sorry I don’t agree about staff 1 getting burn.
Staff 1 actually does pretty decent power damage. It has a damage modifier of 0.3 and pulses 3 times. That is basically a combined modifier of 0.9 of 1.5 seconds.
To put it into perspective. mesmser gs1, a very similar skill, has a combined modifier of 0.945 at 900+ range, 0.54 at less than 300 range. Channel time is also 1.5 seconds(mesmer can abuse stow though).
The damage really doesn’t look any worse on druid staff. You can also confirm that by looking at that initial druid introduction video at twitchcon. The high damage number confirms it(pretty sure they are using berserker amulet).
Why are you comparing the damage of the staff auto to mesmer GS? The reason the GS is strong is due to its abilities’ insane damage and the utility it offers, you do not run around spamming the autoattack to kill people, it’s damage is laughable, and druid staff is actually a bit weaker, if your numbers are correct. The damage on staff is so laughable, no matter how much power you have, that you cripple yourself by using it over GS/LB. The staff is terrible for anything that isn’t a bunker build, or useless healer for pve if you want (when people figure out raids, staff will most likely not be needed for druid, maybe druid won’t be needed at all).
The staff is a pathetic weapon.
You are so wrong. Mesmers spam GS1 a lot. It does decent damage at long distance and good at triggering on crit sigils. It’s already probably the second strongest long-range autoattack after ranger longbow. Mesmer’s GS is also a damage focused weapon. 4 damage skills and 1 utility skill.
Back to ranger’s staff. It is a utility-heavy weapon. 3 and 5 are among the best utility on any weapon set. 1 and 2 do decent power damage + some healing. I would say this is pretty good already. You can’t blame a weapon just because it is not damage-focused. Guardian’s staff is also damage-lacking. But it is still a very strong weapon due to its utility.
From design point of view, I think weapon skills are not meant to do too many different stuff at the same time. Do we really have a weapon autoattack that can do good power damage, good condie damage and also healing at the same time?
Guardian Staff Damage Lacking? Ever seen Arken play top tier pre patch medi Ham/Staff Zerk guardian?
All the cancer and cheesiness and the mesmer gets killed.
I didnt know tournies allowed PU
In this case it was a private one on one tournament. No ban on specialization or utility skills other than everything being locked for duration. Map obviously Courtyard so 25 points per kill with 75 points defined as a win. Wanted to see how well the current balance would hold without bans. It was interesting. Should also mention that the Mesmer won.
Of course, there is no way he’ll lose. VS. Any class for that matter. Assuming Equal Skill Level.
If you are using melee weapons regardless of the build, I realized fighting against GOOD thieves is nearly impossible, all those blinds are really hard to get rid off and instant dazes just make it harder.
I mean you can cleanse but you know how thieves are, they can just reapply it again.
Another problem i have is when they 2v1 you with a mesmer.
I believe that its not even about the traits are supbar, another most people just wanna play the meta, and do not want to experiment and test.
In before being criticized, testing requires extensive work and time put into it, not like “Oh did not work for 10 matches, so its not viable”
Oh great one, explain to us plebs how FI is better than SC…
Alternatively, explain how temporal enchanter isn’t worthless.
It depends on how you play and what you wanna play really. for normal solo que I think you can play anything you want right?
So what if you are successful with it? so is it not viable for yourself?
This is a worthless argument. Successful doesn’t mean it’s good or better than the alternatives. I could probably still pull out a pretty high win rate only equipping 2 traitlines instead of 3. Does that mean doing so is good? Obviously not.
Why do you have to locked up in the confines of which trait is better or not? It’s Solo q!
No Matter how good you play, or How great your build is, you will still lose some games. Because you can’t control the other 4 players. I say might as well enjoy it and have a breath of fresh air when it comes to builds
But in the aspect of competitive team q, yes there are obviously better choices.
You’re missing the point entirely. The question is not ‘can I win games with this trait’. The question is ‘is this trait objectively worse than the other options available’.
Worse? Because the majority says so? Like how everyone was saying scepter is not good and it needs rework?
I would say FI would have a place in an interrupt build, really. I would even say I would take it over SC just for the fun of it. Again my point is a lot of the traits here can be taken if you wanted to. and build around it, who knows it might work for you, and we all know that you can’t expect it to work for someone else.
Irenio specifically said these are only the changes that are set in stone and will absolutely happen. More changes are to come that are still being ironed out.
So which one is it? Mistisim said a different thing. haha
Also, I thought a lot of people are advocating for damaging conditions on staff? Don’t tell staff is still pigeonholed into healing?
I believe that its not even about the traits are supbar, another most people just wanna play the meta, and do not want to experiment and test.
In before being criticized, testing requires extensive work and time put into it, not like “Oh did not work for 10 matches, so its not viable”
Oh great one, explain to us plebs how FI is better than SC…
Alternatively, explain how temporal enchanter isn’t worthless.
It depends on how you play and what you wanna play really. for normal solo que I think you can play anything you want right?
So what if you are successful with it? so is it not viable for yourself?
This is a worthless argument. Successful doesn’t mean it’s good or better than the alternatives. I could probably still pull out a pretty high win rate only equipping 2 traitlines instead of 3. Does that mean doing so is good? Obviously not.
Why do you have to locked up in the confines of which trait is better or not? It’s Solo q!
No Matter how good you play, or How great your build is, you will still lose some games. Because you can’t control the other 4 players. I say might as well enjoy it and have a breath of fresh air when it comes to builds
But in the aspect of competitive team q, yes there are obviously better choices.
sad but true..