Guild Wars 2

Yeah, so some things I noticed.

• Dagger is heavy condi.
• Heal Stance and Dolyak Stance look good, the rest, including the elite, look weak, especially for their cooldowns.
• Just a cooldown for “beastmode,” no resource mechanic attached.
• Beast skills seem to change drastically based on which pet is taken which is where are the skill variance is (those first few pics with healing and support are attached to a pet).

This is the last one I grabbed.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

More skill tooltips.

Gonna post a bunch of screenshots so that the rest of you don’t have to suffer through the pain of the stream that I endured.

Hey ANet devs,

I was pulled into one of your shoddily designed maps, and the person who did it kept me in combat so I couldn’t /stuck out.

So I tried relogging, and I didn’t get put back into the game, I got put in the PvP lobby. Screenshot of what I’m looking at will be attached.

Could you do me a favor and please fix your game?

Sincerely,
Your community.

PS This is the most polite message that can be written from one dev to another. Fix your CCs putting people into maps. Fix your matchmaking queues.

First issue I’ve seen that I could’ve sworn I thought ANet had the intention to fix is 2 duo queues on the same team. That in itself is a frustrating match for randoms.

But ignoring that, the glicko system is annoying in its own right, because it determines a lot based on standard deviation, which is a hidden value for players, and deviation decreases with the amount of games played.

From my very limited understanding, your rating is a “guess” of the skill value plus or minus double the deviation value. So like, 1500 rating with 50 sd is an assumed rating of 1400 to 1600 with 95% confidence.

So what’s happening is that ANet using the upper bound of those players skill range to match them in these situations in order to match, with the assumption that there wasn’t a more available match closer (which we all know even matchups occurring over time should result in a 50% win/loss ratio and effectively reduce deviation).

Personally, I don’t like glicko. The impression I get from glicko is that it assumes your skill rating with too much strength and then actively works to make sure that quantity of games played quickly confirms that assumption. While I’m aware that you can continue to move up and down once your deviation has been reduced by enough games, it also means that you essentially have to play games like a full time job to see any meaningful movement in your skill rating.

Personally, I’d like to see Microsoft’s Trueskill system be able to be utilized more universally for team based games.

In the end, it’s the algorithm to blame. Though I wish that ANet would more rapidly reduce deviation, even if they have to do that by simply “hiding” the rating until the deviation is stable through more placements until a better solution can be set up.

What would you run in place of Cleansing on the S/D set Frosty, since I saw you talking about it?

At the time of this post, plat3 ranked 125 in NA (always subject to change of course, 90 more games before rank truly “matters”).

Metabattle build with Soldier Runes instead of Water; Courage/Purging on Staff, Energy/Cleansing on S/D.

Only solo queue, and I only play Druid.

For PvP, S/D. Easily the best offhand in PvP. Anybody who says otherwise plays at a level where skill level is so low that optimal builds don’t matter as much as simply being mentally competent.

For PvE, S/A on a power build. A/T on a condi build. These are the best setups with current balance in mind.

For WvW, builds are less set in stone because they’re highly dependent on what you’re trying to accomplish in WvW. For support/heal based builds for grouping, S/Wh is used for it’s support. For roaming, S/D with the same defensive swap set mentality as PvP.

GS is a fine option for WvW and most PvE though, and optimized builds tend to only matter for endgame PvE content (raids, fractals), strict WvW guild groups (I’m in one myself and use an arguably better verson of the frontline healer build listed on metabattle that also has roaming capability), and high tier PvP (even though the skill disparity is huge at this level still, gold 3 is where you see people really start to take the ladder climb seriously, and you want every edge you can get. You’ll start to only see optimal builds for the most part at this point, and once you hit plat, there’s only 2 Druid builds; Staff/S+D and Staff/LB, and you’ll only see Staff/S+D in the Jebro tourny and first automated tourny, at least on teams that can actually win).

Slight alterations;

I’ve ended up with Courage/Battle and Energy/Cleansing on Staff/Sword+Dagger setup, with Courage/Energy and Annulment/Agility on my Staff/LB setup.

However, to me it’s worth discussing that I peeked at both the builds on Metabattle and was shocked to find Annulment for BOTH builds on staff. Is there something that I’m missing here?

Also, I personally think any of the %damage modifiers are too conditional in nature to use, especially because of the boon sharing aspect of the builds. So when I saw the listed Staff/LB setup it made me wonder what people were thinking when they designed these build setups.

Alright so final update, I’d be curious if anybody else comes to the same conclusion:

Staff: Courage/Revocation
S/D: Energy/Cleansing
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8YnUqA1Ci9rAOsActglOBzJwFAKcwr0YaO9pFEqWYl8s0A-TpgNABbXGAg9HAA

Staff: Energy/Courage
LB: Annulment/Battle
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnUqA1Ci9rAOsActglOBDelGT3pO/tAQh7pFEqWYl8s0A-TpgNABbXGAg9HAA

It has nothing to do with what was changed on Ranger/Druid.

The removal of air/blood/fire/geomancy/hydromancy/leeching sigils and the change to doom sigil, on top of nerfs like:

• DH damage nerf
• Necro passive proc nerf
• Warrior nerf to survival and F1 spam in zerker, and nerf to Mace condis
• Scrapper sustain nerf
• Tempest sustain nerf

All of those things are just a handful of the across the board nerfs, but Druid already had it pretty good on the meta build, to the degree it took a specific build to counter one (condi zerker) in a 1v1. Now, all of the matchups have become better across the board, to the degree that because the damage has been nerfed so much, Druid can at the very least duel indefinitely against any class while achieving the neutralization of a point.

This was technically true prepatch except against that very specific matchup; it’s just that now it’s a tad more forgiving than prepatch and you don’t have to play to computer perfection levels in order to counter the output of other classes.

I’ve ended up with similar conclusions as Frosty.

Running LB is fun, and from what I can tell with Annulment, it works similarly to the way steal on thief works (it removes Stability before Stability counteracts LB4 knockback) so it makes a decap style sidepoint build and sidepoint 1v1s entirely in our favor, but the build itself means we’re relegated to just that role because the amount of projectile hate in teamfights makes LB useless most of the time, while simultaneously making you an easier target to focus down because of the lack of S/D.

Not that it isn’t fun or viable; and with Solo Queue still being currently the primary supported format, somebody that understands how to use the build will easily carry games, but I don’t think it’s the optimal build in 5v5 or coordinated formats, Staff/Sword+Dagger is.

Besides adding my 2c on that, I think we’re in agreement on Sigils/Runes/Traits.

So another update as I play more and against different people:

Runes:

• Dolyak

Sigils; I’m still working on these but staples:

• Staff: Courage and Fallibility/Revocation/Energy
• S/D and S/W: Energy/Cleansing (I know I said escape above but Cleansing is more generalist and procs more often)
• LB: Annulment/Agility but still need to test Separation and Exposure (personally I think I’d end up going with functionality over passive damage though).

Also, personally, not running Evasive Purity is hard to justify for me right now, but that’s due to the sheer amount of thieves/poison/condi builds at the moment.

I haven’t put as much time in on the sword sets as I have the LB setup so I’m working with that for the next chunk of time I play, but my only opinion on it right now is that the change to damage output from the loss of the prepatch sigil setup and the smokescale nerf is definitely more noticeable to me on the Sword builds.

Here’s my opinion on list of viable sigils:

• Energy
• Cleansing
• Courage
• Revocation
• Doom
• Fallibility
• Agility
• Annulment
• Exploitation
• Separation
• Compounding

Well realistically, you don’t need permanent regen to maintain Astral Force gain, you only need roughly 10 seconds, which you still basically have with just traited shouts + NM.

I’d say the more pressing issue is still the likelihood that it’s going to be removed with the new boon stripping options and general lack of options competitive with them.

I see more value with the Warhorn in that it’s another source of Regen when traited and provides multiple boons. That’s a lot of boons to have to tear through for strips. It’s just a matter of what pans out as being more important in this meta as it settles (because the warhorn trait also competes with perma vigor and cleansing dodges).

I think that there is value in all 3 swap options for different reasons personally, and right now I think waiting for the meta to settle will be what determines the swap set I personally go with.

I’m secretly hoping Druid is in a place now where it doesn’t need sword to be competitive at a high level setting, because running damage/CC for picks/kills/potential decaps in this meta seems like it would be the strongest option if it proves capable against metagame scenarios.

Ahhhh, that probably makes the most sense lol.

I still haven’t decided between Vigor or Evasive Purity and Dolyak or Water Runes (leaning towards Dolyak atm just cuz they’re the safe option).

For Runes though, I’m pretty set on:
LB: Agility/Annulment
S/D: Energy/Escape

I’ve had enough situations now where escape has saved me that I’m willing to vouche for them.

I STILL don’t really like the rune choices for Staff though. I’m having a hard time really liking or thinking that any of the sigils are all the effective with it.

Makes sense.

I was thinking with the sustain reduction magis might be able to manage fights quick enough that it might be able to be a more unkillable dueling option that could also actually win points, but I don’t have much experience with it even prepatch, so I don’t have an opinion on it.

Here’s the thing; it isn’t even that Headshot, and even Headshot empowered by PI (and the sigil and etc) is OP, it’s that it’s poor game design that leads to apex predator decision making.

Essentially, there’s almost never a bad time to use Headshot now. Basically, if you’re opponent is doing something and you can hit them with Headshot, use Headshot, and that trumps basically ANYTHING else you could do in that situation, because you get so many benefits from doing just 1 thing (denied enemy skill use, good damage, sigil procs).

In that regard, people ask for a nerf to PI by way of ICD, not because it’s OP, but because it’s a frustrating game mechanic to play against knowing that you’re going to constantly have your gameplay interrupted because it’s the best tactic that can be used against you and they want a window of opportunity where the thief using Headshot isn’t the best option so that there is more decision making and tactics that go into gameplay.

Not that it’s the best solution, because even with an ICD, it would still be poor game design.

@Frosty; Those are a lot of good points, especially about the Sigil of Cleansing. I’m going to add Energy and Remove Cleansing for the time being, and thin out the rune choices until the meta settles more.

My thoughts on LB are that with the pulsing Stability changes, there are a lot better potential matchups now for using it on sidenodes because with the new sigils you can strip stab and go for the knockback and neutral the point.
Beyond that my own thoughts on LB vs S/D still favor the S/D pick.

What to you think of Evasive Purity? Must have now or no?

@HeadCrowned; it’s a good point to bring up. I don’t have any experience with it so I’m in the field of needs testing, but I’ll make an edit to mention it as a potential option when I get the chance.

Edit:
OP edited.

@Frosty; do you still have any opinions on Mender’s vs Magi’s amulets? It was a worthwhile discussion prepatch and may be even more so now.

Okay so for the metabuild for this upcoming season, we’re defaulting a few things:
Mender’s Amulet
Staff/Sword+Dagger
Staff/LB
Staff/Sword+Warhorn
Nature Magic/Beastmastery/Druid

So, rune potential rune options are:
Dolyak
Water

Sigil Options (I apolize I don’t know the new names):
Energy (25% energy on swap)
Condition removed on hit
Boon removed on hit
Boons removed on swap
Might on hit
Might on swap
Cripple on Swap

So here’s my thoughts: there’s no real lack of benefit to running full condi hate, minus opportunity cost of potentially not needing it and wasting the slots. Boons are plentiful and you might see more mileage with them, as would the might sigils (especially with pet buffing), but conditions are strong and are worth countering.

Runes: these are going to have to cover the regen duration reduction, or provide a strong or unparalleled option.

Thoughts? Anything I missed?

There isn’t enough variance in what the available sigils do. Because of how conditional or unimpactful most of the sigils are, the most valuable “work horse” sigils are going to be the ones that remove boons, followed by the ones that remove condis (this will be more heavily dictated by the meta). The classes themselves weren’t changed in a way where the sigils would “feel” like important choices, so now putting sigils into your build feels like an exercise of picking the best worst option to use.

Meanwhile, if the goal was to remove random elements of gameplay, how come hidden health percentage conditional procs weren’t altered? Those are also random gameplay elements and carry much more gameplay weight and impact than most of the previous sigils did. So because of the lack of the uniform transition to a singular concept or design pattern, the overall gameplay hasn’t actually changed, there’s just 1 aspect of gameplay that is worse than it was prepatch.

Conditions are crazy. I’m not going to hyperbolically complain about them though. I’m just going to point out that when there is a continuous vocalization of how condition design are hurting the health of the state of PvP, that removing a large portion of what makes power builds competitive (sigil procs from critical hits. Power builds already have to build for multiple stats to actually deal damage, and were rewarded by being given the ability to attach even more benefits to the way they built because they gave up defense to have those stats) is just an indirect buff to condition builds.

It overall just seems like this balance patch was based on throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck (in this case the sticking isn’t effective balancing, it’s what the devs managed to complete in the long length of time provided compared to the small changes received comparatively). “Sustain reduction, random sigil removal (let’s keep on hit as a thing though), some damage reductions and buffs, and a few trait changes” is the whiteboard I imagine, with no clear design goal or balance baseline to direct and changes towards.

Sigh it’s going to be another rough PvP season ahead (also rip competitive for teams I guess? Still no solid news on proleague or automated tournaments, where’s the PR?)

The PvP changes really aren’t bad at all. The sustain reduction was bound to happen, it was going to be across the board, and I expected worse.

Resounding Timbre is annoying but understandable since now you’ll actually have to think about the regen when using shouts.

Smokescale was uncalled for imo, but the entire patch slowed the pace of the game down overall, so maybe it’s in line with some sort of intended baseline?

Troll Unguent is a strong change and depending on how the patch shifts the meta, might be worth making a build around again.

Overall, the biggest gameplay change (besides the across the board stab changes that hit us, making Entangle the clear WvW choice now) is the sigil changes in PvP. Meta druid builds were already attrition builds, but now the whole game just seems like it’ll be attrition based, which isn’t inherently bad with the removal of a lot of the passive procs, but it does change the tempo of the game significantly.

Echoing what people have already said; traps really aren’t the way to go.

General info beyond that; you’re lacking reliable Astral Force generation, on top of Healing Spring currently being the overall worst self-healing option available. You’re going to want to trait for and run either shouts or Survival skills because both of those heals and utility lines are just flat out better. Personal preference would dictate shouts because then you have easy access to swiftness and can pick up Celestial Shadow which is a MUCH better trait than Natural Stride for fights.

Ideally for fighting, Shortbow and Axe/x (dagger) are the best dueling/damaging options, but seeing as this is WvW, Sword/Dagger is fine, but you’ll want to go Geomancy/Doom on that set.

Given the abundance of poison and lack of crit, you’re better off dropping Skirmishing entirely unless you’re very dedicated to hidden barbs and abusing Quickdraw + Shortbow 5 + Ancient Seeds, but even then, you’ll end up getting more mileage out of Wilderness Survival with (and excuse me for not having them memorized by now)
an Oakheart Salve, 2, Poison Master setup.

Just my 2c, I haven’t run condi outside of PvE in a long time myself but that’s how I would do it.

Going off of what Reikou mentioned, there should be a more elegant solution.

Personally, and I’m aware that it’s a recurring complainy from both seasons with this system now, but I just finished my push at the minimum game count and hit the “+5 for a win, -16 for a loss” scenario for every match I played.

Yes, the population is dwindling and yes, a hard cap (which I thought was + or – 150 rating but I don’t have tje data to support that and it isn’t the point) would make outlying skill ranges miserable to queue in.

So, since rating gained or lost is a function of deviation, which is also tied to matchmaking, then the matchmaker shouldn’t be able to make matches in which the highest rated player on each team would lose more than they gain from a match, which would of course “trickle down” and everyone in the match would receive the same treatment for their match gains/losses.

Implemented correctly, and this would reduce many players frustrations with queuing at the top end of the ladder, on top of it being a direct improvement to the match quality (we’ve all had those games where we think “how could I have possibly been expected to carry THAT GUY,” and those are the players that we shouldn’t be queued with, and which makes the algorithm take more away for a loss than a win even though it’s what chose to place us together to begin with, which is a result of the algorithm making too loose or too inaccurate skill matchups).

How are your pets dead? Serious question. I run with my guild in a frontline group and even in full squad vs full squad situations, you can keep your pet alive, engage it onto low enemies, and as long as you F3 pets back and swap the pets out as needed, they’re fine.

Even if that isn’t the case, you can keep your pet dead, wait for a teammates call out for condi cleanses, and then swap to the alive pet and full AoE condi cleanse. On top of it being a stunbreak. Regardless, in a best use case, you should always be aiming to SoR and then instantly pet swap. All of the positives, none of the negatives, and nothing can punish the tactic.

Oh, and that passive cleanse? Mathematically, losing 1 condi every 10 seconds affords some of the highest condi cleanse potential in the game (considering that shouts with trooper/soldier runes are only 1 every 20 seconds, 2 every 24 seconds, etc traited at minimum and you have to blow your whole utility bar just to compete).

Glyphs; AoE CC and displacement, stunbreak and interrupt or AoE stunbreak, damage boost or healing boost, AoE cripple/weakness or AoE big heal and condi cleanse.

Signet of the Hunt is the only relatively poor signet, otherwise you have passive damage resistance, active damage immunity. Passive condi cleanse, active stunbreak and AoE full cleanse, and passive healing/AF generation, active damage boost and stability.

On top of shouts, these are the best options for utilities and will continue to be the best options for utilities due to a combination of how bloated their functionality comparatively is and the synergy with the traits and traitlines the make the skills better.

I didn’t comment on this thread because of the gameplay, I commented because you suggested replacing one of the best utility skills in the game with a 30 second cooldown unremarkable stunbreak and a 50 second cooldown superspeed/quickness stunbreak whose risk reward is out of focus because its a skill you want to use both offensively and defensively to make the most out of it, but best case scenarios for that are fringe cases compared to the generalist use of any of the utilities I listed.

As a matter of fact, if you had said “you could run Guard over SoR with Trooper Runes” as your reasoning to your initial comment, I probably would’ve just watched the video and continued my ghosting status like I have been for awhile now.

You gave bad information and criticism, and you’re continued defense of your standpoint won’t change facts.

As of now, I’m no longer going to be looking or continuing to respond on this thread. If that makes you feel as though you’ve achieved some sort of victory or ground with your opinions, then by all means, I’m glad it helps you get through the day, because we all have our vices.

What even are the comments I’m reading…. sigh alright here it goes.

Druids outside of PvE use Celestial Avatar primarily as their own defensive tool, and because of Druid’s reliance on Celestial Form as a defensive mechanism, should be considered an off support (ideal compositions would have tempests run direct support alongside off supports and DPS). A Druid with their CAF on cooldown is a dead Druid, which is why Druids don’t get to direct support in competitive (not PvAI) environments, and which is why the utility bar and traits typically are built to maximize survival (and build synergy).

As gank, LB is the best weapon you can use in a communicative setting with it’s ability to reliably setup enemies for a team gank. It isn’t about the DPS, it’s about the utility. As such, Protect Me and SoR are the best tools that can be run in a group scenario, with an AoE stunbreak and full condi clear (pets don’t die if you swap them, and even if that isn’t an option, a dead pet is better than a dead teammate or a dead you). Any passive effects are just icing on the cake.

Other general info: staff autos do more damage the LB autos and can’t be reflected. Staff healing outside of 3 and it’s various uses aren’t reliable or dependable. Taking a trap or survival skill on your skillbar and replacing it with a shout/signet/glyph is, in almost any case, a build improvement.

Anyhow, good clips FrouFrou. Skirmishing isn’t my cup of tea but you make it work, so good to see. Glad you have a group you can enjoy the game with, my guild is bleeding players to RevO (for now).

I’m here specifically to comment on the conversation going on about the Quickdraw option; people don’t run it because it doesn’t outperform running Marksmanship.

With Marksmanship, a LB rotation that procs either Moment of Clarity or Remorseless (and especially both) ends up doing more damage than any Quickdraw based LB rotation.

Not that it removes the utility that Quickdraw brings, but Marksmanship, ESPECIALLY for the OPs build, is just the overall more efficient option (Tiger and Bristleback).

The Light Field change is actually sort of a big deal for us. While it hurts some of the dueling capabilities we had against certain classes by not being able to blast retal and stack it on ourselves and pet, we can now remove a passable enough amount of condi to counter getting condi bombed in Celestial Form.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

jcbroe.4329:

(please note that Mender’s Water Runes Sword/Dagger Staff is the competitive meta when not abusing the bugged Signet of the Wild, but either build works it doesn’t really matter)

Neither of those are “competitive meta” tbh.
Water rune menders druid is unfortunately too squishy for a burst heavy meta and signet of the Wild has not been tried enough to prove its worth.
Similar to ele, druid is in a weird spot when it comes to ranked, while in a great spot when it comes to competitive play.

As far as your observations of team composition and roles go, while a little crude, they cover the basics decently enough so as not to have to go into more detail here.

P. S. The third role your looking for fluffball would be utility

I’m using the term “meta” only as an observation of the most observable occurence of builds at particular level (from my anecdotal experience as well as stream footage).

You’re right though, of course, and I was crude in general to make quick points. Like with making that statement about builds, technically, healing focused builds are meta with a runeset that would cover the weaknesses of the build or gather some advantage or counterplay for the team, but in this instance, saying it like that creates so many variables that all of the build options would have to be mentioned and commented on for information purposes. Which is a lot lol.

I don’t think Signet of the Wild should be considered at all because at this point it’s an unacknowledged bug. If it survives another round of ANet balance/fixes then maybe, but until then, utilizing it would be considered bug abuse, would it not?

Sorry if I sound combative, it isn’t intentional, just trying to give more of an explanation. I think it’s a good discussion to have, providing information and fleshing out these sorts of details can help a lot of people improve (ourselves included).

I know some people don’t like his streaming personality, but go to youtube and find the Tournament of Groucharoo VoD that was posted and casted by Helseth and Sindrener. They do an incredible job of explaining roles, good rotations and matchups, and bad rotations and matchups throughout the whole tournament (please note that Mender’s Water Runes Sword/Dagger Staff is the competitive meta when not abusing the bugged Signet of the Wild, but either build works it doesn’t really matter)

For a quick breakdown, these are your roles:

• Damage
• Support
  Subroles:
• Mobile
• Immobile

So now here are your classes:

• Chrono/Herald/Daredevil/Berserker(power) : Mobile Damage
• Dragonhunter/Reaper/Berserker(condi) : Immobile Damage
• Druid/Scrapper : Mobile Support
• Tempest : Immobile Support

Essentially, the “most effective” team composition is 3 damage, 2 support. Out of those damage dealers, at least 1, if not 2, should be mobile. The goal is to build teamfights around the immobile support, and then upon gaining momentum by winning teamfights or generating downs, the mobile support is supposed to rotate out to a different point and take that point, potentially creating a situation where if you get engaged, your mobile damage can rotate to you and you can win the fight.

This situation changes slightly when there is a thief that is good at decapping and free capping uncontested points(aka the thief is good). It relegates your rotations to almost always being defensive so that you don’t step on the thief’s toes, unless you are engaging with the thief to quickly outnumber and win a fight.

Mobile damage dealers are supposed to roam between the fight their mobile support creates (or create the fight themselves and you are supposed to be the one that rotates to it) and the immobile support/damage dealers since the immobile roles are generally supposed to set up shop at the “key point” in the map and draw/create the teamfight there.

I’ve run Ranger/Druid almost exclusively with my organized WvW guild for years now as the background/preface.

Yes, go Druid. You don’t need to go wet noodle, and you honestly don’t need to maximize Healing investment, but you do want to be invested primarily in healing power.

Personally I’ve been running a Zealots/Clerics or Zealots/Crusaders mix, although if I was considering the build for pure group play, I’d probably swap out the Zealot’s for Minstrels, but I enjoy doing damage too much.

Most Commander’s are building for a specific composition and guild groups will be especially strict on party organization. It isn’t to punish you, it’s to create functional groups.

Increase the AoE cap on skills to 5 targets from 3 would be a good start. Druid in particular has a lot of tools that grant it the theoretical capacity to be strong on the frontline in WvW, but are outclassed in practice.

In a general composition crafting sense, Druid most directly competes with Scrappers and Tempests for a space in a party. What do those classes bring that keeps Druids out of being considered for a spot in meta group compositions? Escapes are part of it. Blink and Elixir S are strong skills that allow those classes to correct their positioning mistakes for free while Druids lack any way to “freely” escape.

Besides that, the sheer utility of Aurasharing (essentially perma frost aura, access to earth aura, shocking aura, etc) on top of the healing and AoE potential Tempest have make them a very unique and easy pick for WvW compositions. Scrappers, meanwhile, bring their AoE healing, AoE cleansing, damage reduction, superspeed fields, and great melee capabilities on top of unparalleled reflect up-time.

Druid just doesn’t bring anything unique that’s also practical for WvW.

As for the dead pets question…. there’s no real fix for them that doesn’t break them when it comes to fight scaling short of a redesign that will never happen. The best general sort of idea is engagement scaling like PvE creatures scale (and WvW lords and such) purely for defensive stats, but that would be a very complex system that would also have to be incredibly fine tuned, and while a system like this should be in place for ALL player generated AI entities in WvW, the likelihood of that sort of balance direction/overhaul this late into the games development would really only occur if there was money to be made from doing so, and I get the feeling that it isn’t very high up on ANets “fix list.”

Anela.3867:

jcbroe.4329:

Update:

As I’m climbing higher and higher and starting to queue with people in the top 50-100, I’m finding that I don’t have to run a blade offhand (Sword or GS) for the survivability, because everybody can actually carry their own weight and perform correct rotations and play their roles in teamfights.

As such, the LB build is feeling 1000x stronger than my initial impression because I can play more off point, and when I call targets for the LB combo, those targets actually die because the players are at a skill level where there is a mutual understanding of the tactics that are happening.

In general, having people that understand what the build can and can’t do and play their role to encompass their game knowledge helps me to understand why the metagame would want Druids to be running LB, since a LB pick with some amount of competence in a team and organization can instantly snowball teamfights.

Does this mean you are using the shoutbow meta build or your own set up?

Anela

The only thing I’m back and forth on is the runes at the moment. Even though Dolyak Runes really aren’t necessary to generate Astral Force at the rate needed to enter Celestial Form every 15 seconds, I find that every so often, I end up in that situation where I would have needed Dolyak Runes because of their passive generation of Astral Force versus needing to be active to generate it.

So I’m still playing around with either Dolyak or Leadership runes. With the meta settling on less and less condi builds, and with the way condi builds are working now, I’m finding that Druidic Clarity plus Signet of Renewal (plus Leadership Runes when I have them on) is enough cleansing as long as I use them properly, so I’ve turned away from Soldier/Trooper runes entirely.

So yeah. A good example of what I’m talking about with the runes is if I have to end up kiting a lot in a team fight so that I can’t be active and generate Astral Force and an enemy Necro AoE corrupts the Regen I gave everyone. Or if I make the push to recapture home and their thief is a well known thief that decides they can duel me despite it not being the optimal thief strategy and plays incredibly hit and run so that I can’t actively generate Astral Force and they can slowly burst and wait.

It isn’t always common, but I find myself saying “if I had only had Dolyak Runes there” more than I say that about any other runeset still, which is why I’ve been giving them another go.

Update:

As I’m climbing higher and higher and starting to queue with people in the top 50-100, I’m finding that I don’t have to run a blade offhand (Sword or GS) for the survivability, because everybody can actually carry their own weight and perform correct rotations and play their roles in teamfights.

As such, the LB build is feeling 1000x stronger than my initial impression because I can play more off point, and when I call targets for the LB combo, those targets actually die because the players are at a skill level where there is a mutual understanding of the tactics that are happening.

In general, having people that understand what the build can and can’t do and play their role to encompass their game knowledge helps me to understand why the metagame would want Druids to be running LB, since a LB pick with some amount of competence in a team and organization can instantly snowball teamfights.

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.

The gameplay is nothing special and I never planned on linking any of my youtube videos to the forums because it’s just silliness and entertainment I share with my guild.

Disclaimer aside, I put together a bunch of clips from the previous season and offseason of myself using different non-bow variations of the metabuild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNx73qSEdhE

For any of the people it might help.

Yeah now that every team I’m up against is some combination of Tempest/proc Reaper (perma chilled/crippled so kiting is rough)/DH/Berserker/Scrapper/evasion thief/pew pew Druid…..

….I’m right back to S/D.

Here’s to hoping ANet rebalances the sheer amount of projectile hate.

forum bug /15char

I can’t make up my mind (yet again).

The sheer amount of warriors I’m queued with atm makes S/D feel almost necessary. Dunno.

I’m really missing the Crusader Amulet this season. I hope it comes back in a PvP balanced form (1050 Power/Healing Power, 560 Ferocity/Toughness). I think that the GS with that stat split and the Call of the Wild buffs against the current metagame would be the most optimal build.

The blocking and constant stability….. sigh. I hate being rendered ineffective without skill even being a factor.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Fluffball.8307:

I’ve been pretty consistently preferring to run WS for the extra condi clear, barkskin, and shared anguish. I think that comes out ahead of NM, you lose a bit of team support with allies’ aid and PW, but I think the selfish build works better since the druid is often or usually the main target. Also I’m running the slightly non-standard GoE, pet taunt, and wolf, so that more than makes up for allies’ aid. Made it to platinum with WS, thought I’d experiment with NM and dropped 10 matches to plummet down to gold 2.

WS it is for me… infuriating.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but I would be interested in your builds (fluff/JC). Do you guys ever play solo que? and would you consider lb for solo que?

Thanks

I’m plat 1 on my alt and plat 2 on this account, pure solo queue.

I’m on my phone atm so I won’t be able to create link pages but currently my 2 main builds are:

• 1) Menders with Leadership Runes. Staff/LB with Air/Blood and Agility/Leeching. Heal as One/Protect Me/Signet of Renewal/Signet of Stone/Strength of Pack. NM322, BM332, Druid113.

• 2) I mainly only use this build now if I’m going to have to be 1v1ing evasion thieves, but even then it’ll get attritioned out and I’ve been finding I can just no longer carry people with it, but:
  Menders with Soldier Runes. Staff/Sword Dagger with Air/Blood and Energy/Leeching. Same utilities as above. Same traits except: NM312