Guild Wars 2

So after playing around with shouts a lot more, I’ve started swapping between 2 builds depending on the enemy team comp and how condition heavy it is. Basically, Glyphs for condi heavy teams, shouts for power heavy teams.

Glyphs: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnUqAlsiVsCOsActglOBzJwFAKcPtgBwCDelOT3plMtzA-TpBFABE8AA+vMQR7PwwRAohDBAAXAAA

Shouts: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnUqA9Ci1CCOsActglOBDelGT3pPtgBwCzJwFAKclMtzA-TpBFABFt/ADHBg/LDQwDAohDBAAXAAA

They both work outside of the situations I mentioned, honestly I’m trying to figure out which in general is better for more situations.

But yeah, had to give shouts another go. The real issue I’m having with the build is that it doesn’t “feel” like it has any impact, but I can’t tell whether or not that’s a placebo due to the nature of the skills or not.

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Don’t forget that they have a 1 button push → full adrenaline elite now though.

Not that it’s really relevant to discussion Druid.

Having some time to mull over it for awhile now, I find it incredibly odd that the Druid resource mechanic is the only “fill the bar” resource mechanic that only has quantity scaling (how many things you affect). Every other mechanic also has added quality scaling (increased shroud gains on particular skills or in specific situations, etc etc with the other resource mechanics).

Azukas.1426:

This needed to happen. It was too much damage on an AI

Comments like this irk me more than anything.

Yes, the source of the attack comes from an AI controlled entity, but the attack itself when it’s an F2 attack has nothing to do with AI. It could just as easily be a toolbelt skill for an engineer, the only difference is where the attack comes from.

If you’re going to complain about AI, make sure you get around to figuring out what AI is first.

BadSanta.6527:

We’ll tempest right now basically invincible but hey hurry up and nerf ranger. Reaper chill is op but hey hurry up and nerf pets. And on and on…….. But I have to say that we use to be the punching bag of anet

Before this gets repeated over and over again:

Necromancer—Reaper

• Deathly Chill: Reduced the condition damage multiplier for this trait by 15%.

This was also in the patch.

I’m not actually as irritated by the change as I normally would have been since all of the ultra high survival amulets were removed from PvP (note that Necro chill damage was also nerfed too).

If this many years later, ANet is FINALLY getting around to trying to establish a survival and damage baseline, then that’s actually a good thing, though it will be highly dependent on whether or not they get to the more prominent cases of imbalanced damage output (Revenant, also Necro output vs survival is quite a bit over the top right now, but it has been since their chill get injected with steroids).

Considering what the nerf could have been, I’m happy with what it is for now.

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t think LB is worth using without quickdraw. If I’m not taking QD, the movement on GS makes more sense. With QD, LB becomes incredibly useful for decapping or holding, and it doubles up for mediocre damage on mid from a cliff or something.

I’m in general agreement, really I only swap it into my build when I want to sidepoint decap, and I think the staff/melee set holds much more value and performs more roles and more consistently, but I’ve seen the continued popularity with staff/LB and it doesn’t necessarily lack anything and I can perform consistently well with it, so I figured I’d include it.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I prefer full shouts + Celestial Shadow over Glyphes + Verdant Etching. Sure, glyphs offer better team support, at least on paper, but often the heal/cleanse is wasted because of the delay and tiny radius and because you have to move arround to avoid more dmg/condis. With shouts you can take SnR and Celestial Shadow allows stealth rezzing or better disengaging.
Also the glyph as only stunbreak beside Druidic Clarity can be detrimental, if there is a rev with the taunt trait nearby …

I’ve tried multiple times with multiple builds to make a full bar of shouts work and I personally just can’t do it unless the enemy team lacks a condi Reaper. Fyi this is meant to be a constructive discussion about a difference of playstyles, because I know that there are people that are making shout builds work better than I can work them.

Just personally, “in the heat of battle,” all of the shouts seem super situational. You can’t spam Guard or the pet will die, Sic’ Em has a long cooldown and is generally not slotted anyhow, and SnR is obviously also highly situational, leaving Protect Me as the most spammable per situation shout but also the most detrimental to spam since it’s your stunbreaker.

If anything, that’s why on my templates, I’m suggesting that a hybrid of shouts and glyphs is the best route if you are confident/capable in playing without SoS. Individual shouts are incredibly strong now, and considering half the utilities (including the heal) I’d recommend using are shouts and half are glyphs, I wouldn’t really consider it “not a shout” build anyhow lol.

Celestial Shadow would be my only other gripe if you teamfight heavily. The AoE aspect of it can lose your team valuable capture point ticks. I’ve seen games where enemy rangers decapped mid for their team just by running Celestial Shadow, so it’s something that in general people that run it need to be much more mindful of than they sometimes are, and I’m not going to be the person that runs it and costs my team a close game (which I almost did a few times when I tried it).

Anyhow, yeah, I’d have to see how players on a high skill level perform with a more oriented should build to see what I’ve been doing differently than they do, or if that’s just how the build is expected to perform. I’m still finding the control aspects of Tides/Equality invaluable, and the cleanses and heals are easy to use once you get comfortable with the build. Equality particularly has a ton of “tricks” you can use because it’s insta-cast that makes unslotting it alone extremely difficult.

It’s good to see you guys are still around to have these sorts of discussions

I’ve been lurking, studying how dead the forum is, while playing lots and lots of BnS and enjoying it much, much more than I’ve enjoyed GW2 in a very long time, but the changes to this season are just enough for me to grind out the leagues to onyx (last season I stopped at diamond because of bad matchmaking and balance).

You’re going to have to remove the crusader build from the PvP section, it was confirmed by a red post that the Crusader amulet will be hotfixed out this week (along with the Vigilant amulet).

Personally for this PvP season, I’d run:
Paladin GS: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnUqAlsiVsCOsActglOBDelOT3pOBuAQh7pFMAWYlMtzA-TZBGABBt/w+lBA4BAgwRAIhLBAA
Paladin LB: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnUqAlsiVsCOsActglOBzJwFAKcPtgQ1CDelOT3plMtzA-TJBGABA8EA2vMQQ7PkwlAAA
Mercenary Sword/Torch: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fnUqAFsiVsCOsActglOB7pFEqWYOBuAQhDelOT3pl480A-TJRHAB1XGgn9HC4JAAwFBAA

Mender is too squishy, SoS can be replaced with a shout (SnR, Guard, Protect Me) for utility over tanking, and in general, I’d be surprised if anything else really gets all that popular this PvP season that isn’t just a variation of one of these builds.

The root has a delay time for which it appears, so unless you are hard CC’d by LB4, GS5 (the stun), or the Smokescale knockdown, against just a Druids options, you can usually avoid the roots just by continuous movement.

Just an fyi to help out.

Robbed? Not at all. It made Ranger strong in PvP like people had been asking for, it provides a unique enough role in WvW that Druids aren’t being blocked from joining guilds and are actually requested by skill groups, and they have a competitive team slot value for PvE content.

Personally, I’ve just moved on to Blade and Soul for now, but not because I have an issue that’s druid exclusive, but because there isn’t anything left to do in GW2 except wait for disappointing balance patches (removing the tank amulets that made PvP horrible just to replace them with more tank amulets that make PvP horrible and rob classes of their functional identity by making everything a damage dealing tank).

Really, that’s the only advice I can give to people right now. Nothing is going to change about this game in the foreseeable future. Find something else to enjoy. ANet will either lose their concurrent playerbase just like Bungie did by not being transparent and by not keeping the community up to date, or they will get around to announcing something while you’re busy enjoying a different game instead of complaining about this one; and honestly, for a lot of the names I recognize on the forum, this game will never experience the drastic (by ANet dev standards and not realistic standards, because realistically, dev teams can usually accomplish more with their time) change that people demand or seek.

So ultimately, you either enjoy this game right now or you don’t. If you don’t, you probably won’t enjoy it again for a minimum of 6 months. So find something else to make you happy in your gameplaying time. I know I have

Mercenary’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

This on the sword/torch build, and Crusaders on more power focused builds.

Really, ANet has just taken celestial away and added amulets that they believe people tended to specialize towards with celestial, so finding the right stat split for your build with the existing and the new amulets shouldn’t be too difficult.

As far as what will become the most used, or “meta” option, well, that depends on where all the different classes and builds end up during the weeks to follow the patch.

AivenPrimus.9184:

Aside from this fail,

I am sorry to disappoint you, but you cant deny that Druids are a bit over tuned,

From the time I have spent playing Ranked, I have never been so frustrated when playing against Druid than other classes.

Every single Ranger uses Bristleback or Smokescale,
You talk about ‘’kill his pet’’, but as far as I remember their pets on average has ~26k HP, and are pretty much as tanky as any other player, and deals meowton on damage.

On top of that they can swap it from one broken pet to other, and you have to start your ‘’Kill quest’’ all over again.

And this isnt even a tip of cancer made by Druids.

But I guess I should reroll back to Necro when first ’’balance’’ patch kicks in.
Funny enough, they buffed Druids.

Gotta wonder where does Anet Balance Team get that feedback.

Pressure until Celestial Form, wait until Celestial Form 5 has been used, load up the Druid on CC’s and burst them with condi/power. It literally works every time. And the longer the Druid stays in Celestial Form, the easier they are to kill.

Before HoT, “every” ranger used Canines or Birds. There will always be a best in slot option compared to the content (cats were/are best in slot in PvE).

The thing is, Leeto is an aweful, toxic player and person.

So let’s get some things straight first.

The bristleback F2 is ineffective outside of close range. Last time I checked, the vast majority of the skill would miss a player that is standing on the other side of Graveyard on Legacy of the Foefire. On it’s own, it has an incredibly slow rate of damage and windup animation to the degree that, while it is frustrating to play against (AI always is, but ANet locked in on AI instead of removing it and creating a less toxic game when they had the chance during development), if you don’t make the mistake of letting yourself get hit by its channel (Dodge, interrupt it, etc etc, just like you would every other time a burst skill in this game gets thrown at you, CC’d or otherwise, you deal with this one exactly the same), then the pet itself is virtually ineffective compared to any other damage oriented pet.

The smokescale is only as poorly designed as the revenant skill it uses. It was honestly more balanced as a skill players had to control due to players having to actually have some semblance of actions to perform to get damage to happen and the intelligence of when to use the skill, however, with the design of the smokefield, really, both skills need to be controllable by the player (here’s a hint ANet, other games give a full range of control over the AI, we in this game aren’t so thick that we can only operate one button) because of how they are used and balance.

All of that being said, it isn’t the pets fault, inherently. It is, without a doubt, the fault of the introduced mightstacking abilities of the Heal skill that get hyper-magnified by pets that actually have operational intelligence and some resemblance of burst skills. It’s highly doubtful that when the pets were designed, they were designed with the idea that every time they were swapped in, they would end up with 6 seconds of quickness and 16 minimum might stacks. Those sorts of boons break balance all over the place when it’s ease of access and you wouldn’t just throw them on a warrior or a thief or high damage build etc etc because they pressed one button, and it isn’t really any different in this situation.

Seriously though, I’ve had this conversation over and over and it really isn’t the pets that need the change. The boonstacking capability of Heal as One, while no ranger (even I won’t directly, because I benefit) will ever complain about it, broke balance when it was first introduced and still breaks the balance of pets now, but balanced pets shouldn’t be nerfed because another mechanic is breaking them.

No idea why ANet, instead of addressing boon spam with more hardcounters and soft punishes, introduced more spam, but it really isn’t any reason to go nerfing something that really may not need to be nerfed, or at least not as heavy-handedly as people are calling for due to other mechanics.

I actually prefer Crusader Amulet if I run GS. Cele definitely gets run with either LB or Sword/Torch for me as well.

Metabattles build is actually pretty spot on for what Druids have been running on the EU servers. Not that it makes it the most efficient build, but compared to the grand total of 0 players running Druid at an even remotely observable level on NA, it makes sense that the most observed build on the site is the one that the site admins and contributers see the most.

But yeah, I tried to make the cele version of the build work for me over and over and I found it spread too thin compared to specializing it with the Crusaders version.
MM 332, BM 322, Druid 123. Energy/Leech on staff, Intel/Hydro on GS, Smokescale, Bristleback, WHaO, Tides, Equality, SoS, SotP.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@jcbroe
You are actually doing it right. Just like the Quote that no one really knows whole says:
“Dubito, ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum.”
I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am."

Lots of people use beast-mastery for DPS increase or whatever. They even used it for ZerkMeta ranger even though Nature Magic always provided better DPS.
The thing is that NM provides roughly 8% damage increase to both you and your pet (from boons) and it caps your pet at 25 might constantly. Something that Beast Mastery does not.
It all might change if you are reaaaaaaally good at We Heal as One management of Might Stacks for the pet. If you are not – The pet swapping Quickness will always be a damage loss for you. And if I’m to compare whole NM against BM minors – I wouldn’t think twice.

It is an option, yes, but if you break down what does it offer, it’s not much. Beast Mastery is an amazing line for personal DPS, but not when you are druiding. Quickness goes to waste.

I don’t know that I’d call the quickness a waste, but I definitely understand what you’re getting at.

I was thinking more that outside of the loss of the NM minors, you can use WHaO for boonsharing to the pet (and yourself) and provide the boons that may or may not be up on party members that it benefits trait wise, similar to what the NM line does, but give the pet “scholar runes” with the BM line. You’d really only want to use the quickness for fast casting druid skills like dropping 1 or channeling 4, so that is definitely a bit mote wasteful than the NM GMs, and the DPS difference is probably negligible regardless of which setup it would favor, though I have no doubt it favors NM.

I just like spreadsheets really lol.

The whole thought only occurred in regards to traiting shouts to give regen for Astral Force. I find that in smaller scale environments that glyphs, staff, and traited shouts are already overkill at generation, and that glyphs and staff are probably enough but that regen is nice to be apply to apply as a healer since Druid bursts more than sustains heals.

Still, Healing Spring, so yeah lol. Was just thinking out loud, so to speak

ANet has an issue with Minor Trait design across the board. Either they are great and really emphasize what picking that traitline should help with or be about, or just be generally useful.

And then on the other hand, you have traits literally so bad that calling them minor oversells them.

ANet doesn’t seem too keen on redesigns either. You won’t hear any disagreement out of me over the necessity of one though.

At this point I’m surprised ANet hasn’t let the balance team go in favor of more gem store artists to put on the payroll, since the game has seemed more and more like a cash grab every time I log in.

I honestly expect everything to change around Druid/Ranger, with maybe some unjustified (unless its a power creep nerf across the board but lol @ ANet ever doing that right without screwing Druid/Ranger up worse than everything else) nerfs the further solidify our position as middle of the pack to even replacing Daredevil and Berserker (PvP tier) as bottom. Especially since we even had a build that was listed as meta tier for some time on metabattle for the first time since metabattle came into existence, I know that really hit some nerves, and not just with the underlying classism that all of the “top players” have (no joke, the players whose names you know in PvP hate your class and think you’re a bad player that isn’t worth their time when they see the class you play is a ranger/druid).

This first round of leagues has been so poorly done however that the balance patch will cater to such a small community comparatively that it won’t make a difference to the health of PvP, since most people can’t even handle the terrible infrastructure that allows blatant MMR manipulation and punishes solo players for being solo.

Glass in general just doesn’t work in the metagame for anything other than Herald, and to a lesser but still strong and notable extent, Scrapper.

Not that you can’t “make” it work, the issue wouldn’t necessarily even boil down to survival as long as you don’t plan on standing on point in teamfights. But the real issue is all of the damage mitigation and ranged hate. Not that glass ranger won’t work, but that it just isn’t very optimal currently.

2-4 weeks from now and this could very well change.

Disclaimer: other people definitely have more raid experience than me.

Personally, on the typical Druid/Skirmishing/x builds though, regardless of gearing, I’d be inclined to agree that staff and glyphs provide enough generation.

Trait healing spring if more is needed and take that as the heal.l instead is probably the next best thing.

I’ve also seen scarce usage of water spirit… But I wouldn’t ever recommend even slotting it, so unless there is something I’m missing on that front, then yeah, but I suppose it would be worth the test for science.

Sidenote: I have been really curious about whether or not We Heal as One and the Beastmastery line would be a better traitline for builds seeking damage output than the typical Marksmanship or Nature Magic selections. Higher pet base stats and damage modifiers, copying boon received with the heal to the pet, more swapping and effects for doing so, Natural Regeneration for another possible Astral source should it be needed, etc. I mean, it might not necessarily beat out the modifiers on a Marksmanship damage build, but it definitely seems better to me logically on builds than running Nature Magic other than the minor traits that carry the selection of Nature Magic in the first place and that could be semi-replicated if not fully replaced by using Heal as One instead. I could be crazy/wrong though, but I’ve never seen the spreadsheet to show me.

So, the first part is a general “what is WvW right now” as far as what, in general, groups will be running.

For the most part, organized groups are running high damage Revenant/Heralds now that have replaced almost all of the high damage caster roles. Necros are only there now for wells and chills, and are running as survivable as they are comfortable with (aka typically tanky). Tempests are the more typical option over frontline and even backline Druids, because they can pump out constant healing and support where Druids can only really spike heal, but that doesn’t make Druid irrelevant, as Druids themselves are being used to keep the group healthy when the group needs to reset.

Outside of those builds, you still get your gank groups running stealthy, high mobility classes, and if you are roaming, the only way to deal with this is roaming a group; group play dictates strict control over positioning to not get picked off. Mesmers that aren’t gank are running support Alacrity Well PvP style builds that haven’t lost their effectiveness in WvW. You’ll also see some Dragonhunters running Control/Pull heavy builds and traps to try to grab people who lack stability and cause instant deaths by forcing them into blobs of enemies.

So now, I mentioned Druid, but where does Druid really fit right now? You can probably run frontline, but Tempests are just flat out more efficient there, so really the midline/backline is the better place to play. Staff/X, camping staff in the right build usually puts out enough damage and the pierce of the beam allows for target focus with minimal effort.

What builds would I run/recommend?
Personally I run this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTjUqQLLWxCOsAXLW6EMn+WAow90CCVLM4VaM9mWizTD-T1BFABaq+TN7PYlyPM1F4nSQAeCACcJAAA-w
and swap to GS against groups where we’re outnumbered, the enemies have reflects, or am roaming. Roaming, you would swap to Marksmanship over Nature Magic and run with slots 332 for big bursts.

Running regular Zerk or the new Marauder works just as well, if not better, especially if this setup is not affordable. The only difference is the quality of heals, and so I chose to build this way, not just because of the gear overlap with PvE content, but because you can more easily reset for yourself and groups without sacrificing a noticeable amount of damage in the grand scheme of damage output (aka in a group with max damage, yes, you might 1 shot a target, but a revenant squad can 1 shot large portions of players with coordinated spikes over and over, so your goal is more about contribution while not group support than actually being vital damage).

I hope this helps with, at the very least, your thoughts on how to build.

Norrath.5910:

jcbroe.4329:

ROM didn’t play soldiers in the ESL as an fyi for everyone. He swapped to celestial and the casters never caught it, because the casters still don’t know how to catch stuff like that. His 22.7k healthpool is pretty telling though, and combined with sword/torch we can assume that he isn’t running Marauder either. Durability runes of course.

Personally, I’d run Geomancy/Doom over Energy/Leeching on the sword/torch set, but that’s preference for bigger condi spikes since I don’t feel as though the loss of the other sigils has hurt my survival at all.

Besides that, the OPs builds are solid, though I skimmed over them because I didn’t expect to see anything crazy different from what anybody else that’s doing well is running.

Wow good catch, I looked back and you are 100% right. I cant believe I missed that. I do think soldiers is decent though, with maybe dagger offhand instead of torch for teamfighting. The torch did feel kind of weird with soldiers, now I know why.

Yeah, it isn’t anybodies fault but the casters really lol. They don’t multiclass enough to see his build setup and immediately say something about the lack of synergy, and apparently they don’t watch ROM stream at all either. It was one of those things that bothered me because I saw instantly that either he was running a really strange build or he wasn’t setup in his full build, but the casters went over it, did some fanboying, and then barely ever went back to his PoV.

But yeah, congrats on Legendary! I stopped queuing when I hit Ruby because of the hours I queue, I ended up against Final Form and PZ every game, and even though we were getting pips, it’s a beyond broken queuing system (for instance, shouldn’t I be with other solo players, and the 2 high MMR full premades be against each other, instead of pinballing matches between the 2 teams during the same hours) that I’m hoping is offset by an influx of holiday players and more people getting to higher divisions/MMR to boost up the population of people I queue against.

I run pretty much the same exact builds you do, though I guess I’m the black sheep because I’ve started swapping to Soldier runes for condi heavy teams, and Durability for typical teams.

ROM didn’t play soldiers in the ESL as an fyi for everyone. He swapped to celestial and the casters never caught it, because the casters still don’t know how to catch stuff like that. His 22.7k healthpool is pretty telling though, and combined with sword/torch we can assume that he isn’t running Marauder either. Durability runes of course.

Personally, I’d run Geomancy/Doom over Energy/Leeching on the sword/torch set, but that’s preference for bigger condi spikes since I don’t feel as though the loss of the other sigils has hurt my survival at all.

Besides that, the OPs builds are solid, though I skimmed over them because I didn’t expect to see anything crazy different from what anybody else that’s doing well is running.

Elxdark.9702:

The mightstacking one is the best, once you master all your bursts (timing very important) and rotations you’re invincible in 1v1 and do really well in 1v2.

Staff/GS is too strong for mobility/stun and damage.

Do you (or anybody else) use the GS build? Curious because I’d like to hear you experiences with it since mine aren’t great.

Mobility yeah, the GS is great. But I still haven’t got the GS to do more damage on any build that has crit chance. On Crusader/Cavalier builds, I’d take GS any day.

I also feel especially shoehorned into Marksmanship if I want to use GS because of not getting the damage I’d like out of it and relying on Moment of Clarity procs more than ever.

So I’d really genuinely (because the Internet doesn’t carry tone well and I’m being sincere) like to here your experiences with it and how you’re getting it to work.

Royale.5863:

jcbroe.4329:

Hmmmm, I had been thinking of making a build with SB. Note I’m on my phone so no builder and this is an untested theorycraft.

Carrion Amulet, Durability Runes.
Shortbow, Staff : Energy/Geomancy Geomancy/Doom
Skirmishing: 331
Nature Magic: 312
Druid: 333

Healing Spring, Flame Trap, Poison Trap, Stunbreaker of Choice. I’d go with Glyph or Lightning Reflexes. Strength of the Pack as the elite because you need stability, but Entangle if you’re brave. If super brave and don’t want the stunbreak either, Signet of Stone for tankiness, signet of the wild for more astral force regen.

Basically, you’re looking to have as much CC as possible and spam traps. Quickdraw on SB 2 or 5, staff 3 or 5, those are the priority skills to get the proc on. Lockdown easily harassed targets as much as possible.

I can’t say how the build will perform, it’s an idea that’s been in the back of my head since HoT dropped that I haven’t tried.

That works for me though I would take 332 in skirmishing since you’re using a shortbow. I would definitely go with glyph of equality for the stunbreak as its got the lowest cooldown and it has an AOE daze which can proc your Druid skill Ancient Seeds also.

What pets would you take?

Smokescale and either Bristleback or Wolf, depending on if I felt I need damage or control.

@Mcrocha;
Absolutely it’s an issue with other things being overtuned.

I find Druid to actually be in a really balanced spot, where certain amulets and runes are the things that would even make Druid be considered problematic (why is Celestial still in PvP). Compared to the other things I see in game and in the ESLs, I think that bunker mesmers and the Herald builds are in tiers of their own, and Tempests are right below that because they have the ease of boon access to cover their weaknesses with little to no effort, which would be interrupting heals and overloads, and then Druids below that who all you really have to do is wait until a Druid pops Celestial Form and stays in it without flashing in and out, and you can condi/CC/burst them and there is usually nothing that they can do with less than 25% stability uptime and the delayed benefits of glyphs.

You’re making me really want to play glass today by the way lol.

I do have to just quickly mention how fun Crusader GS is with MM/BM/Druid though. It’s the only GS build I’ve enjoyed so far.

Hmmmm, I had been thinking of making a build with SB. Note I’m on my phone so no builder and this is an untested theorycraft.

Carrion Amulet, Durability Runes.
Shortbow, Staff : Energy/Geomancy Geomancy/Doom
Skirmishing: 331
Nature Magic: 312
Druid: 333

Healing Spring, Flame Trap, Poison Trap, Stunbreaker of Choice. I’d go with Glyph or Lightning Reflexes. Strength of the Pack as the elite because you need stability, but Entangle if you’re brave. If super brave and don’t want the stunbreak either, Signet of Stone for tankiness, signet of the wild for more astral force regen.

Basically, you’re looking to have as much CC as possible and spam traps. Quickdraw on SB 2 or 5, staff 3 or 5, those are the priority skills to get the proc on. Lockdown easily harassed targets as much as possible.

I can’t say how the build will perform, it’s an idea that’s been in the back of my head since HoT dropped that I haven’t tried.

@Sol;
Yeah I’m right there with that line of thinking as well.

I think the one thing to add to the list is sustained DPS weapons or consistently reliable ones. Like you said, staff for sure, but as a swap, LB or sword/x. Axe and GS both perform similarly in that they rely way too much on being both point blank on an enemy and landing skills with huge, obvious wind ups to be effective. LB and Sword can both put out consistent damage in their own right, though clearly my personal preference is LB.

So basically, personal sustained damage output > burst. Besides, the pet bursts and makes up for any lack of it that a build could have.

@Mcrocha;
I LOVE Marauder Druid and would typically swear by it. Honestly, especially without a dedicated team for queuing, I just run celestial because it carries easier. Both in that it is more forgiving and that it allows for an easier time making up for “weak” teammates.

Personally, I think NM/BM/Druid Marauder does exactly what Marauder Scrapper does but brings more team support. The real issue is that the meta is moving even more condi and that particular Scrapper build has tons more sustain against condi whereas the Druid version does not. If everything had to sacrifice power damage to do condi damage, swapping NM to WS would be fine, but with the Viper builds running around and being perma-CC’d in overload airs, you lose lots of sustain that the scrapper build doesn’t.

I want to believe Druids are 3rd in line for being able to run glassy builds in the current meta. I just haven’t found one just yet. My go to is always WS/NM/Druid though.

The simplified comparison between Marauder Scrapper and Druid: Scrapper has high damage, good tanking for a Marauder build, and strong condi removal. Druid only get to have 2 of those options and sacrifices the 3rd where Scrappers don’t.

I still love it though. Damage ranger/druid is much too fun for its own good.

So far I’m having the most success with Sols build. I really like the concept of Crusader with the GS but it doesn’t seem to do enough against the meta, and with the meta switching towards viper’s Heralds and classes that support them while self-sustaining, the low healthpool gets even more detrimental. It seems like the concept would have been really fun pre-HoT when things actually died though, so in February when the game gets balanced, hopefully ANet tunes some of the extreme so more builds like this can become commonplace.

I’ve tried the few condi builds and I honestly just don’t have a feel for it. Every time I play them I feel completely outclassed in the condi department by Reapers and Heralds and wishing I was either playing one of them or that I had build more supportive instead of more towards condi. But that really could just be me, I see how the builds would work really well on paper, so it could just be who’s been on my team and who I’ve been up against. Diamond Skin Tempests though, I have no idea how you condi guys aren’t ripping your hair out.

If you’re playing with an organized team, and the team can support the Druid with condi cleanse, then I can definitely see swapping out the cleanses beyond Druidic Clarity and traited glyphs for traits that enhance the capabilities of Druid more, like Moment of Clarity. That would be the most ideal, but with the way teams are running, it looks like Tempest, and Druids are competing for a slot, so seeing both classes on a team might be rare or even inefficient.

Why does this matter again?

Oh wait….

bloodpyrope.8630:

jcbroe.4329:

But yeah, I had considered Refined Toxins, I just have to ask; is the threshold manageable?

Threshold might not always be manageable for yourself, but since it applies to pets, it’s guaranteed poison on pet swap basically.

True, wasn’t really considering the pet. I’ll have to give it a try later on today, it should really help against the Scrappers and Heralds (power anyhow, condi users maybe not so much).

@Sol;

Thanks for the write up, I’ve been having a lot of similar thoughts as I’ve been playing.

I’ll have to try out refined toxins definitely. I’ve always just taken Shared Anguish because “free stun break” is logically good as utility bar compression is invaluable, but really there is only a single CC I’ve even been having any issues with and it’s something Shared Anguish doesn’t solve, and that’s the revenants passive Taunt from their retribution line. Especially when I accidentally drop a Celestial Form 3 on it, and realistically, any organized team would have more than enough time to destroy me when that mistake is made.
But yeah, I had considered Refined Toxins, I just have to ask; is the threshold manageable?

Last thing; for the Alignment versus Tides debate, I literally have a mental debate with myself before every game starts over it lol. What I came down to is Alignment not because of their direct effects, but because of cast times. Tides cast time makes the traited heal/removal for it happen on more of a delay than Alignment making it harder for me personally to use the traited effect reliably, which is why I ended up dropping Tides for Alignment.
If Ancient Seeds starts working with Tides, I think my favor would switch back towards it, but I also hate that currently Tides can eat an Ancient Seeds proc and you will never get the root from it ever.

@Everyone;

I see that for the most part, we’re all thinking similarly; build for healing power, pick up stats that support your build, try to be tanky.
Not a lot of responses so far, but it’s generally good to have some sort of established consensus like that.

@anduriell;

Yeah for WvW I have Zealots armor and weapons with Celestial Trinkets (not ascended Zealots trinkets yet but I’ve ended up liking Celestial better for the HP, toughness, and offensive stats, while still bringing my healing power between 800-900 total for 4k Celestial Form 3 heals and etc on increased healing values).

Ideally I would run something like it in PvP. It’s like the Celestial Might Stacking builds with no need to stack might, which opens up a lot of build diversity through traiting.

ANet probably won’t get around to even bring Zealots to PvP while doing so would be relevant though.

This is what I’ve ended up with personally: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnUqAFsiVsCOsActgFMBDum2TLqP3gVVFrZZNACAlMtzA-TJxHABCcJACf/BAeCAFVGAA

I actually hate “having” to make a lot of the choices I made, but it seems like I needed to up against this meta.

The boonstacking is still a huge issue against people that actually know how and when to corrupt, but at some point I had to figure that Revenants and tempests are throwing boons around like candy anyhow that can be corrupted, and that having the boons is nice when it works out.

Considering that EVERYONE starts at the same place and there’s no placement matches or anything of the sort, it really shouldn’t matter considering that the Division next to your name is mostly just a function of time spent PvPing, right?

Alright, so now that we know that we’re pretty stuck with the state of PvP until February, let’s have that discussion about PvP builds for Druid.

Note: Druids are meta. At least for now. It took awhile, and many people here still aren’t happy with the state of the class, but it is considered effective in PvP, which is always a good thing.

Here’s the metabattle build (note: this has been altered every week the ESL stream happens): http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_Celestial_Avatar

Generally speaking, for this build, NM is more popular than MM, as this build has been copy/pasted from a particular player from the last ESL and somebody edited the page.

Variations of the build include LB over GS or Sword/Torch over GS, and potentially Crusader’s Amulet as a less popular amulet choice (and probably less effective).

The other build has a base setup of this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQFAGjEqQLL4wCctYJTwgnp90hqTiLB04aSWBgDQJT7M

Common selections for weapons are the same as the above build, but more dependent on the rest of the build. The utility slot can either be another Survival skill or Signet of the Wild. Amulet choices include Celestial or Sentinel’s, no other choices have really been witnessed in high end PvP.

Above all, this is the place to have the discussion about PvP builds. I’m not claiming any of these builds to be the best, I really just want to have the discussion about PvP builds because I’ve been struggling to settle in on a build myself.

Generally speaking, again, these will be the common opponents, not counting other Druids:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Alacrity_Bunker
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Power_Shatter
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_Meditrapper
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_Condition_Mallyx
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_Power_Shiro
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Carrion_Frostfire
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Marauder_Hammer
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Celestial_Auramancer

Some questions I’ve had:

• Which of our builds competes the best in the current metagame?
• Is the mightstacking build worthwhile or the best choice given the existence of the heavy counters in the metagame (Reaper, Condi Herald)?
• Can we come up with a “generic” build for league queuing that fairs well against common enemy builds/threats?

I’d love to hear some other peoples input.

Archon.6480:

Solar beam of death!!! seriously, though, I haven’t noticed this.

I haven’t noticed it either.

I HAVE noticed animation glitches where the auto stops appearing to hit, but the combat log still shows numbers, even if the animation on my screen has bugged out.

Alignment, Equality, and Tides are all good in their own right, at least in PvP, and there’s no question Empowerment is good in PvE.

Really they probably just need small tweaks. The heal glyph isn’t strong enough for most content, and Ancient Seeds does not play well at all with Tides, where if there was more synergy, it would be appropriately strong.

The elite is probably the most situation and the non-celestial form version needs looking at. However, the Celestial Form version is so strong (doubles healing output) that it can be overlooked, at least in PvE.

Every class is suffering from utility balance/design inequality though, to some degree. ANet didn’t fix it when the game was new, they didn’t fix it throughout time, and with even more utilities than ever before, they’ll be even less inclined to touch the system, they’ll probably just keep building new and better skills that outshine the old ones.

bloodpyrope.8630:

Does /dance or /sit unroot you?

Yes.

/15charlimit

Holland.9351:

Casual Dad.2358:

Another confirmation of this bug. Roots you randomly and the only way to move again is to use Ancestral Grace again off cool down.

Confirming this bug.

It happened to me on the first time I used the skill, so I expect it to be happening a lot to the point of being unplayable.

It hasn’t happened for me once outside of completely detrimental situations.

For those of you that want to go the route of full ascended zealot’s gear, here’s a quick fyi:

There are no Zealot’s trinkets/amulets/rings/backs available.

Just thought that would be relevant to the conversation. Personally I want the route of Ascended Zealot’s Armor and Weapons, Pack Runes (was split between these and hoelbrak, the runes are mainly a WvW choice) and Celestial Trinkets, with a Zerk backpiece.

I took a screenshot of the stats to give people an idea.

This fyi is mainly because the builder has Zealot’s trinkets on it, and they are nonexistent, and a lot of people (like myself) like to have an idea of what they are aiming for and budgeting for in game.

Hope this helps somebody.

Ryan.9387:

Go for the Eyes: Fixed an issue that allowed this ability to trigger blindness at an incredibly fast rate. This trait now has a 12-second internal cooldown.

“Incredibly Fast Rate” – TIL Incredibly fast is once every 4s

There was an actual issue with it. Sol was showing it off on his last stream. A certain trait and pet combination with this trait made the pet blind with every attack.

Regardless, I feel like we all should have been anticipating this change since the Core Spec patch, and it was mentioned numerous times in passing that an ICD would be added to this trait.

It’s just that, in typical ANet fashion, the trait finally got the nerf treatment we expected so far in the future that it’s both inconsequential to the metagame (PvP) AND painful to witness because it’s one of those “why now” sort of changes.

Yeah, astral force is a very strange resource mechanic at the moment (comparatively), and the fact that it gets 100% removed on down is really nonsensical.

Actually it was gifted to me by a person in a way that would have been genuinely rude to ask them to refund themselves the money, or try to refund it myself.

Shrugs

I advised everybody not to get it unless they play multiple classes or the price comes down considerably, OR, they allow piecemeal purchasing (only pay for the specs you want to play, etc).

I’m really not sure what the point of this thread is, or what it has to do with rangers.

Are you suggesting the outlet for giving feedback should no longer be used to give feedback? Are you suggesting that because people express emotions when they give feedback, that those people are wrong for having an emotional attachment?

Sorry, but these forums are an “everyone” experience, not just a “you” experience. Within the code of conduct, people can post however they feel and whatever they think regarding whatever topic they choose.

People complaining about their classes are right to complain about their classes, because otherwise, if everybody decided to get their nose nice and brown while telling ANet how fantastic they are; patches would never get done, balance would never get made, and ANet may as well not even hire balance programmers at that point, because everything is always perfect as per the community, so why employ a team that specializes at changing things?

Tone policing or causing rage or whatever this topic is meant to be, it is definitely not constructive in any way.

Either of the suggestions work.

Clearly, the current system is convoluted and therefore, with too many little pieces of things making up what it is, making any sort of balance change is a difficult task without hurting something else unintentionally.

Ignoring the very long rant I could go on about design choices, it boils down to needing a simplified "environment" in order to make true evaluations and changes so that balancing and iterating upon classes is more streamlined and less complex.

Celestial Form in itself is already nice, Astral Force is just an unneeded mechanic that complicates the implementation and usage of Celestial Form, and a simple cooldown would easily resolve every issue that has been had and that will be had with Celestial Form.

I’d almost miss reading the facepalm worthy patchnotes.

@Shadelang;
ANet has offended me with their incompetence and their inability to distinguish between good and bad design. I’ve been watching the seesaw of changes for weeks now, biting my tongue, assuming they were just working out “kinks.”

THIS PATCH is not only a total reversion to the original issue of what astral force generation was, but it adds an additional gating mechanism on top of the issue.

Total incompetence is inexcusable. If they find me offensive, then fine, they’ve finally pushed me to that point. I’m normally capable of understanding the reasoning behind even some of their most far-reaching changes, but the handling of Druid has been utter kitten. It’s like watching a baby try to walk for the first time, you’d think they hadn’t designed a game before, and I know that isn’t the case because I’ve been playing since day 1 prophecies.

ANet….. what are you even doing right now?

It wasn’t gated enough, so a cooldown was added AND it drained out of combat, which was too much of a gate.

The out of combat draining of astral force was logically removed because celestial form was nearly inaccessible.

Blah blah other overtuned heavy handed nerfs blah blah.

Undocumented change to healing sources that previously didn’t add Astral Force start adding Astral Force. Now, instead of reviewing that change, let’s just gate Celestial Form worse than when it was draining out of combat.

There must be just this massive list of kittenty ideas you plan on throwing at us every other week, isn’t there?

Sigh, that’s why I’ve been absent for these past few weeks. I just can’t take this “throw kitten at the fan and then run up and smear it so that ALL OF IT sticks” balancing philosophy.

It’s basically the “in combat” astral force generation all over again, except worse, because it’s use is further gated to a specific scenario beyond just being in combat. If you can’t see how bad of a design that is, then I highly suggest scrapping your entire development team that signed off on this change and hiring some of us here (like me, I’m a programmer) that actually play the game and understand how to not totally kitten over a class every time I think up a change.

Please revert this change, and then stop touching the class unless your name reads Irenio, and Irenio, you should be submitting a list of potential changes through us to get feedback before you even put the code work into them to make them go live in case they are world class kitten ideas like this one so that you can save yourself the time and energy when they are ideas like this recent implementation.

Personally, for LB/GS and Cele, I landed somewhere around this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAVWjEqQLLWyCOsAXLWMEM4s6YNtyEAWXNgm31JoFUy0qA-TZBFwAEuAALOCAt2fAaZAAPCAA

Though I’m still not settled in on it yet (I’ve been having a hard time dropping Marauders but the benefit of cele over it is clear since the it doesn’t seem like you gain enough meaningful killing power with Marauder to justify using it).

Other builds would be:
Point standing: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fnEqAFsiVsCOsActglMBDemuTHqOJuEQjrJZFAOAlMtKA-TZRHABB8QAE4IAAwFAg89HOqMAA

Cele Damage: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8fjUqQLLWyCOsAVLWyEM4ZaPdo+UDicTsmkVA4AUy0qA-TZRHwABeIACOCAAuAAo3f4YZAA

The last 2 are still works in progress. The first is pretty set in stone.

Being able to slap celestial on a build tends to do that to a build/class.

In general, the existence of celestial is counter intuitive to give and take balancing methodology and allows certain classes to run builds that overperform in the amount of roles they can compete for.

The fact that this hasn’t been addressed for a silly long period of time now and that leagues are right around the corner should speak volumes about how seriously people should evaluate the competitive value of the state of the game.

So yeah, sorry that ANet has made yet another spec that can work with a toxic to the competitive atmosphere amulet.