I actually like the Assault on F2.
It gives that nice synergy with timing your BM bursts in PvP.I can’t decide which I want more since I’m enjoying my brightest days of PvP I ever had in my life thanks to having Assault on F2.
I’m fine with not having a smoke field. We’d still be inferior to any other skipping class and I find on demand Assault more helpful in PvP than a smoke field.
exactly this. rangers just need a little bit of that extra burst. taking it away from us for the smoke field would nerf a lot of builds, whereas not a single build is benefited by the smoke field.
Seed of Life also blinds.
Going to be investigating this. It may require some change to Smoke Assault, since the active skills are intended to be a little stronger than the passive skills.
please consider that an on-demand burst and the might stacks are just as valuable as the smoke field, depending on the build and the player.
is it by any chance possible to have us select a pet’s f2’s in the menu? would this take a lot of programming/work to implement? the community is really torn on this one, and I’d be really disappointed with the reversal. especially if you have to nerf Smoke Assault further. it’s in a really good place now. and we still have the smokefield, albeit not on demand. at the very least, leave Smoke Assault as is.
dear devs,
I was hoping this would have been addressed in the previous patch. could we get an ETA on this fix?
I don’t really care for putting these builds into meta battle, but you guys can if you have positive experiences with them. the less people use the marauder might stacking build, the better for me. the more people accept the inefficient cele druid, the better for me as a solo queue’er. it was the same case for my valk remorseless build…no one else ran it, and I was ok with that cuz I owned people with it in high mmr, and very few understood what was happening. anyway, do let me know your experiences with the cele build as I am curious.
the minstrel glyph build, however, will become a nasty, obnoxious part of the meta for sure, unless they nerf the ammy. it’s probably the best bunker in the game, and it seems made for the druid and ventari, except ventari is entirely broken and useless at the moment.
So far the strongest build ive played.. The burst, the survivability, the mobility, the healing support and the CC are outrageous. Mark my words, theres a nerf coming
very nice find, I ran a MoC/survival marauder version in BWE3 with decent results. Generally, you want to pair Remorseless with survival skills. otherwise youre just not getting enough fury procs. a good player will dodge your spikes more often than not, so you wanna keep proccing the fury. with glyphs, you cant do that. this basically means that your damage just isn’t sustainable, and rather low as the fight gets longer. you’re assuming you’ll be able to one-two-shot some scrub, but even with scrubs, that’s unlikely to happen due to the insaaaane amount of blocks and invulns in game right now. this is why I dropped my Valk build for HoT. I was very sad.
secondly, lack of on-demand condi cleanse leaves you vulnerable to getting condi-bombed and spiked. at least run druidic clarity.
thirdly, your might-stacking capability is quite limited. actually, it’s only limited to when you have SoTP up, which isn’t very often at all.
I will definitely try it out though! ithx for sharing. t wont be getting nerfed for sure, dont worry. feel free to quote me when or if it happens.
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The slightly different version of this build posted here – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Three-Strong-Druid-Builds-In-PVP is the better one. Glyphs are clunky and their condition removal seed is also harder to use and less reliable than a simple cond remover like traited survival skills.
I don’t think my version is necessarily better, but I will comment on a few things:
- it’s for killing stuff; it excels at roaming and +1’ing
- whereas the cele build is stronger for holding a point contested and slowly whittling down a target; it also heavily bolsters your teammates who on are point with you, but to be frank, marauder does it almost as well while putting out superior damage
You can use the same build with marauder though.
- glyphs and the Seed of Life they spawn cant be used to clear condis reactively; but the build makes up for that by being tankier; I would say, it’s generally not advisable to use glyphs + marauder, and more appropriate to use glyphs + cele/minstrel. still, cele/glyph druid remains super vulnerable to getting condi-bombed and spiked.
it’s possible we’re still a little bit stuck on the cele meta. I think cele is just short of being competitive on the druid due to, as I said before, our lack of condi output other than torch. for example, id love it if our sword did some torment damage…it would make our condi builds so much better. I’m very open to being proven wrong though.
I feel the cele druid would have felt right at home in the previous meta as a support/offpoint holder. in the upcoming one though, its damage is too low so minstrel simply becomes better for bunking and supporting. and marauder remains best for outright melting people. my 2c.
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yep any of those would work.
I also wrote a little blurb on might stacking.
I continue to test the celestial glyph builds that some people are running. I’m just too hooked on that marauder damage, and I’m not sold on celestial at all. not yet anyway.
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video pls.. cause I’m not having that issue. not saying you’re wrong. Just wanna see whats up.
It absolutely puts you in combat. The behavior is inconsistent though. Seems to happen to me 4/5 times. It’s very easy for you to test your self with out someone making a video. Just use Ancestral Grace, then swap weapons. If your weapon swap goes on cooldown, you’re in combat.
Back to the idea of it being inconsistent. This mostly occurs when I am in a pvp match. Doesn’t seem to happen as often just running around the mists. This is truly frustrating.
it kills the mobility that we’re supposed to have as roamers.
BTW i just tested it, and did not go into combat. when around no enemy.
it definitely does, maybe not every single time. test it out in mists and in a match. it slows down our run speed to combat speed.
now pls balance lingering light, change duration and cooldown, its too strong right now
well, as long as they don’t make it something stupid like 10s ICD. which would make it useless. I’m thinking 5s.
lol I made 3 threads about this already, they all got buried. welcome everyone.
Druid really isnt overpowered at the moment, people are just kittened and have no clue how to deal with them. 1 stability and 0 stunbreaks = try to actually cc before blowing all ur cooldowns like a solo q hero
I usually roll with 3 stun breaks and SoTP. on rare occasions, 2.
thanks for the build. I’m also a fan of s/wh.
might stacking is definitely a thing, but as you said, because we don’t have easy access to condi damage, cele becomes very inefficient for us. cele tanking is ok, but damage is very poor.
for bunking/supporting, minstrel is way better. for damage/support and might stacking, marauder. also it’s a bit early to call anything meta really. I actually don’t think cele will be meta on the ranger. minstrel is basically god mode now, not sure what will happen with that. and might stacking on marauder is probably some of the top dps in the game
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it never damaged foes. the skill was reworked to be an evade so maybe during this process something got messed up.
Yes, because your healing the people you mist run into. Working as intended.
this is incorrect. even when there are no people around u, it will put you into combat. it’s a bug.
honestly so far, tempests have just been free kills. but we don’t have to discuss prof vs. prof garbage here.
while we don’t do the most damage with healing power amulets, minstrel is super strong for bunking. and cele works for bunking and offensively to an extent. not to mention u can support your team just fine even wearing marauder.
the reason I didn’t include cele in my fav build list is that it’s just middle of the pack mostly because we simply lack good condi options. s/t to me is just bad. it’s outshined by marauder for damage.
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who cares about how hard u hit? it has 1k HP, 1250 with healing runes. it requires an immense amount of CC to bring it down, but even then due to the blind spam, it’s difficult.
Lingering Light + Minstrel is over the top. and I main druid.
Clerics is way better for 1 vs 1s giving more sustain and double the damage, Minstrels only advantage is better burst survival and the boon duration once it actually works.
no, minstrel + LL allows us to bunker against 2-3 good players.
no problem, enjoy. as I was telling Sol, it’s really nice that for once to have multiple viable builds available to us. mind you, theyre all druid builds =\
LB/staff with might stacking is probably the most damage we can output right now. because staff is so well-rounded, and because we have celestial shadow, multiple stunbreakers, and LL, survivability is great. I find LL necessary to give us some more tank, if going marauder. I didn’t have good results with AS at all.
I ran GS/staff in beta, it was ok. but the sustained damage is poor. the combo is too defensive. staff is so good defensively that we don’t actually need GS for defensive purposes imo. which is why LB works so well. and yes, staff is absolutely necessary for filling your bar. more avatar means more LI, more NC, more heals.
I’m also not feeling celestial, the damage simply isn’t there but it can bunk well. if I wanna support and bunk for my team, I’m going minstrel. if I wanna kill stuff, I’m gonna go marauder might stacking.
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^ that’s entirely false. a whole bunch of us are running effective offensive builds with celestial and marauder. druids are very strong 1v1, not to mention group fights.
I came up with a pretty similar build back in bwe3. id only use trapper runes for the survivability.
^just do it with a teammate. I can handle 2v1’s on my minstrel druid quite easily spamming lingering light, but the key is to bring lots of hard CC.
don’t wanna bump this up too many times, but after seeing a couple of rangers running Lb/staff, I was impressed. I changed the first build, switching s/wh for LB, and it’s incredible. the damage is really high, survivability is decent, great for 1v1’s. I still prefer LL over AS for the extra utility and survivability it gives the team. the blinds make a huge difference.
on average I’m able to maintain 15-ish stacks of might, and easily 25 with SoTP. Lb hits so hard. I thought survivability would be an issue, but it’s not really especially with latest CAF changes.
I also wanna encourage people to try out the tiger for fun, he lands the f2 almost every time. it’s easy to stack might on him, and the leap hits for like 4-5k.
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nope. there are some really good bunk specs, but damage is so high. it’s actually perfect right now.
Ranger takes no skill no matter how you build it and this meta is bunker meta ATM. Prove me wrong. You will NEVER get a point back vs. a good team with a Druid because they introduced Druid/Minstrel.
lol druids have like no stab. so just lock them down.
AG puts us into combat at the end of the cast with no enemies around, effectively compromising our mobility in pvp. I was hoping to see this fixed in today’s patch. any ETA on this?
^i can attest to this.
With a custom build of mine, I’ve got access to 10.5s of immobilize, 2 knockdowns, 2 knockbacks, 2 pulls, and a ward. 2 of these CCs are aoe and the rest is single target all while mostly coasting at a comfortable 1200 range. I may not spike like hell, but watching people squirm as the reaper on my team cuts them into pieces while they’re incapable of reacting is quite satisfying. 1v1, all of that CC combined with the blocks will literally allow me to smack you around like a ragdoll (not uncommon to 100-0 a person after they’ve burned their defenses without taking a hit). Cool thing is, I only have one trap slotted, but people keep crying about traps, so the chances of this being nerfed any time soon doesn’t seem like a possibility :P.
All hardcountered by ranged pressure. I’m not saying it’s not strong, it is. Just saying people need to try to outplay the DH before whining.
Right click on the friendly with combat cam. Keep an eye on side party panel.
I played cele for quite a bit but staff just has too low dmg to make alle the offensive stats work imo.
This has been my experience as well. Even with 25 stacks, which isn’t easy to achieve when SoTP is on CD, cele staff just doesn’t have the pressure. Arguably, we have torch as well but the field is situational and #4 is only 2 stacks.
Lets look at what chronos, scrappers, reapers and heralds are offering. This level of utility and damage is what we have to strive for. As someone else mentioned in my thread, cele is inefficient on the ranger because we don’t output enough Condi damage. This leaves us with marauder simply leaving cele in the dust especially with might stacking in terms of raw power dmg output. And minstrel does a much better job supporting… 1400 healing power vs. 700 is a huge difference on the druid. 2k toughness vs. 1500 is also a big difference. Anyway, that’s my 2c.
it’s a solid all-around build. i spent a few hours on it over the weekend, and the damage output isn’t quite there. you’ll also struggle with one stun break and no on-demand condi wipe, which makes the build not “next leve”. might stacking is also very dependent on SoTP, which isn’t really up often enough, to get you to the 20+ might range.
but overall, solid, id run it.
no worries, I’m not taking it the wrong way. we’re both pretty stubborn with different play styles lol. as I said, it’s really nice for a change to have several viable builds for once.
I tested the crap out of glyphs, and from my experience, when youre getting locked down, immobed, and trained you need the condi cleanse INSTANTLY, not in 0.5 or 1s. or you simply eat the spike. in marauder stats, u just cant afford to do wait for the seed to blow up. its range is only 240. the two stunbreakers are definitely there, but as you probably know, Protect Me doesnt cut it as an invuln in large aoe brawls on point.
if I were to run LB and glyphs on a marauder build though, id definitely use yours =P
I fully support this idea, it’s fantastic. I’m worried they’ll say “sorry, no time/resources, maybe next year”
a lot of vision went into the druid and I feel ashamed the ranger community doesn’t recognize this. the smokescale f2 nerf was needed, everyone rational knows it.
I would like to chime in once again to vote AGAINST reverting. having an on-demand burst and the ability to might stack is a much better package for us.
I would also like to emphasize that 95% of the people posting here would never even use the smoke field tactically because it requires a) a team, and b) coordination. secondly, you can still blast the smoke field when the smokescale drops it after his Smoke Assault. lastly, with the Smoke Assault damage nerf, not having it on-demand would make it extremely subpar.
druids already bring more than enough team support and we could use a bit of on-demand spike. I implore the devs to leave smokescale as is right now, it’s perfect. please don’t always concede to mass whining because like the masses IRL, many players don’t have a good grasp on the tools theyre being given.
question: why can’t we decide which skill is on F2?
this would be a very nice addition to pet customization. but I imagine they don’t have the resources and the time to implement this.
just wanted to add that minstrel’s concentration doesn’t work even though the boon adjustment is displayed in the stats menu.
DH isn’t OP and people just need to learn to avoid the traps. it’s so very simple. DH is hardcountered by any ranged pressure. druid/ranger eats DH for breakfast. the only problem will be your unaware teammates if they run onto the point and get wiped.
so in other words, what makes DH OP is people’s stupidity.
honestly I feel there isn’t really a tier at the moment. there are so many effective builds right now.
I feel chrono, scrapper and herald/shiro are probably top dogs for brawling. everything else is in another tier when it comes to offensive power. that being said, there are quite a few builds that dish out solid damage while bringing huge team support.
there are two mistakes that I notice less experienced players making when judging efficacy. even with its high numbers, DH really doesn’t rank that high. it’s mid-tier at best. and well-played scrappers are probably tied with the chrono for best brawling/dueling capability. this is only when discussing offense.
there is definitely a category for best all-around builds that bring a decent amount of damage and a ton of team support. druid, reaper and ele are in that category. the other misconception is that reaper is actually good in 1v1, but the truth is the spec shines mostly in team fights.
He ranked Scrapper, Reaper and Herald lower than Druid.
I feel he could be misinformed or trolling to rank scrapper that low. but druid is very strong for the damage, tankiness, mobility and support it brings in one package. a few of us rangers are figuring out the most effective druid builds, but the general community wont really understand the strength of these builds until druid becomes a necessary part of every meta comp in the near future.
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I’m just so excited, we have like 4-5 viable builds. I don’t know what to play first.
Druidic Clarity, isn’t need. Chill necro is only condition class I’ve had problems against. Is only useful in big team fights you take fair amount in 1v1 and 2v2 for CAF to build so in saying that how useful is it really?.
well we need at least two stun breakers. against good players, probably 3 in the current meta. you’ll find u don’t really need the reduced CD from staff, its cd’s are already super low.
I’m also thinking the build could be a little bit more efficient without Protect Me. I’m just finding I really need that on-demand condi wipe these days. there are lots of burns out there still. but maybe it’s just my playstyle.
you will also find that with verdant etching + marauder combo, you just wont be able to wait around for that seed to blow up for the cleanse. u can do that running cele or minstrel, but u cant stand around with marauder stats…gotta keep moving. for that reason, relying only on glyphs for condi cleanses may be the biggest weakness of the build.
the other general comment I have about LB is that it doesn’t project damage too well, unless you have LTW. whereas staff always pierces. secondly, not spamming staff currently is a big disadvantage because it severely limits your AF generation. meaning that you cant spam those LI’s and NC’s for your team on point as often as you could if you used staff offensively and defensively. maybe if they get rid of AF decay, it could work. but I’m finding myself in staff all the time to keep that avatar flowing.
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running a minstrel bunker druid atm, and it's super strong. u can also go celestial. u can go MoC for huge daze duration, or just go for more tank. u can go 2, 3 or 5 glyphs if you want. there are so many options for the support druid right now. as you said, it's mobile and can hit hard with the smokescale.A druid simply outperforms a bunkerguard like an ele and a shoutbow did in the last meta.
I’m also running a marauder staff druid that can still supports with Lingering Light and avatar, while putting out huge deeps.
A minstrel bunker druid has the same disadvantages like a bunker guard.
Celestial druid is so much better. The heal is enough – way more heal than an ele/shoutbow could ever provide while you also deal decent damage.
i’ll look into it =)
My main problem with cele is that my marauder might stacking build, easily does 30% more damage (at least), while still supporting my team with heals, CC, and lingering light. and I haven’t yet felt it lacked survivability, even while on point. but i’ll test to make sure I’m not missing anything =P
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Concentration is currently not working with the Minstrel ammy. Please fix and thank you =)
running a minstrel bunker druid atm, and it's super strong. u can also go celestial. u can go MoC for huge daze duration, or just go for more tank. u can go 2, 3 or 5 glyphs if you want. there are so many options for the support druid right now. as you said, it's mobile and can hit hard with the smokescale.A druid simply outperforms a bunkerguard like an ele and a shoutbow did in the last meta.
I’m also running a marauder staff druid that can still supports with Lingering Light and avatar, while putting out huge deeps.
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I’m hearing that minstrel amulet is broken arm, as it does not correctly apply the boon duration (as in you are not getting it). Can anyone confirm this? If not true I may switch back. The upkeep a Druid provides with that level of sustain and heal is certainly note worthy.
i just confirmed, concentration is indeed broken on it. the amulet is gonna be bloody amazing when it’s fixed. i’ll make a little post in pvp forums.
I’m also experimenting with celestial/glyphs/MoC bunkery support type.
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One major flaw (or inefficiency) in your First build.
Celestial.
You are using Celestial on a build with 0 Access to conditions. Condition Damage is wasted even with Might Stacking.
hi guys, I made a huge error in the first build lol, the amulet is supposed to be marauder. I fixed it now. agh. that being said, celestial will give you similar results, make you tankier and make your heals stronger. but you just wont have that insane staff #1 pressure.
I don’t feel warhorn is needed tho, it’s already easy enough to get 25 stacks of might without it.
to also address Hiro’s point about WH. the first build was supposed to go with marauder ammy. but if we went celestial now, sword/torch would be a much better option! so that’s definitely an interesting alternative to the build. it’s just too bad we cant make traps work with cele…we need those stun breakers and the invuln so badly, and traps just don’t offer that.
I started playing around with a build I call the “Trapperdruid” – very nice and fast for roaming and yet a good supportive build centered around “Runes of the trapper” and “Shamans” Equip and “Ancient Seeds” for immobilize and bleed on knockdown/daze/etc.:
looks great for wvw for sure. in conquest, you’ll need a stunbreaker and more evades. I would also try sword/torch over SB. I want to love SB for its synergy with AS, but its damage is just so weak.
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Seed of Life explosion animation is missing now. in BWE3, it has a nice misty “poof” effect. it just swells and disappears now.
Ancestral Grace (Staff 3) puts you in combat for no reason. Really bad if you’re using it to get away when you need to, and annoying for roaming anywhere.
I desperately need them to fix this. it’s literally negating my mobility while roaming.
druidic clarity is a must imo. did you not select it by accident? you don’t have any on-demand condi cleanses, so waiting for SoL to pop in its small aoe in marauder stats isn’t an option.
id also go SoTP over unity. unity shines in its avatar version, but u generally need healing power for it to make a difference to your teammates.
looks great fun otherwise!
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after playing my druid for a while and enjoying the powerful heals and CC, I decided to try out the ventari in the mists…while I enjoy the staff mechanics, I was super disappointed by the centaur utility bar. tiny heals, clunky healing mechanics…am I missing something here? I wanna love the ventari but it just blows
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While I totally agree with you that we have not explored all options yet ranger is still subpar no matter what way you want to spin it. Base ranger really has nothing unique to bring to the table. Druid is nothing to write home about either in my opinion(see no scaling). Druid scaling with the healing stat is laughable at best. Same goes for damage in both condi and power stats. It is also why celestial is so good atm. The fact that are so many builds that do not work, shows that there is a glaring problem and it is primarily with the base class.
but this is just your opinion though. it’s not fact, and it’s certainly not my opinion. druid brings a ton of group utility to the table, and with the right build, a ton of damage as well. the spec is survivable, mobile, and overall strong. you can spec for more heals/support, or more glass which is a highly effective way of using staff to melt people.
the druid scales amazingly with healing power since post-BWE3 changes. im not sure where youre getting your numbers from. just put on a berserker amulet, look at the numbers, then put on the minstrel amulet and notice how well the abilities scale. so I guess the “unique” thing it brings is very large heals and group damage buffs, both passive and active. one example is Lingering Light, which is a super passive way of spamming blinds and sustaining your teammates.
the core profession blows right now though, and I just don’t see a reason to use it over some x/x/druid trait combination. I hope this gets addressed by Irenio over the next few months…a bunch of us spent a lot of our free time writing up feedback for the core profession’s weapons, utilities and traits that need revamps.
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I feel the balance is fairly good among the elite specs. people just aren’t used to the DH, and some of its damage will probably get shaved down.
the biggest balance problem is probably the scrapper actually. those guys are insane brawlers with ridiculous sustain, and they hit just a tad too hard for that amount of tank.
but as you implied, these numbers point to the core professions being left in the dust. I mostly know ranger, so I will speak to that. right now there is absolutely no reason to use core ranger. the druid trait line basically solves our problems of survivability and group utility. so any power ranger should be going into druid, because the player only gains a bunch of utility and survivability, without losing dps. this just points to how poorly the core profession was designed. same goes for a few others.
I knew this would be an issue when they announced elite specs. I knew all of their resources would go into them, leaving the core profs almost completely neglected.