PvE Raid Druid Questions

I have been raiding for 3 weeks now. 36 LI, Wings 1-4 Clear, and W7 killed Sabir & Adina.

I am having trouble, I feel when ground mechanics are under my feet. Last night during Sabir those whirl winds were getting the best out of me (3rd phase). I find myself so busy looking for people to heal that some times fail the simplest of mechanics. Does anyone have any tips or tricks to help with this? I understand more experience would help a great deal but how did you finally find the perfect balance?

Healing Skills... I sometimes feel that I have brought the wrong healing skill to the fight. I generally use Water Spirit, Glyph of Rejuvenation, or Healing Spring. Depending on if I am going to be away from the group, need burst heals, or condition cleansing. Is there something else I should be thinking about here or is there always a specific heal skill for each fight?

Is there anything that you know now that you wish someone would have helped you with earlier?

I am just trying to improve every chance I can get and I appreciate any sage advice you are willing to give! Thanks in advance!

Hi,

Are you more concerned about having to do mechs while being a main healer in general or just for a specific boss?Because doing mechs is what makes your job interesting and add variety. This is why I do still enjoy wing 1 as a druid (overheal, kiter) and get more bored on some bosses.Most of the bosses have a specific set of attacks. Once you know them you can chill a bit and refill your energy between phases.For the healing skill all 3 are great. I prefer healing spring even if the spirit is recommended on more static bosses just because this is what I played for so long (pve, pvp + I enjoy the combo field blasts with quickdraw)

Sabir is probably as hard for you as it is for anyone because this is a boss were all the squad does the same mechs. If too many fail, all fail. This is where your job can be stressful because the boss or the adds start stacking too much.For his breakbar use your special action with everybody and use regular ccs (pets / ca 3) to try to finish it or just stabilize his breakbar so your allies can finish it.Try to heal the people who do the adds before they leave. They will get beaten up pretty hard otherwise. But your main focus should be to stay stacked around the boss, they will probably come to you to get some heal.The wind is actually pretty easy to avoid. There is a pattern on the ground around the boss. It looks like a +. And tornadoes do follow the border meaning if stay close to Sabir and not in the borders of the + you never get inside once and lose your buff or time to heal. You and the all squad should stay on the same part just before the red tornado.

If this is training or in vocal people can also tell you about the positioning.

Edit : On some bosses you can also pick search and rescue to tp people for rez (Cairn), protect me (Sloth if your team does not have enough stab) or a push (glyph of tide). But the one you are most likely going to take outside of the spirit is entangle for bosses that require immob. I almost never use my spirit of nature before the last phase. I usually wait for a timing where things start to get out of hand and we will need it. Maybe people will not advise to do it (never asked how other druids feel about it but my squads always loved it), but since you move often and its tp has a long cd, he will die if you use him too early.If you see a boss for the first time, try to stay alive, listen to people and then you will know how to cycle your heals and cds. While CA is restrictive you also have a great range that can save people if they are too far (and repositioning with staff). The combo 2 + 3 is extremely good (high condi clear and huge heal) if you can land it.Lastly entering CA triggers quickdraw. Meaning you can use you CA 3 twice in a row if you have the good timing. (double heal, double blast, double cc)

I've been playing druid for quite a while, as I usually end up in heal jail whenever my guild does CMs or other more difficult fights. I prefer Healing Spring for 95% of fights. It fills up your CA quite nicely, and most bosses have at least a little condi that you can easily remove with it. For anything stationary, you can keep up your spirits (including nature) through the entire fight just by making sure they're in your healing AoEs. For something like Sabir, you wait to cast Nature Spirit until the last platform but then should have it up the whole rest of the fight.

@aymnad.9023 said:Lastly entering CA triggers quickdraw. Meaning you can use you CA 3 twice in a row if you have the good timing. (double heal, double blast, double cc)As you get more comfortable with healing and your group gets more experienced with mechanics, you can choose which CA skill to quick draw based on the situation. If you're maximizing damage and giving your group plenty of might, quick draw CA 5 with skill 4 in between the two uses of 5. If your party needs more healing, quick draw 4 with a 5 in between the two 4's. Pretty much only use your quick draw on CA 3 if you have people in seriously bad states, as it'll hurt your might output quite a bit.

@Aaron Forestman.4758 said:As you get more comfortable with healing and your group gets more experienced with mechanics, you can choose which CA skill to quick draw based on the situation. If you're maximizing damage and giving your group plenty of might, quick draw CA 5 with skill 4 in between the two uses of 5. If your party needs more healing, quick draw 4 with a 5 in between the two 4's. Pretty much only use your quick draw on CA 3 if you have people in seriously bad states, as it'll hurt your might output quite a bit.Great tip that can refill might for all the squad in between phases. But since druid / chrono can maintain might easily it is often not needed. I found that quick heal and double cc or blast was more usefull in general. (most of my squads are mixt randoms and guildies :) )

Thanks for all the help!

Now I have cleared 1-4 & 7 working on the dreaded Wing 5. I had a person in my party ask me to go double Long Bow during the Soulless Horror fight and I did but didn't ask why. Only thing I could think of is that maybe I was suppose to have different sigils? I understand what my jobs was pushing the golems out of the area but why the two bows? We did get the kill but I was left a little perplexed.

Also any tips for what most people say to be the hardest raid in the game against Dhuum?

@"Excursion.9752" said:Thanks for all the help!

Now I have cleared 1-4 & 7 working on the dreaded Wing 5. I had a person in my party ask me to go double Long Bow during the Soulless Horror fight and I did but didn't ask why. Only thing I could think of is that maybe I was suppose to have different sigils? I understand what my jobs was pushing the golems out of the area but why the two bows? We did get the kill but I was left a little perplexed.

Also any tips for what most people say to be the hardest raid in the game against Dhuum?

I guess you could be using quickdraw with your longbow #4? That's not really necessary on SH though. Bring glyph of tides and the glyph recharge reducing trait so it'll be up for every tormented dead, then each one you can hit with your glyph, your longbow, and go back to helping the group. That way you don't have to take skirmishing and you can take marksmanship for Lead the Wind. That piercing is really nice and allows you to not have to worry about positioning so much when knocking back the tormented dead.Here's my full build for SH:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwEM6MssCWCTh1wKxxe6rpVydCD-zRRYQBRoG1c7lR1pQ6VlvDA-eNote the fury pets instead of the standard set. You won't get to be on your axe/warhorn set as much as usual, so the pets help maintain fury for your group.

As for Dhuum, if you're planning on playing druid against him there's only a couple things you personally will need to deal with. His mechanics are slow but very unforgiving. It's entirely possible for you to be the only on-squad healer (with the kiter usually being a healer spec as well). If that's the case, you can't do a green. If you have another on-squad healer, you can. The biggest thing for the druid to do is swap to brown bear (your other pet can be a standard damage pet like an iboga) right before the greater death mark. As soon as everyone loses their soul, you need to hit your F2 so your bear can cleanse everyone around you of their torment. After that, you can assist with healing and reviving anyone that has taken more damage than they should in getting to their soul. When you get the bomb, it can be really nice to quickdraw your staff #3 to move rapidly across the room and avoid having to be away from the squad for long. If you manage to catch your kiter or a reaper in the initial healing blast with that movement, it'll be recharged almost immediately. If a reaper is in danger from ads, you can 1) provide it massive healing and 2) stealth it by exiting CA near it. This will change the ads' focus to a different reaper, giving your group plenty of time to kill them.

Let me know if you have any more questions! You can always mail/message me in game as well.

@Aaron Forestman.4758 said:

I guess you could be using quickdraw with your longbow #4? That's not really necessary on SH though. Bring glyph of tides and the glyph recharge reducing trait so it'll be up for every tormented dead, then each one you can hit with your glyph, your longbow, and go back to helping the group. That way you don't have to take skirmishing and you can take marksmanship for Lead the Wind. That piercing is really nice and allows you to not have to worry about positioning so much when knocking back the tormented dead.

I finally caught up with the guy who wanted me to bring double long bow to SH.It was for a push lock method that his group uses They have one druid that just heals and the other just focuses on the Tormented dead.main traits were this:Marksmanship -> Lead the Wind | For the piercing and cool downSkirmishing -> Quick Draw | For the cool down reduction of skill 4 each time you swap to the other bowDruid -> Ancient Seeds | For the immobilize after each push

After looking at this method It got me thinking would using Muddy Terrain in combination with this trait from skirmishing ->Trappers Expertise help with slowing down the Tormented Dead in the middle when his spawns? I am not sure if he would event trigger or be effected by the cripple but if he is it could provide some extra seconds when things are chaotic with Walls and such?

@Aaron Forestman.4758Or anyone else that knows!

I have another question for you.Soulless Horror - Tormented Dead PusherIf you have another healer in the group would it be alright to put on DPS gear so you can quickly kill the TD's outside the ring?Our current tactic is our scourge uses EPI to send conditions to him but I feel sometimes that is hit or miss. What do you typically do for this role?

@Excursion.9752 said:@Aaron Forestman.4758Or anyone else that knows!

I have another question for you.Soulless Horror - Tormented Dead PusherIf you have another healer in the group would it be alright to put on DPS gear so you can quickly kill the TD's outside the ring?Our current tactic is our scourge uses EPI to send conditions to him but I feel sometimes that is hit or miss. What do you typically do for this role?

I've seen two methods to taking down the TD's:1) The standard is a scourge with epi. This is what my guild uses. I bring tides and longbow. One small knockback with tides, then the epi hits, then the larger knockback with longbow. This got us through regular and CM modes.2) Let the TD stay on the group for just the right amount of time to get a nice amount of condis on it, then knock it off. This is more dangerous, but potentially more efficient.

If your other healer is enough, you certainly could take dps gear, but I think it would still be better to use either epi or leaving it on the group for a bit instead of focusing your own damage toward it. With SH being a somewhat high damage fight, I'd recommend two healers unless your squad is cleanly avoiding most everything.