lb or staff??

Hey guys,I mostly play tank druid sw/wh + staff but lately i've seen some druid going sw/wh + lb,I've been wonderring if lb is worth taking over staff, especially with the nice mobility and healing staff has.

thank you

Most tank/support druids will use a staff. If they play LB, its usually instead of the sw/wh.

If you're referencing the metabattle build, then yes, quite a few people I know, as well as myself, have been swapping in LB over staff. From what I hear it seems more common on EU than NA.

It's a "read the situation" scenario. And it would help to know if this is PvP or WvW. But regardless, what it ends up boiling down to is how offensive or defensive you'll need to be. Staff makes you almost purely defensive, and the weapon itself only pokes, it doesn't push kills, and in PvP, you become a point sitter and secondary support, whereas with LB, you lose some mobility and support, but can be more aggressive and actually push kills and decaps and play more offensively.

In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question. You'll have much more control and power to dictate the fight. In PvP, it's whatever your team needs. If they need the support, go staff, but LB gives you more opportunities to make meaningful plays and carry, with little to no sacrifice in bunkering capability.

@"jcbroe.4329" said:If you're referencing the metabattle build, then yes, quite a few people I know, as well as myself, have been swapping in LB over staff. From what I hear it seems more common on EU than NA.

It's a "read the situation" scenario. And it would help to know if this is PvP or WvW. But regardless, what it ends up boiling down to is how offensive or defensive you'll need to be. Staff makes you almost purely defensive, and the weapon itself only pokes, it doesn't push kills, and in PvP, you become a point sitter and secondary support, whereas with LB, you lose some mobility and support, but can be more aggressive and actually push kills and decaps and play more offensively.

In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question. You'll have much more control and power to dictate the fight. In PvP, it's whatever your team needs. If they need the support, go staff, but LB gives you more opportunities to make meaningful plays and carry, with little to no sacrifice in bunkering capability.

ah ye sorry, forgot to mention I meant pvp.Thx for the reply, makes alot of sense!

@jcbroe.4329 said:In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question.

Kind of off topic, but I'd almost never go roaming on any class without a movement weapon. LB/staff or LB/GS. Or hell, even staff/GS.

Both, but use staff if you want to keep your pet and you alive. Longbow for more range and more damage. Depends on your build, but if you're playing heavy healing . . . definitely staff. In PvP, players have a hell of a time trying to kill me. ;)

Good luck.

Longbow over staff?

What is going on over there!

Boredom, IMO.

If proleagues existed I think people would be still doing s/d/staff druid. But talent pool is dropping and years are dragging and people want to actually kill something and not have a sexy, sexy tickle staff fight. Also projectile hate has gone done in some cases.

Edit: I take some of that back. I think there's enough on-point hatred that staff/s/d might not even be in pro leagues anymore.

Ok so both boredom and also stalling while sitting on point doing nothing is harder.

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question.

Sw/Wh is a movement weaponset, yes?

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question.

Just 33% which can be achieved by druid alone or any swiftness or outmatched by superspeed. It's not good enough for running from 2v1s or zergs or what not.

Sword is only movement in a fight.

@Eurantien.4632 said:Longbow over staff?

What is going on over there!

Well I originally got the idea from Frosty and Miaz on EU, but essentially, Druid using the metabattle Bunker Druid build has enough sources of Astral Force generation without staff, and the loss of staff doesn't really change any of it's 1v1 matchups.

So instead of stalling and tickling everything in the meta except Thief and Mirage which have other survival tools, you can now +1 more efficiently and apply offensive point pressure to try to achieve decaps.

Now, would I recommend the LB swap in for a team/tournament? No, probably not. You shouldn't have to make up for other people's inconsistent or incompetent play in that setting :)

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question.

I roam with it and never have any issues whatsoever unless I get a little bloodthirsty trying to push a kill and overextend lol. To each is own I guess.

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question.

No not to each his own in this case. If you run into anyone with A movement skill you will either die or not be able to out run them. You cannot roam in WvW without movement skills unless by roam you mean look for fights/duels (where you rely on courtesy).

Edit: I guess option C is that you kill them before the realize they can run away.

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:Longbow over staff?

What is going on over there!

Lol fair. Anything goes in solo queue. I don't see it being very good in a team setting and would argue staff the superior choice in that regard. But like I did, anything goes in solo queue.

@Eurantien.4632 said:Lol fair. Anything goes in solo queue. I don't see it being very good in a team setting and would argue staff the superior choice in that regard. But like I did, anything goes in solo queue.

I mean Rom was running what, axe/axe at the end of his days? It sort of doesn't matter with druid and some reflexes. Staff is still insanely good.

@Eurantien.4632 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:Longbow over staff?

What is going on over there!

Yeah, Frosty had tried his LB build in a tournament a month or so back, and I think he ultimately ended up swapping back to staff so he would have the mobility to keep pace with the enemy thief who was aggressively decapping, and I don't believe his team was running their own thief.

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:In WvW roaming, I'd play the LB Sw/Wh no question.

Hey man, I don't roam with any amount of dedication enough here to say I have any expertise in the matter. I hop in, find a few fights, get a few kills, look for more, get bored, and throw on my group gear and join the map group or my guild group.

I do have a friend of mine I trained from the ground up on Ranger/Druid who does nothing but roaming and who's in love with the build I run, not sure whether or not it's just the stat split or if it's the whole build.

I'll have to ask him how he feels his mobility is. Also I'll edit into the post the WvW build the moment I have an opportunity.

I wasn't trying to be dismissive, if that's how it came off, I just haven't had an experience that would lead me to believe I need to change my weapon setup, and I acknowledge that I don't make it a point to go roaming all that often.

Edit: build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYD7kQFoWQsfFwhFgqFsMJYOTuLXmrJA84mAw/0i6StkpNH-jVSBABlp8jjDCw+7Pkq6PnqbQjjAAAXAgHeAANqEEA-w

You didn't sound dismissive. What I mean is if you run into anything that will kill you, you will die. If a staff/GS druid runs into something that will kill him (like a zerg or a group of 4) he can just move over slightly.

Fighting ability of a build takes backseat to movement in situations where 75% of encounters are a guaranteed death sentence. You can get around it a bit with stealth, so maybe warhorn/smokescale druid could work if you were just annoying enough to kill.

Ah okay, I just didn't want you to think your words fell on deaf ears, so to speak.

Yeah, I did choose the build specific with how I wanted it to function in fights. Luckily, I was forward thinking enough to set the stats up in a way that could compliment any power weapons I'd want to run, should I decide to make changes.

Thanks for the insight :)

On second thought, glad (I assume he's quit?) used to run around slow as hell on his trailblazer condi ranger, with basically no movement at all and he did fine. Server mentality has a lot to do with it. Generally if I see a zerg, I'll have 15 of them break off to chase me across the map, but a lot of servers have enough discipline to ignore solo roamers looking for duels.

Yeah I generally roam with LB+Sw/Wh and rarely have trouble avoiding fights I don't want. I'm definitely not going to outrun a thief or a zerg that really wants to catch me but I generally feel I have enough mobility to avoid the fights I don't want to take. I also roam with Soulbeast rather than druid and make use of Gazelle F2 as much as I can for moving around in SB form. Also if a group is chasing you often times players (especially thieves) will blow too many CDs/initiative just to catch you, and then you can turn and make them pay for it before their group catches up to you.

Ya, I rescind my disagreement of "to each their own". I can see how it would work, I just wouldn't recommend it. Not only can you not run away, you can't run to, so if a target wants to leave, he'll just leave.

@"Fluffball.8307" said:Ya, I rescind my disagreement of "to each their own". I can see how it would work, I just wouldn't recommend it. Not only can you not run away, you can't run to, so if a target wants to leave, he'll just leave.

I mean with superspeed, sword 2, and swiftness + stealth via CA and smokescale combos getting away is really not an issue. Chasing might be a bit of one I guess.. but you wont be killing someone running away with staff autos generally anyway lol.

Not staff auto, but staff and GS 3.

You could always detarget with sword, 180, leap backwards - towards the direction the enemy is fleeing, then 180, optional retarget, leap forward towards them. Not that you're going to be able to keep up with a Daredevil, Mirage, Spellbreaker, or etc, but I'm not sure what can.

Regardless, we're getting off topic lol.

So back to the bow question, I've made up my 3 build links for the 3 different builds I run, depending on my mood and team compositions:

LB/Staff: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWnEqA1Ci9rAOsAUtglJB7JIUr+YNBgH3EA+nWUXqlI95A-jpxHQBA4IA8tHAgyOEAjsMg42fwfXAAA

LB/SwWh: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFaZx+VwhFoaxykg5U5ucZumAwjbCA/TLqL1SOXaA-jpxHQBf7BA4vLAwILDIu9HAwRAQZHEAA

Staff/SwWh: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmYDbkQFKZx+VwhFoaxykg1EAecTAnK3lLzB/TLqL1SOXaA-jpxHQBA4IAIvyAf7BAIu9HS4FAQZHEAA

Hopefully these at least help people that benefit from having something tangible to look at (such as myself haha).