Druid or Revenant for solo play and support in groups

Hello, I'm maining a Core Power Banners Warrior, as I only very recently bought the expansions and got to experience the Heart of Thorns and Living World season 3 story. However, while it is a great starter class, I do prefer a more laid-back position.On single player RPGs (i.e. Morrowind, Fallout, etc) I tend to play snipers with high diplomacy, while the very few times I play MOBAs I only pick support characters. As such, the longbow-wielding Ranger who elite specs into Druid seems a rather...natural pick (no pun intended). On the other hand, I really dig the Revenant's aesthetics and way of "channeling other heroes", which can be, you guessed right, both ranged and support. As a result, I'm gravitating towards the two.Things I try to take into consideration are mainly simplicity (I do get stressed out rather easily, which is why I steer away from complex builds such as Weaver and prefer support roles in the first place), viability in case I decide to step foot into Fractals and Raids (I do know that Druid is more meta, but don't know how viable a Revenant would be) and aesthetics (truth be told, I prefer Revenant on that department).

Please help,an eternal undecided

@Arraphyn.2417

If I had to choose between the two and say who's the better support profession, go with the Druid. I know that the Revenant looks very flashy and cool, but when it comes to being a full on support profession, you choose the Druid.

Go with drood. 25 stacks of might for 10 man group plus the heals are quite welcomed by other players. Plus the pet will tank for you in open world :-)

Druid, no questions. If not, a Guardian or a Mesmer. Rev could be a great option if ANets deletes the other 8 classes in the game, otherwise chosing Rev is shooting yourself in a foot.

Disregarding the above comments, as a rev i don't think rev fits your playstyle. Yes rev has range but its...not support-y and not sniper esque.

Rev has strong healing and support thru ventari and alacrity/ might generation + Condi mitigation and life steal but to get the most out of it you want to be up close and personal with either your staff (which is melee) or mace to blast your fire fields for might.

Tl;dr as a rev main, i suggest druid

What kind of a build would you use for a druid for when your doing open world solo or your HoT/PoF story and for when running in a group? When solo you will need to be able to do some decent dps. Any builds would be appreciated as most druid builds on sc or meta are healer/ raid oriented.

Even after the nerfs, a druid is still better than most classes as far as PvE solo play. Sadly, the revenant is in a bad place right now.

@"Rebel.6419" said:What kind of a build would you use for a druid for when your doing open world solo or your HoT/PoF story and for when running in a group? When solo you will need to be able to do some decent dps. Any builds would be appreciated as most druid builds on sc or meta are healer/ raid oriented.

What you're asking is a bit self contradicting though. Fractals and Raids demand more specialized builds, and the support builds aren't functional in open world, because there it has elements its expecting other classes to provide. While I agree with your sentiment, "end game content" is purposely hostile to solo builds to force team reliance. Unfortunately it is what it is, so you have to consider carrying enough gear for 2 or 3 builds to cover the game modes if you want to play support. DPS builds are the only ones that can cross between modes with minimal modification; but theres enough disparity between WvW and Raid builds where groups will openly punish you for running non-meta specific builds or gear sets.

But back to the main topic........ The reason they focus on healing is because Druid, as a spec, is made specifically for raw healing with some secondary buffing (used to be unique. now they just generate might or have high heals based on GM traits). Ranger, as a class, has poor/inconsistant intertrait synergy, and you often have to invest 2 or 3 lines to one specific goal in order to be effective. Condi druid's were a sheer stoke of luck as Condi Ranger is mostly centered on burning, and most of that comes from Torch skills; and druid itself (up until this patch) had good base line heals to not need much investment. The damage is respectable, but no longer anywhere near what the other DPS oriented builds can accomplish.

But with the nerf to untraited healing, you have the choice to either have significant healing OR be a might bot. Because open world doesn't demand you carry on those aspects, either option is fine. But make no mistake that taking Druid is a substantial loss to your DPS potential, and offers little to no personal sustain given how CA energy is generated, and how CA itself needs a committed action to pay dividends. Another point worth noting is that Beast Mastery is a non-crucial trait line thats only ever taken to help fill out damage for the pet's DPS, so losing that was never a big deal.

The above is why Condi Druid is considered the Alt-DPS option, since its the only Offensive configuration Druid can muster that actually makes sense. And that fact rests almost entirely on Wilderness Survival containing both Condi damage and Personal sustain traits, and most of the damage potential being loaded into Torch (which WS can trait). If it had to be open world Druid, I would suggest the Condi Druid Raid build, but would make a couple of tweaks.

• Swap between Hidden Barbs and Spotter traits depending on the size of the battle you're in. If you see any long bow rangers or soulbeasts, you can safely assume they have spotter running. At +5% crit chance (7% before the nerf), spotter isn't particularly powerful..... but it covers a large amount of players, which is why its usually taken.
• Swap one of the spritis for Glyph of Equality, so you have access to a Stun Break and a Hard CC. Rangers don't have easy access to stability or stun breaks via traits, so this is handy for Group events where no one is going to be dedicated to supplying it.
• Druidic Clarity is a good trait if you find you need a Panic Button (Stun break + full condi clear) in more hectic Group Events. Otherwise Cultivated Synergy is still a good choice since it adds additional AOE healing (for both CA energy and general healing output).
• Life steal food works well enough for personal upkeep, and you can use Mintberry swirl icecream as a cheap alternative (plus bonus karma) for open world.
• Depending on the events you take part in, I would generally favor running Grace of the Land for the might upkeep it offers. However, PoF content favors a lot more AOE damage, so a Lingering Light Druid in group events and bounties might be more favorable for the burst healing. I haven't seen the new healing benchmarks yet, but I've seen it suggested that Lingering light now compensates for the blanket nerf to Druid healing.

If you want something a bit more flexible in open world, having both decent personal damage and great group support, you can run the same build I use for Guardian. Its a WvW Front liner build modified for Firebrand. Firebrand itself is stupidly powerful with even minor stat allocation- so you can still put out respectable damage and/or heals with relatively minor investment in either line. I'm actually shocked how well this works for open world, and can massively boost groups in Champ and Legendary fights without giving up too much personal sustain. A full offensive FB has almost no self sustain, Support Firebrand has no damage, and both are expensive to due to infusions filling in the stat gaps. But a Cele Firebrand hits a nice middle ground, and I use it in both open world and WvW with only changing traits and weapons.

Open world:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAn+fn8ABFBjVCBOCDkCjlACzKA8AeTZLoH0EaPieR7oA-jBiAQB+b/hFcCAAoeBA8AAi2BBASKBNl6PoR5HA-e

The Sigil choices are open, but you should always run Sigil of Smoldering in any combination for the burn duration. The Life Sigil in the build template is because its cheap, and Tome of Resolve's skills scale incredibly well with Healing Power. The shield's stats are mostly irrelevant, since its used for the bubble defense; and you can opt to have whatever supportive or offensive stat you have easily available from a choosy-stat exotic weapon. I wouldn't specifically invest into an Asc shield unless you plan to convert it to Harrier for Raids later on, as Harriers is kind of expensive right now. I could say the same for using exotic weapons and armor with available stats (or if you have access to choosy boxes and/or HoT/PoF armor box rewards, rather then crafting Asc Vipers/Cele, unless you want to take it into Raids or Fractals. HOWEVER...... A Viper Torch with Malice Sigil is pretty standard across most builds that use Torch, so making that Asc is easily the best long term investment for Condi builds.

If you think Firebrand, with its 5 skill sets is "too complex", you're severely over-estimating how difficult it is to play. Like Engineers, it just takes a few days to learn mode switching, and before long you'll have the whole thing in muscle memory. Tomes have specific use cases, and this makes deciding to use them more deliberate then part of some of long rotation. Most of the time you don't even use tomes, and rely more on the reactive nature of the Mantras.

When you do use tomes, Justice tome is massively increase in burn DPS to finish off Vets and Elites, and burn off the last 10-15% of champ by way of Skill's 5 shared burned buff (which scales off your condi damage, and easily generates 7k burn ticks from that one action, on top of the 5-7k burns you get from spamming skills 1 and 2). Plus it recharges on Kill due to Radiance, so if you expend the tome, or close it before the target dies, its refreshed on the target's death.

Tome of Resolve is used to mass clear conditions and group heal. You only really use it during group events and boss fights to bring group sustain during AOE flurries. Really good during mid-late fight when the pressure tends to ramp up. The Druid might sustain more healing, but they don't have same level of mass condi cleanse and condi conversion in their entire class that Tome of resolve does in just 3 skills.

Tome of Courage is a lot more moderated, and is more planned ahead.... but extremely effective with a little forethought. Skill 1 gives Stability and Protection (which is great for bosses with a lot of hard AOE CCs), Skill 2 casts taunt for break bar damage, skill 3 is a Projectile blocking dome, Skill 4 is pulsing AOE resistance boons, and Skill 5 for massive AOE Defense increase (Bonus Toughness, Aegis, Resistance, and stability). Its a Tome you're not likely to spam, but when used well, can sustain a group through otherwise devastating boss attacks.

This is why Firebrand has really grown on me...... it can be used for so many different things without explicitly needing to be geared for it. It does decent enough on its own with some extra defenses, but force multiplies with a group on a level that no other class can do anywhere near as casually. You can also swap the Signet skill for a Spirit weapon to add really strong support options: Sword for Vulnerability for Vets/Champs, Hammer for extra CCs, Shield for more Projectile blocking, Bow for Distance healing. When you're not having to adhere to a strict meta, this and many other classes open up in some very innovative ways.

I'm going to throw a wrench in this and say engineer. Because puns.

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@"Rebel.6419" said:What kind of a build would you use for a druid for when your doing open world solo or your HoT/PoF story and for when running in a group? When solo you will need to be able to do some decent dps. Any builds would be appreciated as most druid builds on sc or meta are healer/ raid oriented.

• Swap between Hidden Barbs and Spotter traits depending on the size of the battle you're in. If you see any long bow rangers or soulbeasts, you can safely assume they have spotter running. At +5% crit chance (7% before the nerf), spotter isn't particularly powerful..... but it covers a large amount of players, which is why its usually taken.
• Swap one of the spritis for Glyph of Equality, so you have access to a Stun Break and a Hard CC. Rangers don't have easy access to stability or stun breaks via traits, so this is handy for Group events where no one is going to be dedicated to supplying it.
• Druidic Clarity is a good trait if you find you need a Panic Button (Stun break + full condi clear) in more hectic Group Events. Otherwise Cultivated Synergy is still a good choice since it adds additional AOE healing (for both CA energy and general healing output).
• Life steal food works well enough for personal upkeep, and you can use Mintberry swirl icecream as a cheap alternative (plus bonus karma) for open world.
• Depending on the events you take part in, I would generally favor running Grace of the Land for the might upkeep it offers. However, PoF content favors a lot more AOE damage, so a Lingering Light Druid in group events and bounties might be more favorable for the burst healing. I haven't seen the new healing benchmarks yet, but I've seen it suggested that Lingering light now compensates for the blanket nerf to Druid healing.

Thank you for such a clear, detailed response. I will look into this.