Any Ex Druids Switch to Guard for Support? How is it?

Curious if its worth to learn to play a support guard in Ranked

At the moment playing druid and I enjoy it but Ive played it for such a long time....

I tried it, once

Never again

@ChartFish.1308 said:I tried it, once

Never again

lol

Ranger master race, never swap. Never!

Yeaa I tried it, once too. it's good ofc. But not fun as half of ranger Q.Q

The thing is, the playstyles are an apples to oranges. Druid is really more like a Scrapper, in that they're both almost more focused on being duelists/stallers with collateral support capabilities than true supports (they're also both pushed out of the meta after numerous nerfs while ANet has let high damage bruiser builds take over).

Firebrand is much more of a "true support," comparable to something like a support Tempest (but way overtuned in comparison), where you're really not going to be able to kill anything or do anything other than "support and not die."

I swapped over from playing Druid in WvW (not PvP) to Firebrand the for my guild(s) in the patch where ANet killed off Druid in all content but raids, and I really can say from experience, Firebrand is so much stronger than the next best thing as a heal/boon based support that at the very least it ends up being worth playing in WvW, especially if you're pugging with it since you're infinitely more useful than anything else even when overstacked in a sqaud and are basically immortal against everything but outnumbered/ganks/being alone.

Really, your best bet is to unfortunately learn Soulbeast. But here is a good reason why: say you're camping a supportive Pet, like owl. Because of Celestial Forms ridiculous cooldown + resource on top of it and nerfs, using the Supportive F3 heal on cooldown roughly equates to going into CA on cooldown, except Soulbeast still has access to it's weapons to deal damage. I'd even argue that Jacaranda on Soulbeast self supports now better than taking Druid because of the horrible state ANet gutted Druid to.

So yeah. It's really unfortunate, because while I initially wasn't thrilled with Druid when it first launched, it ended up being my favorite playstyle in PvP. But it's been totally wrecked by ANet and the incessant whining about it because people hate seeing a class heal itself back to full while it tickles you to death but are completely fine with classes that can maintain full health while 1/2 shotting them.

@jcbroe.4329 said: using the Supportive F3 heal on cooldown roughly equates to going into CA on cooldown, except Soulbeast still has access to it's weapons to deal damage. I'd even argue that Jacaranda on Soulbeast self supports now better than taking Druid because of the horrible state ANet gutted Druid to.

Jacaranda + Blue Moa and use Invigorating Bond and you got a Druid going on, without the need to invest that much in healing power :).

@Krispera.5087 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said: using the Supportive F3 heal on cooldown roughly equates to going into CA on cooldown, except Soulbeast still has access to it's weapons to deal damage. I'd even argue that Jacaranda on Soulbeast self supports now better than taking Druid because of the horrible state ANet gutted Druid to.

I don't get why nobody like fern hound as supportive pet. It has 2 heals and the knockdowns, you don't need swiftness as you equip BM, and the leap reset to 4 seconds when you cancel the animation swapping weapons. Which means in combat you can use it only twice but still is ~1500 leap every 8 seconds (with the BM CD reduction) against 1200 leap every 8 seconds and just 1 heal.

@anduriell.6280 said:

@Krispera.5087 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said: using the Supportive F3 heal on cooldown roughly equates to going into CA on cooldown, except Soulbeast still has access to it's weapons to deal damage. I'd even argue that Jacaranda on Soulbeast self supports now better than taking Druid because of the horrible state ANet gutted Druid to.

The Bird family's damage is a big part of it. Long ago before any expac a lot of us PvP players were using Wolf/Owl (or another Bird) with the F2 BM traits for a reliable, hard hitting burst on the birds.

Unfortunately, with the games power creep and the ridiculous pet death penalty, we were all forced into switching to tankier but still damaging pets to have a functional class mechanic.

With the Soulbeast mechanic, we get our damaging bird pets back with additional reasons to use them.

That being said, Jokescale feels so ridiculously weak to me now that it might be worth swapping it out for Fernhound. I'm personally not a huge fan of the Siamoth/Owl setup people run but know that because they're successful with it, a damaging pet with Wordly Impact isn't needed to be effective. Fernhound seems like it'd be the perfect swap to make a tanky build that resets fights and has a mobility option. Only thing I think I'd miss is the smoke field, but it's hardly a necessity in a one shot meta where you die before you can use combo fields.

@jcbroe.4329 Thanks for the insightful comments as always.Are you saying you can play Soulbeast as support? or just a similar version of Druid?> @Krispera.5087 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said: using the Supportive F3 heal on cooldown roughly equates to going into CA on cooldown, except Soulbeast still has access to it's weapons to deal damage. I'd even argue that Jacaranda on Soulbeast self supports now better than taking Druid because of the horrible state ANet gutted Druid to.

Same question for you, are you playing Soulbeast as support or similar to a offensive oriented Druid?

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:@jcbroe.4329 Thanks for the insightful comments as always.Are you saying you can play Soulbeast as support? or just a similar version of Druid?> @Krispera.5087 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said: using the Supportive F3 heal on cooldown roughly equates to going into CA on cooldown, except Soulbeast still has access to it's weapons to deal damage. I'd even argue that Jacaranda on Soulbeast self supports now better than taking Druid because of the horrible state ANet gutted Druid to.

I play tanky bruiser in WvW, using Fern hound and snow wolf with a power setup . If i don't get one-shot from stealth is the only way to squeeze some gameplay out of it. Otherwise I get down really fast in most situations.

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:@jcbroe.4329 Thanks for the insightful comments as always.Are you saying you can play Soulbeast as support? or just a similar version of Druid?> @Krispera.5087 said:

@"jcbroe.4329" said: using the Supportive F3 heal on cooldown roughly equates to going into CA on cooldown, except Soulbeast still has access to it's weapons to deal damage. I'd even argue that Jacaranda on Soulbeast self supports now better than taking Druid because of the horrible state ANet gutted Druid to.

Similar to Druid, but even less outgoing Healing sources. So basically, Soulbeast can be played as "selfish healing" Druid.

The supportive F3 is AoE though, so there's some team play mileage through that. Tie that in with traits/pets some of these guys are suggesting, and I'm sure the team healing ends up not being anything to scoff at. I've just given up trying to make anything compete when Firebrand is what it is.

If I had to draw a direct comparison, I still stand by Soulbeast sharing the team role and playstyle with Holosmith. Tanky, boon capable, damage capable specs with some slight AoE support but overall mostly selfish support/defense.

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:Same question for you, are you playing Soulbeast as support or similar to a offensive oriented Druid?

I used to play more support oriented SBeast at PoF launch and it can be tanky as hell. I don't play SBeast as much in PvP nowadays, mostly Druid, even though I know SBeast is superior to Druid in many aspects (PvP). I just dislike the BMode on/off.