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WvW Support Druid: Experiences?


Za Shaloc.3908

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A similar thread was created back when the big balance patch hit earlier this year, but since quite a bit of time has passed, I figured I'd start a topic on this again.

For anybody who has been running support Druid in WvW, what have your experiences been like? I took about a 4 month break from the game but since coming back I have been playing Druid a lot. So far it has been a mixed bag for me and I don't feel like my opinions on it have changed too much:

  • Celestial Force is totally trivialized in some fights (siege-heavy ones especially), but a struggle in others. I have found the best way for me to optimize my Celestial Force gain is to try to maximize allied regen uptime. Sometimes though, there just isn't enough required healing and I can't get CA back up for when I really need it. To try to remedy this, I will at times refrain from even going into CA despite my team needing a certain degree of support, which feels really bad. Also sucks to be desperately autoing with staff to try to get CA back up while your team wipes.

  • Seed of Life cleansing 3 conditions is nice and honestly kinda nuts when you can maximize its value, but it still suffers the same issues of being a small radius with a delay. I can spike to the top of the cleanse meter at times, but in the long run, I can't really compete with the effortless cleansing of Scrapper/Tempest.

  • Glyph of the Stars is still my favorite skill in the game, hands down. CA version gained a lot of value ever since Warclaw stomping was removed, but with all the Burn Guards running around, it makes it harder to always get value from since CA GotS doesn't stop condi damage. Still though, the skill just feels amazing when you use it at a good time, both in and out of CA. Not sure which version I like better.

  • Support outside of CA still feels bad. Staff is my biggest pain point with support Druid, especially Staff 2. I don't think I really need to say much on this matter.

  • I would love a buff or rework to Invigorating Bond. It feels horrible to have a GM trait that has absolutely no scaling attached to it, and no other secondary function. Feels amazing on Soulbeast (ironically), but like total booty on Druid.

  • The healing numbers still feel amazing. The spike healing potential is totally unmatched IMO. It feels incredible to insta bring someone on the brink of death to full health.

I mostly play with pugs, and I feel like the build excels its best in this setting since there are a lot of holes in comps. I know you can't really take pug v pug fights to prove a build's legitimacy, but at the very least I have an absolute blast playing it. I don't feel like I am playing some useless snowflake spec, I feel like I am playing something that has a strong impact on fights despite not being meta. I still have my share fair of complaints about it, but I greatly enjoy its niche nonetheless.

Just wanted to share my thoughts here and hear others' experiences as well. Who else is playing support Druid out there? I don't see too many out there.

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@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I mostly play with pugs, and I feel like the build excels its best in this setting since there are a lot of holes in comps. I know you can't really take pug v pug fights to prove a build's legitimacy, but at the very least I have an absolute blast playing it.

"Playing with pugs" could mean a lot of different things in WvW. If you mostly play with pugs and not with coordinated groups, just play the build you have the most fun with.

I don't feel like I am playing some useless snowflake spec, I feel like I am playing something that has a strong impact on fights despite not being meta.

I do not say that you are a snowflake, but a lot of snowflakes think the same until they see (and compare) the numbers. :)

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@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@"Swagger.1459" said:“I don't see too many out there.”

Bc they are subpar. Roll with damage builds.

Enlightening. All this time spent in WvW and I never knew that. Thanks for the valuable feedback

Oh, and hey, you were the one asking... "WvW Support Druid: Experiences?" and "Just wanted to share my thoughts here and hear others' experiences as well. Who else is playing support Druid out there?"

Not like Druid hasn't gotten nerfs or anything since 2015... Or the fact no substantial improvements or reworks have been made since 2015... Not like we haven't tinkered with Druid since 2015... Right?

Subpar is correct. There weren't any magical fixes that made playing Druid better. This whole Ranger class has issues that are ignored year after year. So roll damage builds and spam stuff bc that's the most viable way to play this game across all professions.

And I have 7 rangers, with various builds, and for 2 decades I spent playing support roles for pvp modes in tons of mmos. Druid is subpar, and that's being nice.

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I run it quite often actually, but that is mostly because I almost always run immob ranger in our guild run, and well.. sometimes the comp is shit, one party lacks a scrapper and there is a queue. Dudu support time. Druid's best role imo is as CC/Immob bot while acting as the third support after FB and scrapper. Immob Soulbeast is overall better if I get the choice.

For druid to be viable as primary healer and cleanser (aka the role scrappers now have), Anet will have to do some major changes to Nature Magic, plus several refinements to druid itself. Anything from completely reworking useless traits like Invigorating Bond into something actually useable in large scale fights, to making Evasive Purity an AoE cleanse, would go a long way. If IB instead was something close to engie's overloaded Purity of Purpose trait, or something as simple as regen you apply cleanses a condition, you'd actually bring something usefull from the core class other than healing spring (and immobs). Using the player's healing power to scale IB would make it a lot better, but it wouldn't get druid any closer to usefulness in WvW.

Druid itself needs refinement to staff, traits and skills. Lingering Light should give us increased outgoing healing all the time, with the bonus doubled in CA (it's way too one-sided as it is now). CA 1 was always shit. Staff 2 was always shit. Staff 5 could be larger.

Glyph of Equality and Alignement are good, especially in CA. I think the Lesser Seed of Life from the glyph trait could be bumped up to two cleanses like it originally was. Glyph of Unity is still.. eh.. It heals a lot when you use it at the right time, but the non-CA version was always trash. Glyph of the Star is cool, but to get the most out of it in WvW it would have to work like scrapper wells (gyros) do. Glyph of the Tides doesn't really add anything, but I wouldn't touch it (maybe flip the two versions).

All that being said, the two most glaring issues before talking about skills and buffs are imo that 1; support without CA feels lackluster. Support with CA feels mostly good, despite some awkward skills. Something needs to be done with the CA access. Both having a cooldown and being forced to reach 100 % is too restricting. Remove the latter, maybe make it more like the heat mechanic Holos have, or something akin to that. It would require more work down the road to balance stuff out, but for a WvW role, it would be a lot better. The alternative is obviously to make druid much more viable as a healer outside of CA. And 2; Pets are dead. Scratch that, they're dead-er with the stat penalties. Won't change unless they do drastic changes to druid as a whole (as in removing the pet ("permamerged", inspired by SB?), make it an invulnerable whisp, or whatever). Would screw over PvP druid and druid roaming, but I don't really care. Core and SB can roam and pvp just fine, I'm sure the next elite spec will too (I'm also sure the upcoming spec won't give ranger a solid WvW squad role, considering they gave us one with pet merge and shared stances, one that heals, and yet none are particularly wanted in a squad - so why not make an existing elite a squad role).

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Haven't WvW'd on my druid in a while.

I really like playing healing druid but the only content I do nowadays is World Bosses and other open world PvE.

@"Lazze.9870" said:

And 2; Pets are dead. Scratch that, they're dead-er with the stat penalties. Won't change unless they do drastic changes to druid as a whole (as in removing the pet ("permamerged", inspired by SB?), make it an invulnerable whisp, or whatever). Would screw over PvP druid and druid roaming, but I don't really care. Core and SB can do those, I'm sure the next elite spec will too (I'm also sure the upcoming spec won't give ranger a solid WvW squad role, considering they gave us one with pet merge and shared stances, one that heals, and yet none are particularly wanted in a squad).

Coming from an old GW1 Ranger main (who would later switch to Ritualist), I never liked the pet being a forced mechanic. I'd be glad if all the elite specs dropped the pet entirely and compensated through other means.

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@Soilder.3607 said:Coming from an old GW1 Ranger main (who would later switch to Ritualist), I never liked the pet being a forced mechanic. I'd be glad if all the elite specs dropped the pet entirely and compensated through other means.

I don't get why anyone who played Ranger in GW1 would prefer pets being a forced mechanic, as it is in GW2. The freedom of how you could play ranger in GW1 would have made a much better platform to build a druid off of than what we have in GW2.

Soulbeast has already provided a baseline for how skills and traits would act for a petless ranger, that is something they could expand on for petless rangers. Not just could, but should expand on if they want to make interesting elite specs in the future. Being stuck with the pet on every damn elite spec is gonna limit what they can do. They can still incorperate it thematically and such, but having the physical AI pet there with its F1-F4 controls? Nope.

And before anyone says that ranger is supposed to be the pet class in this game; I know. And I'd bet Anet regrets that decision.

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Show me what you use your Druid for and I will show you another profession that does it better. If all you use it for is Immobilize, then you're a one-trick pony, and no one wants that. This is why no ranger build or profession has ever been in the meta for WvW squads since the start. We're good at one thing and that's small skirmishes, and after all this time it doesn't feel like they will ever do anything to change this. The problem with small skirmishes, is that we're not the only ones good at it. It's just not a great trade-off :)

You are only viable if there is nothing else to fill that role. Or until someone comes along that can replace you. And they will. Cosmic Ray (skill 1) is a joke in competitive modes, try sticking to your commander during fights and casting it on your party, as opposed to healbrand just hitting 11111 while in Tome of Resolve that heals in a wave with a 600 radius. There is no comparison, it's a joke. As a druid myself, I would take a healbrand over a druid any time of day or night, when available. Ground targeting heal on skill 1 is awesome only when your party is standing still, like they stack on the boss during raids, and it's useless everywhere else. After the patch in 2016, this skill became a waste of time anywhere outside of PvE.

Rejuvenating Tides (skill 2) has a 240 radius. Again, tome of resolve can do the same thing with just spamming 1111 and doesn't even need to be on top of you.

CA requiring energy is a joke as well, compare it with all the ways a necro has to get life force to go into shroud. HA. HA.

Staff skill 2 (Astral Wisp) has a 180 radius compared to guardian's Holy Strike, which has a 240 radius. Not even on par with this. You literally have to be on top of your target to get and healing from it.

Yeah, I main ranger since launch and I keep playing it, and I have no idea what's wrong with me.

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@"Lazze.9870" said:I run it quite often actually, but that is mostly because I almost always run immob ranger in our guild run, and well.. sometimes the comp is kitten, one party lacks a scrapper and there is a queue. Dudu support time. Druid's best role imo is as CC/Immob bot while acting as the third support after FB and scrapper. Immob Soulbeast is overall better if I get the choice.

For druid to be viable as primary healer and cleanser (aka the role scrappers now have), Anet will have to do some major changes to Nature Magic, plus several refinements to druid itself. Anything from completely reworking useless traits like Invigorating Bond into something actually useable in large scale fights, to making Evasive Purity an AoE cleanse, would go a long way. If IB instead was something close to engie's overloaded Purity of Purpose trait, or something as simple as regen you apply cleanses a condition, you'd actually bring something usefull from the core class other than healing spring (and immobs). Using the player's healing power to scale IB would make it a lot better, but it wouldn't get druid any closer to usefulness in WvW.

Druid itself needs refinement to staff, traits and skills. Lingering Light should give us increased outgoing healing all the time, with the bonus doubled in CA (it's way too one-sided as it is now). CA 1 was always kitten. Staff 2 was always kitten. Staff 5 could be larger.

Glyph of Equality and Alignement are good, especially in CA. I think the Lesser Seed of Life from the glyph trait could be bumped up to two cleanses like it originally was. Glyph of Unity is still.. eh.. It heals a lot when you use it at the right time, but the non-CA version was always trash. Glyph of the Star is cool, but to get the most out of it in WvW it would have to work like scrapper wells (gyros) do. Glyph of the Tides doesn't really add anything, but I wouldn't touch it (maybe flip the two versions).

All that being said, the two most glaring issues before talking about skills and buffs are imo that 1; support without CA feels lackluster. Support with CA feels mostly good, despite some awkward skills. Something needs to be done with the CA access. Both having a cooldown and being forced to reach 100 % is too restricting. Remove the latter, maybe make it more like the heat mechanic Holos have, or something akin to that. It would require more work down the road to balance stuff out, but for a WvW role, it would be a lot better. The alternative is obviously to make druid much more viable as a healer outside of CA. And 2; Pets are dead. Scratch that, they're dead-er with the stat penalties. Won't change unless they do drastic changes to druid as a whole (as in removing the pet ("permamerged", inspired by SB?), make it an invulnerable whisp, or whatever). Would screw over PvP druid and druid roaming, but I don't really care. Core and SB can roam and pvp just fine, I'm sure the next elite spec will too (I'm also sure the upcoming spec won't give ranger a solid WvW squad role, considering they gave us one with pet merge and shared stances, one that heals, and yet none are particularly wanted in a squad - so why not make an existing elite a squad role).

I gave up hope. All this is good in theory but I lost hope last year when even in a pitiful state they kept nerfing druid (staff evade was the nail in the coffin).

This is why ALL you other druid mains should give up hope too:

What druid needs is a major overhaul OR multiple improvements to skills in both function and numbers. THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Read that again and absorb it.

All available resources of what's left have been directed to end of dragons, and it is financially reliant on its success. We will never have the kind of support back like we did back before the lay offs. Recent announcements on stream that 300s cooldown traits are here to stay due to lack of resources NEED to let you guys know that there is no hope for druid.

I'm tried my hardest not to be overly negative for years on this, but it took these kind of realizations to finally give up hope after holding out so long. You all should too. I still use my druid in strikes once in a blue moon but I mostly play renegade and/or firebrand now. Try them, you will give out more support, more better heals which aren't gated by generating celestial avatar or a dumb cooldown which locks you out of your main purpose, you will be highly desirable in groups and there is enough build diversity within them to stack these kittens to the point you need to have literally nothing else in the game.

TL;DR do yourself a favour and stop hoping for things that will never come. Play renegade or firebrand.

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I play a support druid in our 25-30 man zerg fort the last year and half and everyone in our group loves the druid play and sees the benefits first hand. Yes I have played FB Scrapper, Tempest but if YOU actually played and learned a druid and how a druid can helpful , druids are way better in wvw then people think, but ill keep enjoying my build and surprising people with the druid play and keeping close in cleansing to a scrappers only be off by 10-15 and you guys keep crying and crying and instead figure out a way to make it work and truly going through the wiki and clicking on skills and see what the skill has offer then the base text. Your a team not one player, you all help each other out. People are forced in scrappers or fb and then get fed up because its the worse intro to the game period. . I out cleanse FB because there so focus on there tomes and after those 8 are gone then what? Hoping for virute 2? or shield 4? Scrapper yeah you got purpose of purity ? When as druid I am placing two to three different cleanses at a time, with reg and swiftness. I read these forums time and again and people still complain about traits and how trash pets are. Last night we ran 2 druids and had 20 man invul condi clear heal with gylph of the stars, so that one spell that kept majority of zerg up with cd of roughly 40 seconds..Yes you need run and cast it and cant dodge or interrupts it but if you know the game well enough you can last the whole cast time and its refreshing after battling zergs larger then you and ur teammates are knowledge that Glyph of the Stars is making difference, the constant reg and the constant water fields. You really understands how CA works, then every time that 8-10 sec ICD comes off you should CA already and inform...If you understand how the energy works in relation to moving and casting I can constantly coming out of CA with 2-4 seconds left to spare, with enough energy to allow me get out of CA and not lose the perfect amount and right into staff 5 into staff 3 and cause MASSIVE reg water field and 2k reg crits and i am pretty much at CA cap within 3-4 seconds again and 3 seconds until CA is free. Yes I have 3 second down time, but I have cleanse on my staff that i always roll out for cleanses during that 3 seconds and drop staff 5 for reg and heal. Its how you manage your time and understanding your class. People complain you gotta stand still and heal for the CA AA...How about I rarely ever use the skill 1 and use skills 2 3 4 and 5 is for the big bomb, so I rotate between skills 2 3 and 4 in CA ...if skill 2 is 240 yard range I know how my group works and place them correctly.. If you run the Verdant Etching trait every skill in CA which everyone says is shit actually leaves blossom out that cleanses and heals whether I spam skill 1 or 3 I am constantly cleansing and healing and leaving blossom ahead so people are hitting them. I zerg on a druid 5 days a week 3 to 4 hours a day and enjoy it a lot. I have been reported for hacking because I out cleanses two firebrands in party the other night because they didn't believe me a druid could be played. I am not a one trick with this I have several different builds I play according to the blobs and fights...I have cleanse and immob build, pure healing build, condi heal build. I have full reg druid build, that dishes out reg constantly ALL compete at high rate. Ill be recording more footage this week and next week to show some people who have been asking me about the build and have been trying it and loving out. My in-game is above if you have any questions

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  • 3 weeks later...

@"Za Shaloc.3908" said:A similar thread was created back when the big balance patch hit earlier this year, but since quite a bit of time has passed, I figured I'd start a topic on this again.

For anybody who has been running support Druid in WvW, what have your experiences been like? I took about a 4 month break from the game but since coming back I have been playing Druid a lot. So far it has been a mixed bag for me and I don't feel like my opinions on it have changed too much:

  • Celestial Force is totally trivialized in some fights (siege-heavy ones especially), but a struggle in others. I have found the best way for me to optimize my Celestial Force gain is to try to maximize allied regen uptime. Sometimes though, there just isn't enough required healing and I can't get CA back up for when I really need it. To try to remedy this, I will at times refrain from even going into CA despite my team needing a certain degree of support, which feels really bad. Also sucks to be desperately autoing with staff to try to get CA back up while your team wipes.

  • Seed of Life cleansing 3 conditions is nice and honestly kinda nuts when you can maximize its value, but it still suffers the same issues of being a small radius with a delay. I can spike to the top of the cleanse meter at times, but in the long run, I can't really compete with the effortless cleansing of Scrapper/Tempest.

  • Glyph of the Stars is still my favorite skill in the game, hands down. CA version gained a lot of value ever since Warclaw stomping was removed, but with all the Burn Guards running around, it makes it harder to always get value from since CA GotS doesn't stop condi damage. Still though, the skill just feels amazing when you use it at a good time, both in and out of CA. Not sure which version I like better.

  • Support outside of CA still feels bad. Staff is my biggest pain point with support Druid, especially Staff 2. I don't think I really need to say much on this matter.

  • I would love a buff or rework to Invigorating Bond. It feels horrible to have a GM trait that has absolutely no scaling attached to it, and no other secondary function. Feels amazing on Soulbeast (ironically), but like total booty on Druid.

  • The healing numbers still feel amazing. The spike healing potential is totally unmatched IMO. It feels incredible to insta bring someone on the brink of death to full health.

I mostly play with pugs, and I feel like the build excels its best in this setting since there are a lot of holes in comps. I know you can't really take pug v pug fights to prove a build's legitimacy, but at the very least I have an absolute blast playing it. I don't feel like I am playing some useless snowflake spec, I feel like I am playing something that has a strong impact on fights despite not being meta. I still have my share fair of complaints about it, but I greatly enjoy its niche nonetheless.

Just wanted to share my thoughts here and hear others' experiences as well. Who else is playing support Druid out there? I don't see too many out there.

This is my opinion. I think Immobbeast is better in organized gvg's and small fights because you can coordinate your immobilize skills with bubbles and wells, preventing your enemies from running away during the bomb. This is the role basically. I also think this "role" kinda becomes less and less effective when playing in biggest groups, especially pug ones, because:1- Generally commanders will put you in a party without any kind of support and eventually kick you if the squad is full and meta classes are needed;2- Your team support is lackluster. Bear stance duration on allies is 2 seconds (which means max 4 condi cleansed in 2 seconds, that's it), and Dolyak stance is the real ONLY good support skill of the build - but its also your only stunbreak and the radius/duration on allies is kinda laughable.3- Its very difficult to go melee with axes and greatsword since you are very squishy and with 0 invulnerabilities, not optimal when you are against 40+ enemies. I think Longbow/Greatsword has better impact than axe-axe/greatsword in bigger fights, just for Barrage, but beside that you can't do really much with the longbow cause of projectile hate and retaliation.4- Immob is still good in bigger fights, especially when you are on public discord and can coordinate immobilize with warrior bubbles, shade spikes, and wells. Problem is, the majority of the immobs on the Immobbeast build are melee, which means you have to push with your frontline, and considering group sizes, you will just land your 3 or 4 immoblizes on that push then you will become useless for the rest of the engages.

THIS IS WHY i think druid is still better than soulbeast in big fights, just because you can still immoblize your enemies on bombs with Vine Surge + other skills, but also rotate beetween staff and CA every 10 seconds, cleansing conditions and healing allies. If druid had a glyph with AoE stability that would be perfect. Also pets are kinda a downgrade, but i dont think Anet will ever remove them on this specialization. Yes it is not meta and probably will never be, but atleast it can be considered useful. Your healing and condition cleansing can compete with fb and scrappers, and you can also have a lot of immobs. Lately im running something like this:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwEYiNssBGDbhxxKxiV6vtWirTD-zRJYjRN/pkpQIVJQvigqVA2cW6fzC-eYou can maximize your CA generation with Signet of Renewal (more CA ticks) intead of Muddy terrain, or Healing Spring instead of the healing glyph (more AoE regen - more CA ticks), the important thing is that you NEED CA READY EVERY 10 SECONDS to maximize your support. Staff #3 with Primal Echoes and Quick draw refresh the entire cooldown of the skill if you heal someone so you can basically spam it to blast/heal and reposition yourself. If you feel you need an invuln just pick Signet of Stone (you will lose 1 support skill, but an alive druid is better than a dead corpse). Also Glyph of Unity can grant a lot of healing, just use the skill ONLY in CA.This is my experience, sure its not meta, but its definitely enjoyable.

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  • 4 weeks later...

@madvillan.5038 said:I play a support druid in our 25-30 man zerg fort the last year and half and everyone in our group loves the druid play and sees the benefits first hand. Yes I have played FB Scrapper, Tempest but if YOU actually played and learned a druid and how a druid can helpful , druids are way better in wvw then people think, but ill keep enjoying my build and surprising people with the druid play and keeping close in cleansing to a scrappers only be off by 10-15 and you guys keep crying and crying and instead figure out a way to make it work and truly going through the wiki and clicking on skills and see what the skill has offer then the base text. Your a team not one player, you all help each other out. People are forced in scrappers or fb and then get fed up because its the worse intro to the game period. . I out cleanse FB because there so focus on there tomes and after those 8 are gone then what? Hoping for virute 2? or shield 4? Scrapper yeah you got purpose of purity ? When as druid I am placing two to three different cleanses at a time, with reg and swiftness. I read these forums time and again and people still complain about traits and how trash pets are. Last night we ran 2 druids and had 20 man invul condi clear heal with gylph of the stars, so that one spell that kept majority of zerg up with cd of roughly 40 seconds..Yes you need run and cast it and cant dodge or interrupts it but if you know the game well enough you can last the whole cast time and its refreshing after battling zergs larger then you and ur teammates are knowledge that Glyph of the Stars is making difference, the constant reg and the constant water fields. You really understands how CA works, then every time that 8-10 sec ICD comes off you should CA already and inform...If you understand how the energy works in relation to moving and casting I can constantly coming out of CA with 2-4 seconds left to spare, with enough energy to allow me get out of CA and not lose the perfect amount and right into staff 5 into staff 3 and cause MASSIVE reg water field and 2k reg crits and i am pretty much at CA cap within 3-4 seconds again and 3 seconds until CA is free. Yes I have 3 second down time, but I have cleanse on my staff that i always roll out for cleanses during that 3 seconds and drop staff 5 for reg and heal. Its how you manage your time and understanding your class. People complain you gotta stand still and heal for the CA AA...How about I rarely ever use the skill 1 and use skills 2 3 4 and 5 is for the big bomb, so I rotate between skills 2 3 and 4 in CA ...if skill 2 is 240 yard range I know how my group works and place them correctly.. If you run the Verdant Etching trait every skill in CA which everyone says is kitten actually leaves blossom out that cleanses and heals whether I spam skill 1 or 3 I am constantly cleansing and healing and leaving blossom ahead so people are hitting them. I zerg on a druid 5 days a week 3 to 4 hours a day and enjoy it a lot. I have been reported for hacking because I out cleanses two firebrands in party the other night because they didn't believe me a druid could be played. I am not a one trick with this I have several different builds I play according to the blobs and fights...I have cleanse and immob build, pure healing build, condi heal build. I have full reg druid build, that dishes out reg constantly ALL compete at high rate. Ill be recording more footage this week and next week to show some people who have been asking me about the build and have been trying it and loving out. My in-game is above if you have any questions

Hi there.

In regards to the videos you spoke of that you were creating, do you have a YouTube channel or something for us to view those?

Thank you,

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I think you hit the 2 main reasons it hasn't found (any) traction (at all):

  • staff is crap at healing - staff #1 needs to chain to additional targets or heal in an area around the target, something like that.
  • seed AOE is too small - should be 240 or 360 - even if the healing/cleanse amount downscaled with increasing AOE size (ie: 180 radius - 3 condis, 360 radius - 1 condi). too many times the seed bloom is too slow and small to heal anyone and is just wasted.
  • the other big weakness is druid can't give stab except through the elite spirit, but (killable) spirits are total garbage.

bad design and lack of care/attention basically.

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@"Za Shaloc.3908" said:A similar thread was created back when the big balance patch hit earlier this year, but since quite a bit of time has passed, I figured I'd start a topic on this again.

For anybody who has been running support Druid in WvW, what have your experiences been like? I took about a 4 month break from the game but since coming back I have been playing Druid a lot. So far it has been a mixed bag for me and I don't feel like my opinions on it have changed too much:

  • Celestial Force is totally trivialized in some fights (siege-heavy ones especially), but a struggle in others. I have found the best way for me to optimize my Celestial Force gain is to try to maximize allied regen uptime. Sometimes though, there just isn't enough required healing and I can't get CA back up for when I really need it. To try to remedy this, I will at times refrain from even going into CA despite my team needing a certain degree of support, which feels really bad. Also sucks to be desperately autoing with staff to try to get CA back up while your team wipes.

  • Seed of Life cleansing 3 conditions is nice and honestly kinda nuts when you can maximize its value, but it still suffers the same issues of being a small radius with a delay. I can spike to the top of the cleanse meter at times, but in the long run, I can't really compete with the effortless cleansing of Scrapper/Tempest.

  • Glyph of the Stars is still my favorite skill in the game, hands down. CA version gained a lot of value ever since Warclaw stomping was removed, but with all the Burn Guards running around, it makes it harder to always get value from since CA GotS doesn't stop condi damage. Still though, the skill just feels amazing when you use it at a good time, both in and out of CA. Not sure which version I like better.

  • Support outside of CA still feels bad. Staff is my biggest pain point with support Druid, especially Staff 2. I don't think I really need to say much on this matter.

  • I would love a buff or rework to Invigorating Bond. It feels horrible to have a GM trait that has absolutely no scaling attached to it, and no other secondary function. Feels amazing on Soulbeast (ironically), but like total booty on Druid.

  • The healing numbers still feel amazing. The spike healing potential is totally unmatched IMO. It feels incredible to insta bring someone on the brink of death to full health.

I mostly play with pugs, and I feel like the build excels its best in this setting since there are a lot of holes in comps. I know you can't really take pug v pug fights to prove a build's legitimacy, but at the very least I have an absolute blast playing it. I don't feel like I am playing some useless snowflake spec, I feel like I am playing something that has a strong impact on fights despite not being meta. I still have my share fair of complaints about it, but I greatly enjoy its niche nonetheless.

Just wanted to share my thoughts here and hear others' experiences as well. Who else is playing support Druid out there? I don't see too many out there.

I have the same experiences as you as I use the glyph elite just the same, love it plus staff is one of my favourite weapons due to the excessive projectile hate in this game...longbow/shortbow are just usable as roaming weapons with Barrage being somehow useful to tag downed for bags. All in all I love druid with the way I play, I wouldn't take anything away from it ( I am expecting AS to be removed at a certain point in line with Anet tradition of removing anything the forum complain about ), Druidic Clarity is a god send trait and it carries the entire elite on its own ( at least for me) , I made some power variant with druid to deal with the ever increasin condi burst "roamers" as these days.....90% of roaming specs will be condis

Without druid I wouldn't be able to deal with all the "unnerfed" condi builds like : condi thief - condi herald- condi mirage, against anything else soulbeast is enough, hard in some cases but manageable . with those 3 though....without a constant cleansing /stealth...you simply can't win

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  • 3 weeks later...

Revisiting this topic after having resumed playing support Druid in WvW again.

As a preface, I use Ministrel gear and optimized my build to max cleansing and healing output.

I feel like the Druid could be significantly enhanced in supportive performance in WvW if a few changes went through.

  1. Cosmic Ray - If Cosmic Ray were made a PBAoE with 180-240 radius, it would instantly be leagues better than it is now. Cut the healing a bit to compensate. Firebrand and Scrapper get easily spammable heals, I don't see why druid can't equal them.

  2. Seed of Life - 240 radius, this one has been obvious for a long time. I don't know why Anet has put it off for so long.

  3. Astral Wisp - This skill needs to be redesigned if it wants to be useful for WvW. Guardian Staff #2 received an amazing redesign that made it go from a bad skill to a good one and a blast finisher. If Astral Wisp was changed into some vanilla ground targetted heal with a 240 radius, it would instantly be usable.

  4. Pets - Just get rid of them when playing druid and roll their traits into the ranger. Entering/exiting CA mode counts as pet swap for purpose of traits etc etc...

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@"Soilder.3607" said:Revisiting this topic after having resumed playing support Druid in WvW again.1.2.3...

  1. Pets - Just get rid of them when playing druid and roll their traits into the ranger. Entering/exiting CA mode counts as pet swap for purpose of traits etc etc...

Agreed wholeheartedly, but how would you go about the (Beastmastery) traitline(s) and skills/effects that affect the pet?

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@JorneMormel.9850 said:

@"Soilder.3607" said:Revisiting this topic after having resumed playing support Druid in WvW again.1.2.3...
  1. Pets - Just get rid of them when playing druid and roll their traits into the ranger. Entering/exiting CA mode counts as pet swap for purpose of traits etc etc...

Agreed wholeheartedly, but how would you go about the (Beastmastery) traitline(s) and skills/effects that affect the pet?

The exact same way they handle soulbeast, but with number changes to not make the elite spec oppressing.

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  • 1 month later...

Druid is actually better as a 1vX roamer than anything else.

For Druid support in small skirmish or say a 10 v 10, you just want to build as a 1vX roamer and then toss what support you can when it is convenient to do but not by building/dedicating to the role. Unfortunately this is just how things work for Druid.

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