Support Druid Vs Support Tempest Vs Support Scrapper ? Which is better in WvW?

[PrinceValentine.9320]

I see all three competing as top cleansers in a squad most of the time but I think Druids have the best heal. There are still some coms who are not yet aware of how strong support druids are, but there some who know like my GL who constantly thanks me after a run for playing support druid and even mails me lootbags . What do you guys think? 

[Beddo.1907]

The only thing that hold Druid back is the pet.

[Ragnarvor.2351]

On 10/21/2022 at 10:25 AM, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

I see all three competing as top cleansers in a squad most of the time but I think Druids have the best heal. There are still some coms who are not yet aware of how strong support druids are, but there some who know like my GL who constantly thanks me after a run for playing support druid and even mails me lootbags . What do you guys think? 

Where could I find a starter build for Druid support for roaming support?

[Infusion.7149]

Beddo is spot on. The #1 thing holding druid back is lack of pet stow. Arguably it is less important now that sneak gyro was nerfed heavily.

Tempest is still better for engaging since you still need to generate astral force and if you drop out of CA you only have staff and glyphs to really fall back on.

[Flow.2947]

i think the pet is actually extremely strong and since the scrapper nerv a good way to give stealth to your party. The nerv to scrapper enabled the use of the two other classes 

[Beddo.1907]

3 minutes ago, Flow.2947 said:

i think the pet is actually extremely strong and since the scrapper nerv a good way to give stealth to your party. 

Except the pet makes combat stealth way worse and can't be used consistently to apply it on the move.
Also let's not forget all the stats you lose for the sake of the pet which is pretty much useless after you use f2.

[Flow.2947]

7 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Except the pet makes combat stealth way worse and can't be used consistently to apply it on the move.
Also let's not forget all the stats you lose for the sake of the pet which is pretty much useless after you use f2.

the mechanic that your pet needs to be stowed is clunky i agree It should get stealth when you do. but i think its good that the access to long lasting stealth requires more coordination and is harder to get by. I wouldn't say useless but i would wish for the core class to have access to the abilities like untainted has.

[Beddo.1907]

56 minutes ago, Flow.2947 said:

the mechanic that your pet needs to be stowed is clunky i agree It should get stealth when you do. but i think its good that the access to long lasting stealth requires more coordination and is harder to get by. I wouldn't say useless but i would wish for the core class to have access to the abilities like untainted has.

Yeah that's the whole point. Small problems with the pet that pile up into a full issue that makes our value inconsistent and in turn less desired over the other alternatives. Until that is changed, Druid for Com is just "playable, but I'd swap it when there is a chance".

The pet is useless after f2, since you can't control it's movement and skill usage, unless you use Untamed (which needs a rework too). Damage is meh, utility is meh due to positioning and timing and tanking is as good as stopping a bullet with a tissue.
Just being able to keep the pet stowed for the whole fight is enough to at least remove the "negative value".
 

[Heibi.4251]

We've tested out all three. In order.

Tempest wins this. Highest cleanses in zerg fights.

Druid was good in stand still fights, comparable to Tempest, but became clunky in moving fights.

Scapper took a huge hit that negatively affected their ability to cleanse in WvW. Too slow now. 

 

[Soilder.3607]

2 hours ago, Heibi.4251 said:

We've tested out all three. In order.

Tempest wins this. Highest cleanses in zerg fights.

Druid was good in stand still fights, comparable to Tempest, but became clunky in moving fights.

Scapper took a huge hit that negatively affected their ability to cleanse in WvW. Too slow now. 

 

Druid and Tempest cleansing is even. We've tested it too with players who have essentially perfect rotations and it's the same in standstill fights or moving fights. If your Druids were getting outcleansed then they're either running suboptimal builds or aren't playing at maximum efficiency. If your Druids are having issues in moving fights then they need to practice more.

 

The cleanse charts are not always fair comparisons because they don't account for differences in player skill and/or optimal builds. Most of the guilds I run with I am the top cleanser by a significant margin, usually twice as many cleanses as the 2nd best cleanser, and I achieve those numbers whether or not I play my Druid or Tempest. That's because there is a gap in skill/builds between myself and the other healers, not because my Druid outcleanses Temp by 100% or vice versa.

 

What's not even between the two is healing. Druid healing far outclasses Tempest healing, on the order of 50-100% more vs a D/D Heal Tempest (D/D is the highest healing weapon set for Temps). But again, this assumes player skill is even.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zEJMmjSOKhc

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mIVum0Bqyc0

 

Here's some vids of my Druid outcleansing everyone. Vs Tempests the cleansing should be even but clearly these Tempests have an issue with skill/build.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cAb1KxpcLN4

 

This my D/D Tempest. Mostly could fights but watch the very last fight how my Tempest is matched by a Druid player (he's my guildie). He plays Druid as well as I do and has near perfect rotations. Our cleanses were evenly matched. Thus, we have a fair comparison between the two specs on players who are evenly skilled.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Soilder.3607

[Heibi.4251]

After watching:

"Here's some vids of my Druid outcleansing everyone. Vs Tempests the cleansing should be even but clearly these Tempests have an issue with skill/build." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cAb1KxpcLN4

 

Tempest far out cleansed Druid. It was just like I said - in stand still fights Druids do fine - the only one where the druid nearly equaled the tempest was in the Necro Tower. You didn't move much. Otherwise, Tempest out performed the Druid overall. Mind you I was paying attention to the top cleansing Tempest vs the Druid.

[Swagger.1459]

9 hours ago, Soilder.3607 said:

Druid and Tempest cleansing is even. We've tested it too with players who have essentially perfect rotations and it's the same in standstill fights or moving fights. If your Druids were getting outcleansed then they're either running suboptimal builds or aren't playing at maximum efficiency. If your Druids are having issues in moving fights then they need to practice more.

 

The cleanse charts are not always fair comparisons because they don't account for differences in player skill and/or optimal builds. Most of the guilds I run with I am the top cleanser by a significant margin, usually twice as many cleanses as the 2nd best cleanser, and I achieve those numbers whether or not I play my Druid or Tempest. That's because there is a gap in skill/builds between myself and the other healers, not because my Druid outcleanses Temp by 100% or vice versa.

 

What's not even between the two is healing. Druid healing far outclasses Tempest healing, on the order of 50-100% more vs a D/D Heal Tempest (D/D is the highest healing weapon set for Temps). But again, this assumes player skill is even.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zEJMmjSOKhc

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mIVum0Bqyc0

 

Here's some vids of my Druid outcleansing everyone. Vs Tempests the cleansing should be even but clearly these Tempests have an issue with skill/build.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cAb1KxpcLN4

 

This my D/D Tempest. Mostly could fights but watch the very last fight how my Tempest is matched by a Druid player (he's my guildie). He plays Druid as well as I do and has near perfect rotations. Our cleanses were evenly matched. Thus, we have a fair comparison between the two specs on players who are evenly skilled.

I gave up attempting to play support in this game a very long time ago, so I'm going to ask... Your Tempest in that video doesn't seem maximized for healing, Staff is actually pretty sweet compared to D/D, your Soothing Mist seems to be half of the old Ele Heal Build I used long ago (that I just tested in WvW like 10 minutes ago and isn't optimized)... So, how realistically can you claim the Druid does better Healing than Tempest?  

Also, last I checked (again, long ago when I actually cared), my old Heal Guardian outperformed Druid and was far smoother to play. 

And I agree with another poster here, Druid is clunky. There are better Heal support options for movement based gameplay.  

[Soilder.3607]

48 minutes ago, Heibi.4251 said:

After watching:

"Here's some vids of my Druid outcleansing everyone. Vs Tempests the cleansing should be even but clearly these Tempests have an issue with skill/build." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cAb1KxpcLN4

 

Tempest far out cleansed Druid. It was just like I said - in stand still fights Druids do fine - the only one where the druid nearly equaled the tempest was in the Necro Tower. You didn't move much. Otherwise, Tempest out performed the Druid overall. Mind you I was paying attention to the top cleansing Tempest vs the Druid.

You have entirely failed to grasp the points of those videos.

 

If you had watched the first two videos of me on my Druid, you would have seen me outcleansing and outhealing for 23 minutes straight every other supporter (Tempest, Scrapper, Vindi) by massive margins. Does that mean that Druid is statistically 50%, 100%, or 200% better than these support classes? No. It means that there is a huge gap in skill between the other supports players and myself.

 

In the Tempest video, which is again me, I am outcleansing other supports by nearly the same margin as I do on my Druid. That is because there is yet again a massive gap in skill between myself and other players. In the same fights where I am outcleansing Druids I am also outcleansing other Tempests by even greater margins. If I am outcleansing a Tempest 2 to 1 while playing my own Tempest, does that mean that Tempest outcleanses Tempest by twice as much? No, that's nonsensical; it's the same class, just that one player is better than the other.

 

The only fight in the Tempest video that gives an accurate portrayal of Tempest cleanse vs Druid cleanse is the very last one because I know the Druid player is my friend who plays at a high skill level, hence why we finished the fight at virtually an equal level of cleansing.

 

Now, in terms of static vs mobile fights, Druid excels at both but is slightly better in static fights because it makes it easier to land skills like Cosmic Ray and take full advantage of immobile AoE's like Healing Spring and Glyph of the Stars. Yet in mobile fights the performance is 90% the same because 90% of Druid support skills work fine on mobile encounters. The Tempest has its own shortcomings in mobile fights because it too may rely on static AoE's like Geyser, Healing Rain and Warhorn #5 (in water attunement). It's a non-argument. Whatever results your guildmates got on Druid, if they were that much worse than Tempest, were from a lack of skill or suboptimal builds, not because the classes inherently differ to such a degree.

[Soilder.3607]

1 hour ago, Swagger.1459 said:

I gave up attempting to play support in this game a very long time ago, so I'm going to ask... Your Tempest in that video doesn't seem maximized for healing, Staff is actually pretty sweet compared to D/D, your Soothing Mist seems to be half of the old Ele Heal Build I used long ago (that I just tested in WvW like 10 minutes ago and isn't optimized)... So, how realistically can you claim the Druid does better Healing than Tempest?  

Also, last I checked (again, long ago when I actually cared), my old Heal Guardian outperformed Druid and was far smoother to play. 

And I agree with another poster here, Druid is clunky. There are better Heal support options for movement based gameplay.  

Because I play both at a high skill level. I understand both classes in depth in terms of their support capabilities. I know what they're capable of by playing them with multitudes of comped guilds and players with feedback driven information from logging software like ArcDps.

 

Staff is quite good on a Heal Tempest and it offers good healing, great condi cleanse and great utility (CC's, combo fields, immobs etc). D/D offers much less utility than staff but it has an advantage in being the highest healing weapon set for a Tempest. It's quite literally mathematics. Staff has two healing skills (Geyser and the Auto attack), D/D has three (Cone of Cold, Transmute Frost, Healing Wave), one of which (Transmute Frost) can be cast everytime you gain Frost Aura, so in practice you get to use Transmute Frost to cleanse and heal somewhere around 4 times every 30 seconds (rough average from factoring in sources of Frost Aura). That's what makes D/D end up healing more than every other weapon set for the Tempest.

 

Firebrand healing has been nerfed significantly ever since it came out. It is nowhere near comparable to what is outputted by a Druid or Vindictator and, to a lesser degree, Scrapper and Tempest.

 

Also, Tempest meta builds can be built for more healing, but it will come at a loss of condi cleansing. Most Tempest builds use Trooper runes to cleanse a condi on shouts. You can swap to Monk runes to gain more healing, but now you lose a cleanse on your heal skill, all your utilities, and your elite Skill. Most Tempests also use the trait Powerful Auras to enhance aura sharing (resulting in more cleansing and healing because auras cleanse and heal on application, if traited for it). You can swap that trait for the one that doubles the healing from Soothing Mist, which will result in a net gain in healing but a loss in condi cleanse because your shout based auras now affect 5 targets instead of 6 and any aura gained from a weapon skill or your overloads will not be shared with allies. At that point, your healing will have been improved by a fair margin, but your cleanse will now be mildly less than a Druids because of what you have given up.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Soilder.3607

[Swagger.1459]

23 minutes ago, Soilder.3607 said:

Because I play both at a high skill level. I understand both classes in depth in terms of their support capabilities. I know what they're capable of by playing them with multitudes of comped guilds and players with feedback driven information from logging software like ArcDps.

 

Staff is quite good on a Heal Tempest and it offers good healing, great condi cleanse and great utility (CC's, combo fields, immobs etc). D/D offers much less utility than staff but it has an advantage in being the highest healing weapon set for a Tempest. It's quite literally mathematics. Staff has two healing skills (Geyser and the Auto attack), D/D has three (Cone of Cold, Transmute Frost, Healing Wave), one of which (Transmute Frost) can be cast everytime you gain Frost Aura, so in practice you get to use Transmute Frost to cleanse and heal somewhere around 4 times every 30 seconds (rough average from factoring in sources of Frost Aura). That's what makes D/D end up healing more than every other weapon set for the Tempest.

 

Firebrand healing has been nerfed significantly ever since it came out. It is nowhere near comparable to what is outputted by a Druid or Vindictator and, to a lesser degree, Scrapper and Tempest.

 

Also, Tempest meta builds can be built for more healing, but it will come at a loss of condi cleansing. Most Tempest builds use Trooper runes to cleanse a condi on shouts. You can swap to Monk runes to gain more healing, but now you lose a cleanse on your heal skill, all your utilities, and your elite Skill. Most Tempests also use the trait Powerful Auras to enhance aura sharing (resulting in more cleansing and healing because auras cleanse and heal on application, if traited for it). You can swap that trait for the one that doubles the healing from Soothing Mist, which will result in a net gain in healing but a loss in condi cleanse because your shout based auras now affect 5 targets instead of 6 and any aura gained from a weapon skill or your overloads will not be shared with allies. At that point, your healing will have been improved by a fair margin, but your cleanse will now be mildly less than a Druids because of what you have given up.

Staff has 3 Healing skills. It also has a ranged advantage for improved coverage. 

 

Maximized for Healing, I'm pretty sure from past experience that a Staff Healing Tempest will still out-heal a D/D heal Tempest and Heal Druid. And I'm not here talking about "Cleansing", I'm talking Healing. 

 

[PrinceValentine.9320]

I don't think tempest can outheal a druid but their heal output is much easier to achieve because it is mostly based on auto attack just like scrapper. There are times that tempests can outcleanse a druid and vice versa. It really depends on the positioning and how they execute their combos.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

23 hours ago, Soilder.3607 said:

That's because there is a gap in skill/builds between myself and the other healers, not because my Druid outcleanses Temp by 100% or vice versa.

all you're doing is spamming everything off cd with no regard to circumstance.

[Soilder.3607]

1 hour ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

all you're doing is spamming everything off cd with no regard to circumstance.

Playing as a healer/cleanser in a squad is unique in the fact that it's the one role where you have to be using most, if not all, of your heals/cleanses off cooldown during a fight.

 

Depending on the size of the fight, there are potentially hundreds of conditions and hundreds of thousands of damage being exchanged each minute. You do not have time to watch and react to each individual in your party/squad, judge whether or not they have a condi or need healing, and then make a decision. This is not the same game as Guild Wars 1 where you are resource limited (energy) and skill limited (static 8 skill bar) and often must carefully decide what skill to use and when. In fact, the meta tempest build quite literally has a rotation to follow. 

 

How do I judge whether or not to use my heals/cleanses?

 

It's a combination of your distance from an enemy zerg (most ranged spikes are done at ~900 range, if you're melee against another comp you need to be casting everything), whether or not you are taking heavy damage/condi (if your squad is stacked on tag, which a good squad should be, and you yourself are taking big damage, then so is everyone else), and how many red circles are on the ground (lots of circles? lots of healing. Limited circles? Not a lot of healing). You should also have thick party member health bars enabled to give you a quick glance at how much health everyone else in your squad has.

 

Some of the fights in those videos are siege fights where we are taking constant damage from siege equipment/players on walls/players clouding with there being virtually no downtime in incoming damage. Guess what? You need be to healing/cleansing constantly. You can't afford to not heal/cleanse because damage is still being received and your teammates will die if you do not heal them.

 

In the actual comp v. comp fights, I am not merely spamming my skills of CD without regarding to circumstance. I am deliberately waiting until we are bombed, are moving through an enemy bomb, or are going full melee against the enemy to use most of my skills. Comp v Comp fights generally have downtime in damage/healing as enemy groups try to play around each other's bombs until one of them decides to go full melee, and so you don't have to be spamming heals/cleanses unless you are engaged.

[EriskRedLemur.7153]

On 10/25/2022 at 5:59 AM, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

I don't think tempest can outheal a druid but their heal output is much easier to achieve because it is mostly based on auto attack just like scrapper. There are times that tempests can outcleanse a druid and vice versa. It really depends on the positioning and how they execute their combos.

Alright so this. I think, based on Soldier's posts/vids and my own guild and etc. in a vacuum cleanses are nearly equal - it's like DPS on a bot to test; it's a baseline but not realistic for everything where you factor movement, scale, skill of player, etc. So, take skill aside, there's situations/matchups where Druid will cleanse better than Tempest and vice versa. So I find this whole argument silly lol although, interesting to KNOW all that. Druid will > tempest for heals BUT their heals isn't as easy to pull off. Tempest brings their aura share to the table which is more cleanse when spec'd BUT also stuff like shocking aura a big CC AND with the right spec auras will heal; which they need if they are to be considered heals so, I think both are pretty good in the meta now which is great because it's not just scrapper 🙂 I will say maybe because I played Tempest Support before for a while so I knew it well, and I was able to got back into it faster but I def struggle with Druid/learning and managing the CA and timing and all the more targeted healing. Also Tempests can spec for less heals and more ala share via Elemental Bastion -> Lucid Singularity, etc. pending situation/group. And small scale glyph of renewal can be really good esp on air to move target to you. IMO it's a little more flex than Druid; BUT... both have a place in meta imo. I WILL say I dont have the Druid experience and most ppl prob don't since even during the scrapper meta Tempests still had use with their aurashare but Druids.... literally got kicked lol. So it's taking more time to see Druids back. And it's not like Vind heals which were ez healmode imo. Or even scrapper. ANYWAYS... I just like seeing more than one heal support being able to be used!

Edited October 26, 2022 by EriskRedLemur.7153

[PrinceValentine.9320]

2 hours ago, EriskRedLemur.7153 said:

Alright so this. I think, based on Soldier's posts/vids and my own guild and etc. in a vacuum cleanses are nearly equal - it's like DPS on a bot to test; it's a baseline but not realistic for everything where you factor movement, scale, skill of player, etc. So, take skill aside, there's situations/matchups where Druid will cleanse better than Tempest and vice versa. So I find this whole argument silly lol although, interesting to KNOW all that. Druid will > tempest for heals BUT their heals isn't as easy to pull off. Tempest brings their aura share to the table which is more cleanse when spec'd BUT also stuff like shocking aura a big CC AND with the right spec auras will heal; which they need if they are to be considered heals so, I think both are pretty good in the meta now which is great because it's not just scrapper 🙂 I will say maybe because I played Tempest Support before for a while so I knew it well, and I was able to got back into it faster but I def struggle with Druid/learning and managing the CA and timing and all the more targeted healing. Also Tempests can spec for less heals and more ala share via Elemental Bastion -> Lucid Singularity, etc. pending situation/group. And small scale glyph of renewal can be really good esp on air to move target to you. IMO it's a little more flex than Druid; BUT... both have a place in meta imo. I WILL say I dont have the Druid experience and most ppl prob don't since even during the scrapper meta Tempests still had use with their aurashare but Druids.... literally got kicked lol. So it's taking more time to see Druids back. And it's not like Vind heals which were ez healmode imo. Or even scrapper. ANYWAYS... I just like seeing more than one heal support being able to be used!

We actually have this Druid in the guild who plays the class really well that he outcleanses every one else by 30-40%. I am not sure how he does it but he does it. And it's not fun when you have the commander complaining that you cant do the same thing. Maybe, people will eventually catch up on how to play the build properly. I am still learning. 

[EriskRedLemur.7153]

On 10/26/2022 at 4:41 PM, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

We actually have this Druid in the guild who plays the class really well that he outcleanses every one else by 30-40%. I am not sure how he does it but he does it. And it's not fun when you have the commander complaining that you cant do the same thing. Maybe, people will eventually catch up on how to play the build properly. I am still learning. 

I can see that; I think Druid is more skill based to really optimize/shine with non-heal aspects. It's a paradigm shift Druid has been shafted in WvW for so long, yes pet is one reason, but even forgoing it until now just not worth it before. With the buffs to it and shift in meta - Vindi sorta came on strong and kinda overshadowed Druid then Tempest already good but now vying for similar spot, but idk I think both are very viable in the current meta. But Druid like even by me, will take time to get it's due. I hope. But from my experience it's a lot easier to play mediocre (and still get decent results, but thus not seemingly match tempest/others with cleansing).

[Cytoplasma.8216]

On 10/24/2022 at 4:29 PM, Soilder.3607 said:

What's not even between the two is healing. Druid healing far outclasses Tempest healing, on the order of 50-100% more vs a D/D Heal Tempest (D/D is the highest healing weapon set for Temps). But again, this assumes player skill is even.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zEJMmjSOKhc

Dude why u don't use skill combo cleanse ? In CA press 3 then 2 just like guardian to mass clean condi.