Flavor of the month druid build?

[Durzlla.6295]

I haven’t been in the PvP season for a while, but is the strategy of showing up to a point and not dying still a good one lol? I was never a fan of being the healer bruiser that went around 1v1ing.

[jcbroe.4329]

Yeah @EnderzShadow.2506 I think you'll find the swap to LB opens up a lot of versatility in what you can do in a match. At least that's what I found it to do when I dedicated myself to making the swap and refused to allow myself to use staff.

My only real advice/tip is that when it comes to an equal skill Spellbreaker fight, just don't if it's their point. If it isn't and your team doesn't need you doing something else, you can stall them as a tactic, but otherwise, fighting them and expecting to win is a waste of time.

Not that the staff build is any different in that regard though haha.

@Durzlla.6295 the tactic with both Core Ranger and Druid is largely the same now (if you see my other thread I queued exclusively as Core Ranger, which I did largely to make the point that Druid doesn't need nerfs when Core is capable of the same thing). You can teamfight to an extent, but what you're looking to do is play an aggressive decap playstyle. Against everything that isn't a Warrior you can force a decap and stall the neutral point, and most classes will have to leave or they'll die. Then from there what you're looking to do, assuming your team is doing their job, is to bait the enemy team into fighting you outnumbered, at which point if they rotate the wrong classes/people to you you'll win the 2v1, or at least get kills out of it, or you'll be able to stall out your cooldowns and escape/kite until they're back up and reengage, or your team will snowball from the teamfight and +1 you for the kill(s).

Really Soulbeast would be capable of doing this too, but Ranger and Druid actually have enough condi clear in this meta, where Soulbeast doesn't, so that's the main balancing factor.

Everyone/in general;I am actually enjoying Core Ranger better than Druid when it comes to straight up fighting. You have more consistent damage than Druid and have all the sustain and utility you need. If anything, you lose killing potential when you play Druid, but gain supporting/sustaining potential. But if you don't need that sustain and can perform well on Core such as I've found myself doing, then by all means Core is the better dueling/killing class when we talk about killing potential gained without stalling power lost.

Spellbreaker is still a wash though.

[Durzlla.6295]

Lol I enjoy having my support and utility way too much, and probably wouldn’t even wanna drip staff to be totally honest, I’m too big of a fan of my 5 and my nope out potential.

Definitely gonna have to get back into PvP this season though, try the meta build and inevitably adapt it to my style.

[TamX.1870]

Absolutely fantastic info!

@"jcbroe.4329" said:Druid: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFKZx+VwhFoaxykgB/TLqLVnK3lLz1EAecTgSk+cA-jpxHQB+7CA4j9HAwRAYklBU2BB4bPAAA

I tuned my build towards this - got rid of staff and such - and I got to say that it gave me a huge winning streak. Thanks! It really seems that as druid it is better to be a bit more offensive, forget staff, and you still have pretty frequent access to CA.

I'm still at a toss up between Electric Wyvern and Jacaranda. I couldn't even decide last season lol. Wyvern seems like it has better damage against a moving target and on the Core build the quickness petswap can give it respectable burst, but the Jacaranda AoE nukes hard, which is useful in both 1v1/small fights and team fights, and you can use the AoE defensively in a way, as area denial.

I am still wondering about pets. I'd basically like to keep Bristleback as another pet, just because it is ranged, and such it can put some pressure from range w/o being in the middle of the fight (or traveling long distances to ranger/deadeye in a ledge). On the other hand, I'd like to have combo fields to splash, and it wouldn't hurt to have something to eat the conditions transferred by Sigil of Renewal. My current PvP pets are smokescale and jacaranda, but i am more than open for better suggestions.

Anyways, thanks for great insights to PvP builds! Helped me much.

[Shaogin.2679]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnUqA9Ci1CCOsActglOBzJwFAKcwr0Y6O9pFEqWYlMtzA-jpxHQBM8IA8tDBwILDAgLAgO2fIhPAAA

I still use this same old Shoutbow build. I've tried other common builds, but I always get better results on this build for some reason. I mean, I can reliably support teammates, I can put out some decent burst damage, mobility is nice with perma-swiftness and staff 3, astral force gen is great due to aoe regen, and condies are still manageable and I can cleanse my allies a bit more as well. I play it in Platinum and don't have any issues with it really.

[TamX.1870]

@Shaogin.2679 said:I still use this same old Shoutbow build. I've tried other common builds, but I always get better results on this build for some reason. I mean, I can reliably support teammates, I can put out some decent burst damage, mobility is nice with perma-swiftness and staff 3, astral force gen is great due to aoe regen, and condies are still manageable and I can cleanse my allies a bit more as well. I play it in Platinum and don't have any issues with it really.

IMO it is a great build overall. When I started, I struggled between bunker druid and shoutbow. I ended up to play shoutbow. But recently, I have investigated sw + wh builds just because wh #5 is so beautiful skill (IMO). To combine shoutbow and warhorn, I now tried that lb + sw/wh build shown here, and I think I found something that matches my rank, my purposes and my play style well. At least for now. Staff is great weapon, but I think that to fully take advantage of that, you need a team that can take advantage of your great support. That is not regularly the thing on the rank I play (gold).

[Eggyokeo.9705]

@jcbroe.4329 said:

Really Soulbeast would be capable of doing this too, but Ranger and Druid actually have enough condi clear in this meta, where Soulbeast doesn't, so that's the main balancing factor.

What makes you say that sbeast doesnt have enough condi removal in comparision core. I under stand that you get 2 every pet swap (15s i think) but with soule beast you get jacarander, yak stance, and if you drop the Wh (as you get swiftness from LB3 and you have other fury an regen) and take the condi removal from dodge get some other sources of defence. Whilest you lose team support we seam to be talking side point fighting any way.

If worse comes to worse and you notice you are fighting a condi heave comp you can evan through on bare stance

[Fluffball.8307]

@TamX.1870 said:I am still wondering about pets. I'd basically like to keep Bristleback as another pet, just because it is ranged, and such it can put some pressure from range w/o being in the middle of the fight (or traveling long distances to ranger/deadeye in a ledge). On the other hand, I'd like to have combo fields to splash, and it wouldn't hurt to have something to eat the conditions transferred by Sigil of Renewal. My current PvP pets are smokescale and jacaranda, but i am more than open for better

I use iboga because it's ranged and still has a hard cc like the better melee pets. The condi damage it puts out is not bad at all too, throws out some decent confusion. There are too many good pet options and that's great.

[jcbroe.4329]

@Eggyokeo.9705 said:

@"jcbroe.4329" said:

Really Soulbeast would be capable of doing this too, but Ranger and Druid actually have enough condi clear in this meta, where Soulbeast doesn't, so that's the main balancing factor.

What makes you say that sbeast doesnt have enough condi removal in comparision core. I under stand that you get 2 every pet swap (15s i think) but with soule beast you get jacarander, yak stance, and if you drop the Wh (as you get swiftness from LB3 and you have other fury an regen) and take the condi removal from dodge get some other sources of defence. Whilest you lose team support we seam to be talking side point fighting any way.

If worse comes to worse and you notice you are fighting a condi heave comp you can evan through on bare stance

Usability is a huge part of it. Bear Stance is a weak, weak, weak heal. And if you get condi bombed in your other pet while using Beastmode, Jacaranda is useless, you can't get to it quick enough, and it has long cooldowns in a metagame where conditions are being spammed and spewed from every attack. Dolyak Stance doesn't protect against damaging conditions at all and I'd even go as far as saying traited QZ is better at this particular function since it cleanses 2 conditions and Superspeed negates movement impairing conditions.

The Nature Magic dodge roll trait creates bad habits, where you start trying to dodge to cleanse conditions (which if you had the energy you usually could've dodged in the first place), and it opens you up to get bursted down and not have the energy to dodge it because you used to dodge for the cleanse instead.

With Cleansing on both weapon swaps (I hope that's the version of the build I linked, if not I need to change it) and Traited Zephyrs Speed, you can cleanse all the damaging conditions a Mirage can put out with shatters at the same rate they can Shatter, and still have Troll Unguent's cleanse and Leadership+Entangle if you mess up.

Against Scourges you can cleanse your way out of their shade at roughly the same rate they can lay down shades, but at least enough to kite them to a range that you can out range them and position them with kiting to control the fight without having to worry about getting bombed by them and having the tools to deal with it if you do.

All Soulbeast would need to keep up is something like "cleanse 2-3 conditions when you leave Beastmode" as a trait option. I know some people are or are trying to make it work but it just isn't as strong of a defensive setup as the Core setup offers, and personally, in my hands, I gain next to nothing by running Soulbeast.

If anything, I think the most optimal way to play Soulbeast is to build for unblockable ranged damage bursts. I know I threw up a short little nothing video on my YouTube but it does highlight how I'd run Soulbeast:

9-12k Rapid Fires as long as you have Fury, using this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFKZx+VwhFoaxihg1sBSdtAmAw660lfdzuj3S+WaA-jpxHQBM8BAAgjAABvAAXrMgyOIAqY/BA

I may have further optimized my choices here since the video, so sorry for the mismatch if there is any haha.

[EnderzShadow.2506]

@TamX.1870 said:I am still wondering about pets. I'd basically like to keep Bristleback as another pet, just because it is ranged, and such it can put some pressure from range w/o being in the middle of the fight (or traveling long distances to ranger/deadeye in a ledge). On the other hand, I'd like to have combo fields to splash, and it wouldn't hurt to have something to eat the conditions transferred by Sigil of Renewal. My current PvP pets are smokescale and jacaranda, but i am more than open for better suggestions.

I know Fluff just mentioned using Iboga--- I haven't tried that yet

I am still running Smokescale and Jacaranda.

Jacaranda, I really like, the dmg, the root--- in addition to already running entangle, works very well.

Gonna check out iboga, give that a roll.