Druid WvW roaming build?

[Prophet.1584]

@jcbroe.4329 said:~snip!~

100% agree and want to add a few things.

1. condi doesn't work well, i've tried several druid and soulbeast condi builds and we don't have the utilities or weapon skills to apply enough condi's to beat out most other professions defensive tools like cleanses and resistance. For roaming it seems like it's power or nothing.
2. you can run some offensive stats as a druid and you have a LOT of defensive utility available to you through traits, utilities and weapon skills on staff. I personally like GS/Staff for mobility, blocks and evades.
3. Celestial works but man is it slow, i'd rather run celestial gear on Druid as a hybrid defensive/offensive build than on any Soulbeast build.
4. Soulbeast bunker is far inferior to Druid
5. sw/wh+LB is one of the better combinations available to soulbeast for dps you don't have to spec into marksman just for the lb traits but if you're zerg backlining it helps a lot

[Rysdude.3824]

@"jcbroe.4329" said:Alright, I was hoping this topic would give me more insight before I participated in it, but I see that isn't going to be the case, so I guess it's time for my take/2 cents.

Starting with macro level concepts, roaming builds can basically be divided into 2 paradigms.

• The first is a focus on pure offense. These builds are designed to catch people by surprise, open up their defenses, and kill them with high damage being dealt in a short timeframe.
• The second tends to be focused around extending fights and longevity by having to tools to react and respond to what enemies can do, while also factoring in the ability to reset the fight.

Usually, the efficacy at roaming of either build focus can be gauged in tandem with the amount of mobility the build brings without sacrificing its desired toolkit.

So, Ranger. Ranger is blessed with 2 fantastic elite specs, in that each elite spec fits perfectly into a paradigm.

Druid is incredible at handling basically anything that can be thrown it at, and it has the damage, mobility, and reset potential you want out of a reactionary playstyle. It is opportunistic at its core, meaning that you have to outplay you opponents cooldowns and know when to capitalize. Outside of working on specific tactics to guarantee damage, the main 2 mistakes I see other Druids make are that they use Celestial Form too soon or for no reason, and that they don't utilitize their sword for damage, when sword is the main damage output source in any build running it.

Soulbeast on the other hand is almost hyper offensive; basically the equivalent of a rushdown character in a fighting game. It's all about catching your enemy off guard and opening them up for high damage, and plays very much in a proactive manner, as opposed to Druid being reactive. The main mistake I see Soulbeasts make is that they blow all their cooldowns upfront and they spend the rest of the fight on the backfoot.

The real question isn't which one makes for a "better" roaming spec, because it's apples to oranges in what roles they perform. More importantly, you need to choose the setup that best suits your playstyle. Here's a list of questions to help you decide:

• Do I play aggressively or methodically?
• How good is my pet control and micromanagement?
• Would I rather play in a way that counters an enemy's defense, or offense?
• Do I prefer to deal damage, or survive damage being dealt?

Generally speaking, answering more of the choices with the latter option would imply that your playstyle favors Druid, but the pet micromanagement question is important because being able to manage the pet is key to being an effective Druid, just as it has always been at being the most effective Ranger player you can be. You need the pets damage and CC for pressure and setting up damage combos, and without it there are certain fights that you won't ever be able to win.

Soulbeast shares many similarities with the above sentiments but relies much more on micromanaging the Beastmode cooldown and tricks than the pet itself, although the pet micromanagement is still an important aspect.

All in all, as a Druid, you need to learn to manage your cooldowns primarily against an enemy's offenses, whereas a Soulbeast you need to manage your cooldowns primarily against an enemy's defenses.

I want to take the time to state this again though because it's a pet peeve of mine; if you're using sword, please please please learn to use it for damage, regardless of what your build/spec is. It adds so much much more damage/pressure when you incorporate it into your gameplay.

I'm not the OP but this was very insightful. Thank you.

[Prophet.1584]

I would like to add, stances need some tweaks. What they do is ok but for them to replace traited survival skills either bear stance needs improvement to provide all cleanses for Soulbeast or traited stances could pulse condi cleanse. Lowered stance cooldown when traited could also help.

Bear stance should remove some condis on activation instead of waiting for a pulseDolyak either needs more stab stacks or a lower cooldown it breaks stun but the stab gets either corrupted or stripped away too easily.vulture mostly works as intended, a cover condition would be nice like cripple+poison or 1 random condi+poisonmoa mostly works well but it should be a stunbreak tooOne Wolf Pack again works well but needs more base duration for the investment of an elite skill and the loss of one of our only sources of stab

[GUFF.5692]

As long as major druid nerfs do not come through then druid > Soulbeast for WvW.

Soulbeast doesn't have regular access to full condi clears like druid does (CA-DC). Bear Stance takes time to clear larger condi stacks and can be defeated by cover condis/damage condi reapplication. Bear stance also leaves you more vulnerable to direct damage spikes due to longer cooldown and less healing.

Also, second skin is not as good as some make it out to be. Mainly because condis (esp fire) are still over tuned in WvW. Even if you super charge second skin with curry soup/star runes and high passive regen condis (esp 1vx) will still claim your soul.

If they improve bear stance like Prophet suggests above and allow SoR to work for soulbeasts while in beastmode then the equation changes.

[Kovu.7560]

Investing in cleanses instead of duration negation is always better. With food, sigils, runes and expertise condition builds will always have built in duration that'll more than outpace any condition duration reduction you could throw on your build.

That said I am curious if anyone's run a successful rugged growth/regen/second skin healing power soulbeast build, with obvious investments into protection uptime.

~ kovu

[GUFF.5692]

@"Kovu.7560" said:Investing in cleanses instead of duration negation is always better. With food, sigils, runes and expertise condition builds will always have built in duration that'll more than outpace any condition duration reduction you could throw on your build.

That said I am curious if anyone's run a successful rugged growth/regen/second skin healing power soulbeast build, with obvious investments into protection uptime.

~ kovu

I experimented heavily after PoF came out for condi defense soulbeast builds built to handle the 2-3 man condi gank squads roaming on my server at the time. This is the best I could come up with:

gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYD7kSFojXsWQwhXgrFsMJY572f7x9JIUr2cNBgGwEIlzrRUeB-j1SEQBcUJI/Uh4RqE4z9HcwBBghKDYnuhD+EA+kSPAcBA6k6KBAQA25OTn1ZwO35O35O3ZfXn7cn7cn7cn7cn7sUAau1C-w

Was a somewhat decent defensive build with regen and protection uptime. Was important to cycle weapons and moa stance properly to maintain 100% boon duration on critical boons like stability/protection. Double stability was nice for stomps esp 1vX and medium sized group brawls. The lack of full condi clear made me lose interest in it however.

The changes today to SoR and SoS will definitely have me experimenting again with soulbeast.

[Kovu.7560]

Thanks, I'll be sure to give it a try.

~ Kovu