Condi Druid build for roaming?

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

Hi everyone.

 

I'm relatively new to WvW and I'm really enjoying the game mode (I do mostly roaming) 😄 For now I'm playing Condi Soulbeast but I'm already working on a better roaming build. I've been recommended a Power Soulbeast build, but I'd like to ask what you think of a Condi Druid build (I normally prefer condi builds and this way I could share the ascended gear between those builds).

 

I don't know to what extent Condi Druid makes sense in WvW (roaming), but still, for those of you who play or have tried a Condi Druid build in WvW, what do you think of it and what build did you use? 

 

Thank you!  

[Impling.4170]

I used to main Ranger a few years ago and I still play it a bit off and on, so while I may not be the best resource, I will still comment.

 

IMO Condi Druid is a very slippery build with moderate damage output, but with a high potential impact for disruption via Ancient Seeds/ immob spam. Personally I think it is one of the easiest roaming builds of any class to play, but it has a lot of cool tricks you can do so I would still say it has a pretty fair skill ceiling as well. It is a tremendous noob stomper but you will probably have a lot more trouble when fighting skilled players that understand how to pressure you and counter your roots. Compared to power Soulbeast, I would say it has a lower skill floor and skill ceiling, meaning easier to play and master, but arguably less impact at the higher skill level. When fighting groups with heavy cleanse you can pretty easily feel useless, but the immob spam can legitimately swing fights if you are good at picking targets and baiting out their cleanses. It handles outnumbered situations quite well as it has stealth/superspeed access as well as the roots to lock down targets while disengaging.

 

In team fights, it still has some value through immobing targets as well as group cleanse/disengage, but IMO your damage won't feel as impactful against groups worth their salt. Paper Roll is on YT and IMO he plays the class well and mains condi Druid so has plenty of content to choose from. I would recommend his build over a more traditional trapper rune Druid personally.

 

Just my two cents. Hope that helps.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Mogwai.4015

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

Thank you, Mogwai! I'll check his channel 🙂 

 

[Junkpile.7439]

I would recommend full berserker scepter dagger core ele for roaming. No armor, no hp and no damage makes fights more interesting.

[Dao Jones.6720]

I've been considering something similar. I run a Condi Soulbeast build, and while it isn't amazing it's not terrible, and I've been wondering what a switch to Druid might bring.

 

I think one of the challenges you'll face with Druid is that - apart from Ancient Seeds - it's much more support focused than roaming focused in terms of what it brings, so you're basically leaning heavy into Immob spam.

 

That all said - please report back your experiences!

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Really when we say 'condi' druid we're talking about bleeds because that's the only (damaging) condition that ranger in general has access to.  

 

I mention that as bleeds are hit or miss--most people in WvW are terrible and ancient seeds seems 'OP' to them so you can get fairly high stacks of bleeds fairly quickly.  This is what you will find on most roaming montages and YT, but the reality is a bit different than that.

 

Running a condi druid myself for the past 4 or so months I can say that against competent players it has pretty big weaknesses.  The only thing really saving it is that Trailblazer's armor is so powerful, but the druid skills themselves need a lot of skill to use properly.

 

In a nutshell the pet is useless without taking BM, but if you take BM you have very limited clear options as you HAVE to take skirmishing.  You also are limited on what pets actually do anything, and some of them are straight up bugged (ex: electric wyvern's F2 has a high chance of doing jack).  

 

In addition, anyone who knows what CC is (thankfully most of WvW players do not) will wreck you, as you have zero source of sustain, and most likely one method for getting out of bad situations (lightning reflexes).  You'd think they'd add some sustain on entering or exiting CA but nope--you do that at the wrong time and you're going to waste it as someone will just CC you and force you to leave it / stealth.

 

Finally, against anything with high cleanse and / or a lot of barrier, reflect, etc. access you are going to either lose or stalemate a high percentage of time.  You could say this is a natural hard counter but so many classes have access to massive cleanse / escapes that it becomes more of a major build weakness than an isolated thing.  

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Really when we say 'condi' druid we're talking about bleeds because that's the only (damaging) condition that ranger in general has access to.  

Well, there's also burning and poison 🙂 

 

Thank you for your inputs! I think I'll give Condi Druid a try, because when roaming with guildies I could at least do some healing as well, which I can't with Condi Soulbeast. And I'll keep working on the Power Soulbeast build nonetheless 🙂 

[hobotnicax.7918]

Power is the way. Condi is for weak players.

[schloumou.3982]

19 hours ago, TheLadyOfTheRings.9148 said:

I don't know to what extent Condi Druid makes sense in WvW (roaming)

 

It makes sense if you want to just annoy everyone and have binary fights. Builds that can't handle the rootspam are freekills and the the others are basically unkillable for you. As soon as you face more than one player that knows what he's doing and some sort of condi management apears, your impact on the fight will be zero. Imho I would not advise to go for the most cheesy playstyle but rather find something with better scaling.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

8 hours ago, TheLadyOfTheRings.9148 said:

Well, there's also burning and poison 🙂 

 

Thank you for your inputs! I think I'll give Condi Druid a try, because when roaming with guildies I could at least do some healing as well, which I can't with Condi Soulbeast. And I'll keep working on the Power Soulbeast build nonetheless 🙂 

 

Right, the reason I ignored those is poison damage is laughable (even with the 2-3 traits you can take to help) and burning access really only exists on torch which is a pretty bad weapon in general.  

 

Those two will also fare better on Soulbeast where you can get some damage / duration stats from the pet and also have access to other covers like confusion and such (through Iboga).

 

Druid is literally a bleed build or nothing.  As mentioned before this lynchpins on Trailblazer's and Ancient Seeds along with survivability from WS and damaging from Skirmishing.  

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Right, the reason I ignored those is poison damage is laughable (even with the 2-3 traits you can take to help) and burning access really only exists on torch which is a pretty bad weapon in general.  

 

Those two will also fare better on Soulbeast where you can get some damage / duration stats from the pet and also have access to other covers like confusion and such (through Iboga).

 

Druid is literally a bleed build or nothing.  As mentioned before this lynchpins on Trailblazer's and Ancient Seeds along with survivability from WS and damaging from Skirmishing.  

Not true at all. The druid spec itself has literally nothing to do with the condi aspect of the ranger condi builds, it's all about sustain and ancient seed. Most of the burst damage will be burning+poison+bleed from a trap combo.

The only way you are a bleed build and nothing else is if you are only capable of autoattacking.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

5 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Not true at all. The druid spec itself has literally nothing to do with the condi aspect of the ranger condi builds, it's all about sustain and ancient seed. Most of the burst damage will be burning+poison+bleed from a trap combo.

The only way you are a bleed build and nothing else is if you are only capable of autoattacking.

 

Taking traps severely hampers your damage / survival ability--someone linked paper roll above, I suggest everyone go and review his stuff for what I'm talking about.  

 

Essentially adding the other conditions in to a druid build stretches it too thin since both ancient seeds and entangle are bleed based.  So naturally you are going to want to add sharpening stone in with that and need lighting reflexes for your stunbreak / immob remove...so  you have room for pretty much one trap--and none of them are really that good--so it's best just to take really anything else, especially survival because you will be clearing conditions as well.  

 

I mean specifically looking at traps, spike trap is pretty laughable in general and you don't need more CC when you play druid, venom trap is pointless if you are running shortbow as you have all the poison you will need (not to mention potential extra from WS traits),  and frost trap is in the same vein of the chill isn't going to do too much for you (if you really want it, just take axe instead of shortbow).  That leaves flame trap which is fine for a trap, but still bad--it had its time a few years ago when traps were throwable and the trapper runes could be abused.  

 

The heal trap itself is debatable, I don't personally use it as it has some very weird mechanics and you can still be condi overloaded fast while standing in it--so I just take TU.  I think the reason paper roll himself uses the heal trap now is mostly content related, as this bleed druid build has been around for a long while and I can imagine it getting stale if you are trying to run a YT channel.  

Edited May 20, 2021 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Stormtrooper.5976]

Sorry, real Champions of the Mists only play power builds