Inquiry on the state of Druid's High end PvE Meta

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

Hello there,

long long time ago I was trying to get up a healing druid up and running for raids/t4 fractals. just as I got barebone raid-capable gear (exotic armor and ascended weps+trinkets) for magi gear, the balance pass have hit changing grace of the land to might stacking forcing it out into harrier's stat instead.

 

and here comes my question - did recent nerf to celestial avatar healing with trait change to make up for it had any effect on druids meta in this types of content? if so what effect was it?

 

Thanks for insights in advance

[nia.4725]

Nothing changed.

 

Druids, without the nerf to our heals, already vas overhealing. With the nerfs, we overheal less, but still overheal. Druid is in the same state as pre-nerf, it's still the meta choice and pugs still run 2 of them. Do not worry at all about its viability, it's as desired and expected as always. Only statics sometimes run different compositions.

 

To sum up: it's still meta and it's still the best option, even with the nerfs to heals and damage boosters.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

Thank you for insights, altho I meant my question more on the case of gear traits if it's same or anything changed. Matters to me because if I was to re-engage in this contents for serious the meta how I have left it would require me to swap out all gear on her (again) (got magi, last time I checked harriers were way to go)

[nia.4725]


 

Basic traits. Then depending on your build and boss you'll change a trait here or there, like the trait of the heal trap or the warhorn.

 

Gear: full harrier. About the runes, you have 2 options. The meta one is monk rune, I personally use water rune. The reason why is that monk gives you more outgoing healing, but you already have a ton of that. You are already overhealing. However, a problem druids have is healing outside of CA. Water runes give you extra healing when you use your healing skill, so they help with that, and they let you reach 100% boon duration without concentration foods so intead of taking peppermint oil or something similar, you take the bountiful maintenance oil : D (it gives more outgoing healing).

 

You'll need 1 or 2 staff, 2 axe, 1 warhorn, and 1 optional sword. I personally never use my sword, lol.

 

Magi right now is not worth it. You already heal a ton with harrier, and you don't need that extra vitality. Plus you're the one who has to provide might. If you pug you'll have another druid probably, but you could be in the situation of being the only one in the squad, then you'll need that BD : D

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

so as I was afraid, all gear on my druidess needs to be swapped out >.>

on a bright side at least weapons should be relatively cheap to statswap

 

thx again for help ^-^

[nia.4725]

Btw, in fractals you should use the heal trap + trap trait ^^

 

Send me a PM if you need something else! Glad to help

[Durzlla.6295]

> @"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

> so as I was afraid, all gear on my druidess needs to be swapped out >.>

> on a bright side at least weapons should be relatively cheap to statswap

>

> thx again for help ^-^

 

To be as optimal as possible, yes you’ll need to swap it, however it’s hardly mandatory to do so, you can upkeep 25 might on everyone and heal them for enough in Magi, so don’t let that deter you from playing before you regear.

 

I’ve been playing in Marshals purely out of spite of them changing GoTL the day after I converted my gear to Marshals over harrier because my logic was “Druids don’t even have boons” , and have had literally no issues keeping people alive or clearing high end fractal content (haven’t done raids in a while but I’m sure it’d be fine)

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

> @"Durzlla.6295" said:

> “Druids don’t even have boons”

 

used to be a case until grace of the land was nerfed :/

 

well last time I tried raids it was just after the change with me still in magis, and funnilly enought on the same run I had same people at first tell me that druid has no rotation whatsoever and a few minutes later were complaining about not nuff might coverage (we timed out on sabetha and wiped and after that I just never went back to the topic of raiding)

[nia.4725]

> @"Durzlla.6295" said:

> > @"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

> > so as I was afraid, all gear on my druidess needs to be swapped out >.>

> > on a bright side at least weapons should be relatively cheap to statswap

> >

> > thx again for help ^-^

>

> To be as optimal as possible, yes you’ll need to swap it, however it’s hardly mandatory to do so, you can upkeep 25 might on everyone and heal them for enough in Magi, so don’t let that deter you from playing before you regear.

>

> I’ve been playing in Marshals purely out of spite of them changing GoTL the day after I converted my gear to Marshals over harrier because my logic was “Druids don’t even have boons” , and have had literally no issues keeping people alive or clearing high end fractal content (haven’t done raids in a while but I’m sure it’d be fine)

 

Oh my god. Marshal? For what? Condi damage? And you get the boon duration from...? x_x this is the most terrible thing I've ever seen for a druid, I'm sorry to say it this way but it's the truth.

 

You could pug with this I guess, since no one will look at your build, but you're wasting a huge amount of stats. A healer with power/healing power/precision/condi damage does not, at all, do the job it has to do. You're a boon and buff bot, and you're a healer. Builds have to be correct.

[nia.4725]

> @"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

> > @"Durzlla.6295" said:

> > “Druids don’t even have boons”

>

> used to be a case until grace of the land was nerfed :/

>

> well last time I tried raids it was just after the change with me still in magis, and funnilly enought on the same run I had same people at first tell me that druid has no rotation whatsoever and a few minutes later were complaining about not nuff might coverage (we timed out on sabetha and wiped and after that I just never went back to the topic of raiding)

 

Well, it's true. Druids do not have rotations. Your gameplay is more active/reactive. You adapt to the situation, basically. There's some things you have to keep doing periodically tho, like entering in CA in using skill 4 on the stack for might uptime, and using warhorn 4 off cooldown. But when druids were magi it was not our duty to keep nor generate might.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

> @"nia.4725" said:

> > @"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

> > > @"Durzlla.6295" said:

> > > “Druids don’t even have boons”

> >

> > used to be a case until grace of the land was nerfed :/

> >

> > well last time I tried raids it was just after the change with me still in magis, and funnilly enought on the same run I had same people at first tell me that druid has no rotation whatsoever and a few minutes later were complaining about not nuff might coverage (we timed out on sabetha and wiped and after that I just never went back to the topic of raiding)

>

> Well, it's true. Druids do not have rotations. Your gameplay is more active/reactive. You adapt to the situation, basically. There's some things you have to keep doing periodically tho, like entering in CA in using skill 4 on the stack for might uptime, and using warhorn 4 off cooldown. But when druids were magi it was not our duty to keep nor generate might.

 

well maybe with proper gear it looks different on a gameplay level, but from what I have experienced in the past, I was struggling with might uptime even when putting most of my attention onto optimising cds/astral energy management for as much GotL procs per minute as I could - which to me seems going into territory of having set rotation - if I was there just for heals I'd not be making previous statement in an implication that these fellas complaints were in oposition to their claims few minutes before complaints ;) (the run I referenced was just after GotL nerf so while I was rocking magi build I was expected to keep that might up)

 

btw wasn't CA#4 a massive AoE heal skill?

[nia.4725]

> @"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

> > @"nia.4725" said:

> > > @"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

> > > > @"Durzlla.6295" said:

> > > > “Druids don’t even have boons”

> > >

> > > used to be a case until grace of the land was nerfed :/

> > >

> > > well last time I tried raids it was just after the change with me still in magis, and funnilly enought on the same run I had same people at first tell me that druid has no rotation whatsoever and a few minutes later were complaining about not nuff might coverage (we timed out on sabetha and wiped and after that I just never went back to the topic of raiding)

> >

> > Well, it's true. Druids do not have rotations. Your gameplay is more active/reactive. You adapt to the situation, basically. There's some things you have to keep doing periodically tho, like entering in CA in using skill 4 on the stack for might uptime, and using warhorn 4 off cooldown. But when druids were magi it was not our duty to keep nor generate might.

>

> well maybe with proper gear it looks different on a gameplay level, but from what I have experienced in the past, I was struggling with might uptime even when putting most of my attention onto optimising cds/astral energy management for as much GotL procs per minute as I could - which to me seems going into territory of having set rotation - if I was there just for heals I'd not be making previous statement in an implication that these fellas complaints were in oposition to their claims few minutes before complaints ;) (the run I referenced was just after GotL nerf so while I was rocking magi build I was expected to keep that might up)

>

> btw wasn't CA#4 a massive AoE heal skill?

 

With the changes to GoTL, you give might with all the CA skills. However though, the ones that give the most are 4 and 5 since they have more instances/pulses/how you want to call it. So, basically, to keep might uptime you enter CA and use 4 on your stack, if you do that regularly you'll be able to keep 25 might stacks easily. You should use also warhorn 5 every time you have it available. No need for more. That's different from when we had that 2% damage increase per tick of GoTL. Now that doesn't exist, you just give might. Of course, the more boon duration you have the easier it will be to keep 25 might stacks (that's why druid builds should have 100% duration, although there's some builds that reach 67% and use sigil of concentration, but in my opinion those are ugly builds and druids should never depend on a weapon swap -we should be able to use any skill at any moment, just when it's needed).

 

With 100% boon duration, your warhorn gives 19 seconds of fury, swiftness and 6 stacks of might. It's very easy to keep might uptime, right now. You won't have any problem with that as long as you have enough boon duration. But yeah, of course that with magi gear you were incapable of keeping might up. You didn't have boon duration. xDDDD right now it's easy.

 

 

[Durzlla.6295]

> @"nia.4725" said:

> > @"Durzlla.6295" said:

> > > @"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

> > > so as I was afraid, all gear on my druidess needs to be swapped out >.>

> > > on a bright side at least weapons should be relatively cheap to statswap

> > >

> > > thx again for help ^-^

> >

> > To be as optimal as possible, yes you’ll need to swap it, however it’s hardly mandatory to do so, you can upkeep 25 might on everyone and heal them for enough in Magi, so don’t let that deter you from playing before you regear.

> >

> > I’ve been playing in Marshals purely out of spite of them changing GoTL the day after I converted my gear to Marshals over harrier because my logic was “Druids don’t even have boons” , and have had literally no issues keeping people alive or clearing high end fractal content (haven’t done raids in a while but I’m sure it’d be fine)

>

> Oh my god. Marshal? For what? Condi damage? And you get the boon duration from...? x_x this is the most terrible thing I've ever seen for a druid, I'm sorry to say it this way but it's the truth.

>

> You could pug with this I guess, since no one will look at your build, but you're wasting a huge amount of stats. A healer with power/healing power/precision/condi damage does not, at all, do the job it has to do. You're a boon and buff bot, and you're a healer. Builds have to be correct.

 

I made the Marshal set back when Magi was meta since you overhealed like a mofo anyway, and Marshals is strictly better than Magi if you’re not worried about dying from not having vitality.

 

However, 2 days later they nerfed GoTL, and I just haven’t bothered changing it.

 

And it does the job just fine, I’m providing the healing needed, and the boons needed, the only real difference is I have to enter CA more often than I need to healing wise for might maintenance. It works just fine for the role, it just has less boon uptime in exchange for more personal damage (not worth it in a raid that’s for sure but other content is fine)