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Druid - Alacrity Support Condi DPS

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Condition damageHealing and Support

Designed for: Raids

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns builds

Difficulty:
Normal
This build was last updated on July 25, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Condi Druid is a variant of Druid - Boon Support Healer which sacrifices healing for personal DPS. Like its healing counterpart, it provides boons to its subgroup including Alacrity Alacrity and some Might Might. It can also provide CC and utility from various pets and utility skills. Unfortunately, bringing any utility cuts heavily into its damage and unlike practically every other dps-boon build, it provides no Fury Fury by default, meaning the Quickness Quickness support much provide 100%.

This build is best used if the squad already has a dedicated healer, or you're in an expert group that can avoid almost all damage. If this is not the case Druid - Boon Support Healer will usually perform better. This guide assumes you are already an experienced Healing Druid player.


Skill Bar

Jacaranda
Electric Wyvern
Axe/Dagger
Dagger/Torch
Utility


Weapon Variants

You can swap out Dagger/Torch for other weapons if needed.

  • Shortbow can be useful if the boss is frequently moving out of Bonfire, or if you don't have access to Secrets of the Obscure.
  • Staff is a huge DPS loss but provides mobility, projectile destruction, a water field, and a blast finisher.


Pet Variants

Thanks to Blood Moon, no pet can compete with Jacaranda Jacaranda for damage. The second pet can be used for utility if desired.

  • Electric Wyvern Electric Wyvern and Rock Gazelle Rock Gazelle deal mediocre DPS but provides very strong CC from their pet skills, Lightning Assault and Head Toss. You should have one of these as your secondary pet and swap to it if CC is needed.

In certain situations, you might also find these pets useful:

  • Red Moa Red Moa provides Fury Fury with its pet skill Furious Screech, useful if you're struggling with fury uptime.
  • Jungle Stalker Jungle Stalker provides Might Might with its pet skill Mighty Roar, useful if you're struggling with might uptime.
  • Wolf Wolf provides AoE fear, useful if your group is having trouble with adds (e.g. on Escort towers).
  • Brown Bear Brown Bear provides Shake It Off for extremely condition-heavy fights.


Skill Variants

Healing

  • The Regeneration Regeneration from Healing Spring can be very helpful for generating Astral Force, but if there's a dedicated healer in your subgroup it will be overwritten by theirs, making the skill rather useless unless you need the condi cleanse.
  • Glyph of Rejuvenation is your largest group heal if used inside CA.
  • "We Heal As One!" offers a DPS boost as it transfers boons to your pet. It is also a massive self-heal.


Utility
Sun Spirit is decent damage, and provides ~10 stacks of Might Might to the group. The other two utility skills are a significant DPS loss to replace.

  • Glyph of Alignment is the best utility option if you want to go for maximum DPS.
  • Stone Spirit provides ~50% protection uptime and on-demand Aegis Aegis.
  • Glyph of the Tides provides a short cooldown AoE knockback and is the cornerstone of many raid boss strategies.
  • Glyph of Equality for extra CC or group Stability Stability.
  • "Protect Me!" provides an AoE stun break, useful for saving your subgroup on bosses like Slothasor.
  • "Search and Rescue!" is a strong safety net for inexperienced groups.


Template Code

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Specializations


Specialization Variants

Wilderness Survival can be swapped out for Nature Magic if you need access to more boons. This is a surprisingly small DPS loss, less than swapping to Spotter!

If using Nature Magic, swap your food to (or alternatives).

  • Wellspring can be used to provide more Regeneration Regeneration.
  • Spirited Arrival provides ~6 extra Might Might and ~55% Fury Fury. To best use this, you want to pet swap just after using Jacaranda's Embrace, and swap back your Jacaranda Jacaranda as soon a you can and immediately use Jacaranda's Embrace. This means you lose almost no uptime of the skill whilst still benefitting from Spirited Arrival.
  • Nature's Vengeance doubles the damage from your Sun Spirit, and the heal from your Water Spirit. If desperate, it can be swapped to Invigorating Bond for ~40% Protection Protection.


Equipment

Head
Ritualist
Shoulders
Ritualist
Chest
Ritualist
Hands
Ritualist
Legs
Ritualist
Feet
Ritualist
Backpiece
Ritualist
Accessory
Ritualist
Accessory
Ritualist
Amulet
Ritualist
Ring
Ritualist
Ring
Ritualist
Axe
Ritualist
Dagger
Ritualist
Sigil
Sigil
Dagger
Ritualist
Torch
Ritualist
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x14
Infusion
x4
Relic


Equipment Variants

  • Celestial stats Celestial stats will provide healing power if you wish to fulfil a hybrid healer role.
    • Celestial stats Celestial stats will also give you +639 toughness, which may be enough to make you the tank. If you need to lower your toughness, you can swap pieces out for Seraph stats Seraph stats to retain your healing power and boon duration.


Consumables

Food

  • - the lifesteal is very helpful for quickly charging Astral Force.


Utility


Usage

Rotation

In real encounters your rotation can be somewhat flexible as your Astral Force will generate at different speeds depending on how much damage your team takes.

When in CA, use Seed of Life twice, and Lunar Impact, Rejuvenating Tides and Natural Convergence once each. This CA "rotation" generates ~17s of Alacrity Alacrity, so you will need to make sure you go in at least this often, or spend longer inside to cover the gap until it is available again.

If possible, precast Viper's Nest and Sharpening Stone.


Opener

Start on Axe/Dagger

  1. Sun Spirit - make sure any boon rip has already happened
  2. Viper's Nest
  3. Entangle
  4. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap so we don't waste Quick Draw on a CA skill
  5. Jacaranda's Embrace
  6. Bonfire
  7. Celestial Avatar
  8. Use skills 3-5 once each, and use Seed of Life twice (it has no cast time so use it whenever you can)
  9. Release Celestial Avatar
  10. Use all Dagger/Torch skills once
  11. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap


Axe/Dagger

  1. Splitblade
  2. Winter's Bite
  3. Stalker's Strike
  4. Crippling Talon
  5. Splitblade (assuming you got Quick Draw on the first one)
  6. Celestial Avatar (if available), otherwise autoattack
    1. Use skills 3-5 once each, and use Seed of Life twice
    2. Release Celestial Avatar
  7. Crippling Talon
  8. Stalker's Strike
  9. Winter's Bite
  10. Splitblade
  11. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap


Dagger/Torch

  1. Throw Torch
  2. Double Arc
  3. Instinctive Engage
  4. Celestial Avatar (if available), otherwise autoattack
    1. Use skills 3-5 once each, and use Seed of Life twice
    2. Release Celestial Avatar
  5. Use all Dagger/Torch skills once more
  6. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap
  7. Return to start of Axe/Dagger section


General Tips

  • Use Sharpening Stone and Jacaranda's Embrace whenever they come off cooldown.
  • Use Entangle, Viper's Nest, Sun Spirit and Glyph of Alignment (if using) off cooldown, but they are lower priority the first few weapon skills after each weapon swap (so delay until the Celestial Avatar section).
    • Glyph of Alignment only deals damage outside of Celestial Avatar.
  • You are free to enter Celestial Avatar at any time during your rotation and/or stay in it for longer when heals are needed. Try to do so when you would otherwise be autoattacking though.

See Build:Druid - Boon Support Healer for general Druid tips.


Video example

Video example (celestial gear)


Shortbow Rotation

If possible, use Quick Shot and double dodge right at the start of phases to gain the buff from Light on your Feet

Opener

Start on Axe/Dagger

  1. Sun Spirit - make sure any boon rip has already happened
  2. Viper's Nest
  3. Entangle
  4. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap so we don't waste Quick Draw on a CA skill
  5. Jacaranda's Embrace
  6. Crippling Shot
  7. Celestial Avatar
  8. Use skills 3-5 once each, and use Seed of Life twice (it has no cast time so use it whenever you can)
  9. Release Celestial Avatar
  10. Use all Shortbow skills once
  11. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap


Axe/Dagger

  1. Splitblade
  2. Winter's Bite
  3. Stalker's Strike
  4. Crippling Talon
  5. Splitblade (assuming you got Quick Draw on the first one)
  6. Celestial Avatar (if available), otherwise autoattack
    1. Use skills 3-5 once each, and use Seed of Life twice
    2. Release Celestial Avatar
  7. Crippling Talon
  8. Stalker's Strike
  9. Winter's Bite
  10. Splitblade
  11. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap


Shortbow

  1. Poison Volley
  2. Crippling Shot
  3. Autoattack until Poison Volley is available (assuming you managed to Quick Draw it)
  4. Poison Volley
  5. Celestial Avatar (if available), otherwise autoattack
    1. Use skills 3-5 once each, and use Seed of Life twice
    2. Release Celestial Avatar
  6. Crippling Shot
  7. Poison Volley
  8. Weapon swap Weapon swap
  9. Return to start of Axe/Dagger section


General Tips

  • Use Sharpening Stone and Jacaranda's Embrace whenever they come off cooldown.
  • Use Entangle, Viper's Nest, Sun Spirit and Glyph of Alignment (if using) off cooldown, but they are lower priority the first few weapon skills after each weapon swap (so delay until the Celestial Avatar section).
    • Glyph of Alignment only deals damage outside of Celestial Avatar.
  • You are free to enter Celestial Avatar at any time during your rotation and/or stay in it for longer when heals are needed. Try to do so when you would otherwise be autoattacking though.

See Build:Druid - Boon Support Healer for general Druid tips.


CC

  • Lunar Impact
  • Lightning Assault or Head Toss
  • Concussion Shot
  • Point Blank Shot
  • Storm Spirit
  • Swapping to staff or Celestial Avatar with Primal Echoes traited
  • Glyph of Equality
  • Glyph of the Tides (not recommended as you generally need this skill for other mechanics)


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 10 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
1 star
Ethan gave this build 1 star • November 2024
Doesn't function anymore because of the alactrity trait moving into the grandmaster slot which contends with the damage trait. Unless the alactrity trait moves to a different slot or back to nature magic, this build is pretty terrible
1 star
Sina gave this build 1 star • February 2024
Please don't try to use/adjust this to the 2024 meta, it's been nerfed into unusability,.
4 stars
Chinkeeyong gave this build 4 stars • September 2018
A strong "off-healer" in semi-experienced groups. This build provides a fair amount of DPS, while still providing might and Druid utility for raid mechanics.
5 stars
Gale gave this build 5 stars • August 2016
Fantastic support potential that shines in mirror or balanced compositions. It's very flexible and carries several viable build variants to augment any party - in addition to the druid support staples. The only real drawback is that it possesses less healing than power-based Druid builds and struggles if the team eats lots of spike damage.
5 stars
Paprikaspice gave this build 5 stars • March 2016
Relative to other condi classes, this brings poor personal dps but more than makes up for it with unique and amazing group buffs that dont duplicate with a second druid. Spirit buffs for 10 instead of 5, more stacks of gotl and on sab, more spotter. Also has decent healing. I dont see why you would take alignment over frost spirit though
5 stars
XDeadzX gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
A great DPS build, but seriously lacking during movement phases. Swapping to shortbow loses about 30% DPS in my testing, but it beats axe/torch at movement. Not better than a few other classes for movement (a good aiming engi, necro) Super doable for Sabetha, mostly for gors, but not great for VG. It does bring a bunch of great buffs for the party, so that's a huge plus group wide.
5 stars
Octavianrb gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
Much better than the power version of the offensive druid. Higher DPS, and more versatile. Probably not ideal for VG, but really shines on Gorseval and Sabetha. I would add a note about shortbow for purposes of kiting Sab.
5 stars
Chase gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
Much easier than engi but still high enough DPS to get the job done. Healing is a bit harder but totally do-able and the rotation becomes a lot easier with some practice and learning which skills/weapon swaps are important to do and when.
5 stars
Nike gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
Definitely a step up from Berserker druid in DPS. Should be tagged as meta.
5 stars
DEKeyz2Chaos gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
Pretty strong damage as long as your group can survive low heals. A solid raid team can get through raid wing 1 with double condi druids as healers.

Comments

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