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Druid - Condition Druid

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns builds

Difficulty:
Normal
This build was last updated on August 21, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

Condition Druid Druid poisons and bleeds their enemies to death, trapping them in roots and thorns to ensure their demise. The build revolves around the trait Blood Moon, improving your crowd control with condition damage. The combination of Wilderness Survival and Druid greatly improves its survivability thanks to extra evades and healing, and abundant crowd control will keep enemies in check.

The only disadvantage to this build is low burst damage and very low boon generation, but it can overcome them with its resilience.


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Skill Bar

Jacaranda
Lynx
Shortbow
Dagger/Dagger
Utility


Weapon Variants

Skill Variants

Heal

Troll Unguent - very strong overtime self-heal, but no burst healing. It provides even more healing when the pet is alive thanks to Live Vicariously. "We Heal As One!" provides good burst healing healing but less healing over time. Excellent when playing in groups that provide boons so you can copy them to your pet, and possibly copy those affecting it.

Utilities

Spike Trap is your highest damage skill, and highest crowd control, which in turn becomes more damage due to Blood Moon. Never replace it.
Signet of Renewal - Provides minor healing over time, and can be activated to stunbreak and pull conditions from yourself and allies near you to your pet. Can be replaced but it's always a good idea to have a stunbreak.
Sharpening Stone is a ridiculusly simple skill that provides good damage. Boring but effective. Can be replaced.

  • Glyph of the Tides - provides extra cc, can be useful to pull enemies together (achieved by casting it during Celestial Avatar). Also deals damage due to Blood Moon.
  • Muddy Terrain - area soft cc and immobilize, which in turn becomes more damage due to Blood Moon.
  • "Protect Me!" - good alternative to Signet of Renewal. Provides barrier for extra damage absortion, and protection for damage reduction and minor healing from Rugged Growth.

Pet variants

The best pet for this build is by far and away the Jacaranda Jacaranda. It is somewhat tanky, has self healing and condition cleanse, decent AoE burst damage with Call Lightning but, most importantly, its Beast skill Jacaranda's Embrace is ridiculously strong in this build. Jacaranda's Embrace usually just immobilizes immobilizes the target, but thanks to Blood Moon, it will also deal damage, and it triggers 5 times. It also inflicts very helpful vulnerability vulnerability. Feel free to set this skill to autocast if you can't spare the APM for more efficient use.

For your second pet, we suggest Lynx Lynx as it deals good condition damage. Swap between Lynx and Jacaranda often to use their strong Beast skills.


Specializations


Equipment

Standard Equipment

This setup uses equipment that is useful in general PVE and very similar to this build's raid/fractal/strike counterpart.

Head
Viper
Shoulders
Viper
Chest
Viper
Hands
Viper
Legs
Viper
Feet
Viper
Backpiece
Viper
Accessory
Viper
Accessory
Viper
Amulet
Viper
Ring
Viper
Ring
Viper
Shortbow
Viper
Sigil
Sigil
Dagger
Viper
Dagger
Viper
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6


Relic
  • While working on acquiring Viper Viper gear, you could use budget equipment Carrion Carrion stat plus Relic of the Aristocracy + Sigil of Superior Sigil of Frailty + Sigil of Superior Sigil of Agony. This achieves worst results but it's a starting point while working on acquiring the correct gear.
  • Relic of the Fractal provides the best damage, but you can consider other options. Relic of the Cavalier Relic of the Cavalier provides good boons and activates multiple times if using skyscale's engage skill. Relic of the Nightmare provides some damage, plus the fear works good with Blood Moon and enemies won't actually fear away because they will be immobilised from Entangle.
  • For defense, invest in a Jade Core for additional HP and access to Jade Protocols. Trailblazer Trailblazer can be considered for a massive health increase at a slight loss of damage, but isn't generally needed as the build is already resilient by default.

Boon dps

Click to Expand Toggle

Condition druid can sacrifice damage to provide Alacrity Alacrity to allies, though this requires a different gear set which might be too expensive for most players given how niche this build is, as Alacrity is almost always covered by healers, such as a heal druid.

Head
Ritualist
Shoulders
Ritualist
Chest
Ritualist
Hands
Ritualist
Legs
Viper
Feet
Ritualist
Backpiece
Ritualist
Accessory
Ritualist
Accessory
Ritualist
Amulet
Ritualist
Ring
Viper
Ring
Viper
Shortbow
Ritualist
Sigil
Sigil
Dagger
Ritualist
Dagger
Ritualist
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6


Relic
  • Replace Eclipse with Grace of the Land.
  • Never play this when solo. This is only worth when playing with a large group of allies that lack Alacrity.


Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

Budget

DPS

  • Prioritize Flatbread Ascended food.
  • /
  • /

Defense

Farming

  • Prioritize Flatbread Ascended food.
  • /
  • (and variants)


Usage

Celestial Avatar

Celestial Avatar is the profession mechanic of the druid. Dealing damage generates Astral Force per hit from Celestial Being, and Natural Mender provides even more Astral Force periodically. This Astral Force fuels your Celestial Avatar transformation.

Usually, Celestial Avatar focuses on healing and boon generation. But in this build, they also deal damage thanks to Eclipse.

Never spend all your Astral Force. You want to enter Celestial Avatar, cast skills 3 to 5 once, then leave. This preservers some Astral Force for your next Celestial Avatar, ensuring you dip in and out off cooldown, which works perfect with Natural Balance.

Damage

The key to this build is the trait Blood Moon. This trait turns all your hard crowd control (such as stun stun, daze daze, etc.) and immobilize immobilize into sources of bleeding bleeding damage. You don't have to think about this trait, except for your shortbow skill Crippling Shot, which will only trigger this trait if you hit from behind or the flank, or the enemy has a defiance bar. All this bleeding damage is amplified by Hidden Barbs.

On top of all the bleeding, you also deal some Poison Poison damage. Poison is usually quite weak since its main advantange is reducing healing received (which is not too relevant in PvE), but the trait Poison Master provides a good damage increase.

Taste for Danger and Ambidexterity further increase your damage, as does Light on your Feet when you dodge or use Quick Shot.

Shortbow

On shortbow you want to use Crippling Shot and Concussion Shot while approaching your enemy, then Poison Volley as you get near, and Weapon swap Weapon swap. Use Quick Shot to dodge attacks. Generally speaking, don't stay on shortbow for long, since dagger has better damage. All shortbow skills are improved if you hit the target from behind or the rear, or if the enemy is defiant (has a defiance bar).

Dagger/Dagger

Your second weapon set, which defaults to dagger/dagger, is melee range but deals more damage. Use all skills off-cooldown, and note you can dodge attacks with Stalker's Strike.

Celestial Avatar

Thanks to Eclipse, Celestial Avatar is improved with offenssive capabilities. Inside CA, you want to use Lunar Impact, Rejuvenating Tides, and Natural Convergence once, and Seed of Life twice. Note that Seed of Life has no cast time and thus can be cast while casting the other 3 skills. Leave Celestial Avatar after this to not consume too much Astral Force.

Opener

  1. Sharpening Stone (can be cast way before starting combat)
  2. Jacaranda's Embrace from Jacaranda Jacaranda
  3. Spike Trap
  4. Entangle
  5. Crippling Shot, Concussion Shot, Poison Volley
  6. Weapon swap Weapon swap
  7. Crippling Talon, Double Arc, Stalker's Strike, Crippling Talon
  8. Celestial Avatar
  9. Seed of Life, Lunar Impact, Rejuvenating Tides, Natural Convergence, Seed of Life
  10. Release Celestial Avatar

Concussion Shot can be used for damage or saved for crowd control.
Stalker's Strike can be used for damage or saved to dodge attacks. Quick Shot can also be used to dodge attacks. Remember that dodging or using Quick Shot will activate Light on your Feet.

Defense

  • As always, dodge or move out of dangerous attacks. You briefly gain Protection Protection when dodging from Companion's Defense, which in turns heals due to Rugged Growth.
  • Signet of Renewal passively heals you for a small amount. Can be used to stunbreak or to transfer conditions from yourself and allies near you onto your pet.
  • Your pet will tank some hits for you. Make sure to swap pet if its health gets too low.
  • Natural Vigor increases your endurance regeneration.
  • You have lots of cripple and immobilization to impair trash mobs preventing them from ever reaching you.
  • Quick Shot - evade
  • Stalker's Strike - evade
  • Celestial Avatar - some healing

CC

  • This build features significant Immobilize Immobilize from several sources: Jacaranda's Embrace, Entangle, Crippling Shot, Natural Convergence,
  • Lunar Impact - daze
  • Concussion Shot - daze (or stun)
  • Celestial Avatar + Blood Moon - daze


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 3 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
BlobTheBob gave this build 5 stars • April 2024
One of the best builds currently. It has everything. Weapon and utility options for better aoe or single target. Gear flexibility for better defence or lower budgets. CC, healing, mobility, utility are all great.
5 stars
Starlitjupiter gave this build 5 stars • July 2023
Condition Druid is currently the highest DPS solo build in the game with quick ramp up, good cleave, and extremely high defensive capabilities even in glass cannon gear. It has relatively good strike output as well, making it an incredible option in almost every possible open world scenario.
5 stars
Dave 87 gave this build 5 stars • July 2023
Been running this for about a week with Celestial gear. Fantastic fun, and can solo almost anything the game throws at me whilst also been ok at group support with might and healing. Highly recommended.

Comments

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