Build: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:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on December 03, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Condition 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

Shortbow

Dagger/Dagger

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Mainhand Axe - replaces Dagger; provides ranged damage and some burst. Default weapon to players without weaponmaster training.
• Torch - replaces offhand dagger's evade and soft cc with higher AoE damage.

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. 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 the target, but thanks to Blood Moon, it will also deal damage, and it triggers 5 times. It also inflicts very helpful 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 as it deals good condition damage. Swap between Lynx and Jacaranda often to use their strong Beast skills.

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 gear, you could use budget equipment 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 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 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

Condition druid can sacrifice damage to provide 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 can be provided by 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.

DPS

• Prioritize Flatbread Ascended food.
• /
• /

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, it also deals 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. While casting skills 3-5, cast skill 2 twice, since it has no cast time.

Damage

The key to this build is the trait Blood Moon. This trait turns all your hard crowd control (such as stun, daze, etc.) and immobilize into sources of 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 damage, amplified by the trait Poison Master, and a little Burning.

Taste for Danger and Ambidexterity further increase your damage, as do Natural Balance when you enter/exit Celestial Avatar and 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. 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 precast before starting combat)
2. Jacaranda's Embrace from Jacaranda
3. Spike Trap
4. Entangle
5. Crippling Shot, Concussion Shot, Poison Volley
6. 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 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 from several sources: Jacaranda's Embrace, Entangle, Crippling Shot, Natural Convergence,
• Lunar Impact - daze
• Concussion Shot - daze (or stun)
• Celestial Avatar + Blood Moon - daze