Druid - Celestial Eclipse Roamer

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

Focused on: Condition damage, Mobility and Control

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on July 08, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Cele WvW roaming build for Druid which makes use of Eclipse along with Immobilize and Daze spam to bring down its prey.

Skill Bar

Axe/Dagger

Sword/Warhorn

Utility

Skill Variants

Weapons

• Dagger over Axe - we're recommending Axe to give the build better range, but mainhand Dagger is also a good option with decent damage and 1 more leap finisher you could use for combos. Dagger on Druid requires the Secrets of the Obscure expansion.

Utility

For the optional slot:

• Spike Trap - unblockable CC on low CD.

• Glyph of Equality - instant daze + a stunbreak on low CD.

• Glyph of Alignment - the Immobilize could be used to set up burst, Weakness is good for mitigating damage, and being able to put several different conditions on the target at once is a great way of kicking off combos. In Celestial Avatar form this could instead be used to cleanse conditions if needed.

• Signet of Renewal - stunbreak + mass cleanse, and the passive healing could even help you charge up Celestial Avatar. Replacing Signet of Stone with this is also a viable choice.

• Lightning Reflexes - low CD stunbreak with an evade frame that could break you out of Immobilize, also gives you permanent Vigor uptime with Primal Reflexes. Could also replace "Protect Me!" on the bar.

Elite

• Glyph of the Stars - better survivability. Stability against CC, cleansing against conditions, and a water field for healing combos.

Pets

Fanged Iboga is a versatile pet that provides good condi variety, CC and even a combo field for Chaos Aura stacking, but there are other viable options too:

• Siege Turtle - defensive pet.

• Spinegazer - good damage and boon corruption.

• Rock Gazelle - more focus on CC spam.

• Jacaranda - good AoE damage and some Immobilize.

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Specializations

Variants

• Light on your Feet improves both condition and strike damage, but gives up the versatility of CD reductions from Quick Draw.

Variants

• Take Druidic Clarity if you're having trouble dealing with condition builds. Once you get used to the build this shouldn't be necessary however.

• Natural Balance adds a bit more damage to the build. While the Stealth from the other trait is generally better, depending on your sigil choices (like running both Geomancy and Hydromancy) your gear might have a level of anti-synergy with Celestial Shadow (as explained below in the sigil variants section) that could make Natural Balance a bit more attractive.

Specialization Variants

For a more defensive version you could replace Skirmishing with Nature Magic.

The reason we recommend Skirmishing as the main option in WvW but not in sPvP comes down to a difference in balance, meta, and available gear options. In WvW Celestial Avatar has 50% lower cooldown than it does in sPvP while we also have access to a more powerful version of Sigil of Cleansing plus food buffs in general - these make it possible to play with less defensive traits, and the extra pressure from Skirmishing gives us a better chance to win against high sustain builds that could otherwise stalemate us. If however you're struggling with the build and need extra sustain, Nature Magic remains a viable (and safer) option:

Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Axe
Celestial

Dagger
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Celestial

Warhorn
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Relics

• Relic of the Fractal - useful proc that could increase the condi variety of your bursts.

• Relic of the Mirage - improves your condition variety, making it harder for enemies to cleanse your more important conditions.

• Relic of Nayos - better sustain.

Sigils

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy can sometimes proc when you exit Celestial Avatar, as exiting/entering forms counts as weapon swapping. If this happens in melee you'll immediately break the Stealth granted by Celestial Shadow which can be rather awkward especially when you were on low health trying to escape. If you don't want to take this risk then replace Geomancy with either Sigil of Superior Sigil of Torment or Sigil of Superior Sigil of Generosity.

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Hydromancy over Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing - adds more pressure if you can give up some condition removal. You'll run into the same problem with the Celestial Shadow proc as you would with Sigil of Geomancy, but one major benefit of this sigil is that Chill is a movement impairing condition, so you'll always get the Immobilize from Serpent's Strike if you open with this skill after swapping to Sword, no previous setup's necessary.

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Sunless - slightly more defensive version of Trapper. It's also a great replacement if you don't want to bother crafting Trapper runes.

Consumables

Food

• and other health-per-second food can help a lot with building Astral Force.
  • Budget:

Utility

• Optimal: or , whichever is cheaper (the difference beween them is negligible, a grand total of 2 condition damage stat in favor of Tuning Icicle).

• Budget: either from Canned Food Crates found in WvW s or purchased from the Permanent Portable Provisioner.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Rangers with the Druid specialization gain access to Celestial Avatar (CA) which uses a resource called Astral Force (AF).

• You build AF mostly through healing yourself and allies. The amount healed doesn't matter. Consistent sources of healing like Regeneration and Protection via Rugged Growth are great at building Astral Force.

General

• Celestial Avatar skill #5 Natural Convergence is a channeled ability that has Stability on it. When you're trying to heal under pressure you should interrupt Natural Convergence right away by moving or by weapon stowing, that way you get to use the Stability to cover other skills.

• Dodging grants Protection and Protection heals you.

• Smokescale's F2 ability is Smoke Cloud which could be used to combo Stealth with Sword/Warhorn skills and Lunar Impact.

Damage

• Weapon swapping to Axe procs 3 stacks of Bleeding and Poison from your sigils, this is a source of instant burst. It's especially useful against more slippery opponents like Thieves because you get to exploit any small gaps in their defenses to punish them.
  • Serpent's Strike on Sword is a gapcloser with Immobilize, making it an ideal skill for setting up a weapon swap burst.

• Axe/Dagger is your main damaging set, Sword/Warhorn is much more defensive by nature.

• Splitblade is a cone-shaped attack and should be used in melee range (point-blank) to ensure that all the projectiles hit the main target.

• Winter's Bite is the best skill on Axe. While it does less damage than Splitblade it applies up to 3 different conditions to the target, which overall puts more pressure on them. The Weakness even helps with mitigating incoming damage.

• If you're using Stalker's Strike for the damage and not the evasion, you should first make sure your target is snared. Serpent's Strike has the benefit of allowing you to use Stalker's Strike as the first skill after swapping weapons for Quick Draw synergy while still getting the most damage out of it.

• Eclipse makes Celestial Avatar amazing at applying cover conditions. While CA skills don't do a lot of damage they can apply a wide variety of conditions, if the target was already pressured this form can quickly overwhelm them by making it way harder for them to cleanse your more important conditions.

• In CA Lunar Impact is a source of ranged Immobilize, you could use this on fleeing enemies to stop them or set up skills like Natural Convergence.

• Seed of Life isn't very dangerous but an instant ranged poison isn't bad, and could be used while casting other skills.

Celestial Avatar rotation

While you don't have to follow this all the time, it's a good sequence for both damage and sustain.

1. Cast Lunar Impact and try to maximize the targets in its radius, both friend and foe. Enemies will be dazed while allies will be healed.
2. Place Seed of Life below your character near the end of the Lunar Impact cast, BEFORE Lunar goes off. This is an instant skill with a very brief combo field duration, you want this to be blasted by Lunar Impact for extra condi cleansing. If you don't need cleansing AND the enemy you're fighting isn't in melee range, place this under them instead for the Blind.
3. Natural Convergence - here you have a choice. If you want to pressure the enemy, continue channeling the skill. If you're low HP and healing is more important, interrupt the skill immediately and cast Rejuvenating Tides. You'll protect the cast with the Stability from Natural Convergence.
4. Both skills listed under step 3 have long cast times, Natural Convergence even roots you in place. If you're taking a lot of damage consider using some of your utility skills like Signet of Stone or "Protect Me!", or simply cut the skill short and drop out of Celestial Avatar so you can disengage safely.
5. Seed of Life once more then drop out of Celestial Avatar. Disengage with stealth and superspeed if you're still pressured.

Sustain

• Healing Spring is your best skill against conditions, constantly cleansing you as long as you're staying inside the AoE ring. It's also a Water Field, Sword/Warhorn has 3 skills that could be used inside this field to combo extra healing while CA has Lunar Impact.

• Other great cleanses are Seed of Life in Celestial Avatar (somewhat spammable instant skill) and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing on Sword.
  • If you drop Seed of Life halfway through casting Lunar Impact you can combo an extra condition removal.

• Entering Celestial Avatar dazes nearby enemies. This is an instant way of lifting some pressure off of you that could be done even while you're stunned.

• Both sets have skills with evade frames: Stalker's Strike on Axe/Dagger and Serpent's Strike on Sword/Warhorn. Using these right after weapon swapping could reduce their CD thanks to Quick Draw.

• Signet of Stone is a great defensive skill against Power-based burst damage, with this you could facetank an entire burst combo and even cast healing skill or counterpressure enemies while it's active.

Related Builds

• Druid - Celestial Eclipse Duelist - sPvP version of this WvW roaming build.