Guild Wars 2

Just some thoughts about the trait Altruistic Healing and its place in the current Guardian meta. Note, this is entirely about PvE and its workings.
Simple contemplations of a numpty who doesn’t like her fellow Guardians dropping like flies because the current meta makes them too squishy.

In short:
Guardians.

• Low(est) health pool.
• High base armour.
• High support capacities.
• Mid to high range DPS capacities.

What is Altruistic Healing?
Grandmaster Valor trait XI – 30 points required.
“Applying a boon to allies heals you.”

As you can see, Altruistic Healing fits perfectly with a supporting build, except that the trait line it lies in is not a support line on its own.

The Valor trait line is considered by many to be selfish.
It contributes close to nothing to groups, other than self-sustain at the Grandmaster level.
Altruistic Healing has no synergy with the rest of the Valor traits.

Possible “solutions”:

• Move Altruistic Healing down to Master level.
  The ten traits points it spares are highly valuable and can be used both offensively and defensively, which makes this trait more desirable to obtain.
• Make it the 25 point Grandmaster trait.
  Tone its healing effects down to supply a small regeneration, to balance it out. Five points spared, five points to be put in a less selfish place.
• Move Altruistic into the Grandmaster level of another Trait line.
  The obvious choice would be Honor. It could perhaps replace Battle Presence XII: this one seems more synergetic to Valor’s IV Strength in Numbers. Both use similar “nearby allies” structure to benefit teams. Sadly, neither are exceptional currently…

Why not leave it as it is?
The current Berserker / Glass cannon DPS “meta” build makes the Guardian more akin to a flashy Thief. This has little to do with what Guardians were intended to be like.
Any error is lethal. The majority of Guardians sacrifice their self-sustain for more damage, which in turn harms teams in the long run.

With the heavy “Learn to play. Berserker or get out!” mentality that rules the community, a small tweaking like this can make or break a pleasant gaming experience.

Omgwtfbbq way overpowered!!!
I agree. And I disagree!

For one, this could be implemented only as a PvE exclusive adjustment. I can see that in WvW, where spreading boons is easy as pie, it’s currently in a fair enough place. That’s to say, it sacrifices a lot to gain something very strong in return. In PvE, this is not quite true anymore.

Secondly, Guardians have the lowest base health available. This is especially noticable when put next to their supposedly more offensive counterparts, the Warrior. Add to it that Warriors currently have smoother access to additional regeneration (Adrenal healing, their signet which can be traited etc.), and it seems to me that either the Warrior needs to be toned down, or the Guardian deserves a slight boost.

Finally, Altruistic Healing encourages Guardians to use their boons wisely.
Sure, they can spam them for quick self-heals, but they’ll realise soon they won’t get away with it in more difficult content. Add to it that this trait has perfect synergy with the Hammer and Mace, and voila.

Discuss!
Just bring in those torches and pitchforks! No, just kidding.
I’m mostly interested in seeing what others think of this. Will this rig the meta too much? Would it be feasible, and what other adjustments would have to be made to justify this?

Arena Net has shown interest in lessening the DPS-racing to get back to more strategic play. Giving this trait back its time to shine may or may not help in that.

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

I think AH is already in a good position and should not be changed as it is a very strong trait that should not get too powerful. However, I agree with the lack of alternatives to provide the party with heals. That’s mainly because the other traits that are supposed to heal the party are currently not at the right place.

Battle Presence should not be in the Honor trait tree but in the Virtues tree because it affects Virtue of Resolve.

Writ of the Merciful is a master trait but it should actually be moved up to Grandmaster trait and should heal a lot more than Battle Presence because it requires the placement of a symbol. Also nobody in their right mind would pick Writ of the Merciful over Writ of Persistence and it doesn’t make sense to put them both as Master traits.

Noah.4756:

I think AH is already in a good position and should not be changed as it is a very strong trait that should not get too powerful. However, I agree with the lack of alternatives to provide the party with heals. That’s mainly because the other traits that are supposed to heal the party are currently not at the right place.

I don’t get the “Alternatives to provide the party with heals” thing. AH doesn’t heal the party.

Noah.4756:

Battle Presence should not be in the Honor trait tree but in the Virtues tree because it affects Virtue of Resolve.

Battle presence is perfectly fine in Honor. That’s the traitline with Healig Power and where most guardian healing tools are.
Moving it to a traitline that reduces recharge on virtues and grants boon duration, when passive VoR doesn’t grant any boon and you’re not going to activate it, doesn’t make any sense to me.

Noah.4756:

Writ of the Merciful is a master trait but it should actually be moved up to Grandmaster trait and should heal a lot more than Battle Presence because it requires the placement of a symbol. Also nobody in their right mind would pick Writ of the Merciful over Writ of Persistence and it doesn’t make sense to put them both as Master traits.

I don’t see why nobody would take WoM over WoP.
Damage wise WoP is clearly better, that’s for sure, but support wise there are many chances for WoM to outperform WoP:

• With enough Boon Duration you easily get permaprot from hammer without WoP. If you are more interested on providing sustain than on dealing damage (or sustaining yourself through AH), WoM is better choice.
• For mace, WoP and WoM both provide similar party wide healing outputs.
  WoP benefits more from boon duration, while WoM has the benefit of not being a boon (so you can cover the regeneration lost with different sources).
  WoM also means a lesser symbol uptime, which is bad for damage, but really good if your party want to reliably blast different combo fields.

IMHO a Mace/Hammer pure support guardian would work quite better picking WoM over WoP.

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

wrong keeping your self healthy is what makes you give more support

jihm.2315:

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

wrong keeping your self healthy is what makes you give more support

And who are you supporting then?
If your party wide healing is not enough to keep yourself alive, it won’t be either for the teamates supposed to deal damage.
If your healing is enugh for them to stay alive, then so it’s for you and there’s no need for AH.

Auruan.2837:

This has little to do with what Guardians were intended to be like.
Any error is lethal. The majority of Guardians sacrifice their self-sustain for more damage, which in turn harms teams in the long run.

sorry but AH harms teams in the long run because its selfish.

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

In ways the team does benefit if the Guardian in question stays alive with more ease.
I’ve played with Altruistic Healing for months, and recently switched to the cookie cutter DPS build. What I’ve noticed is that no matter my gear choice (Berserker, Knight/Berserker, Valkyrie/Berserker), if the overall damage of the team falls short and battles take too long, I run out of resources to stay alive and eventually I fail to support my team. Altruistic builds don’t suffer that as much, as they thrive on helping team members.

This was most obvious in more tedious dungeons, mind you.
Fractals 30+ (the Dredge are notoriously awful), AC, CoE, Arah and so on.

In multiple pug runs of various dungeons, as my Warrior and Elementalist, I’ve noticed the same happening to other full DPS Guardians. The slightest error can cause them to get downed, especially as fights take longer and their access to blocks and blinds runs out – we usually catch them if they fall, but it’d be nice if they stayed afoot.

This is what prompted the thought that perhaps some version of self-sustain ought to be easier and less selfish to access. Other professions all have easy access to an abundance, and while Guardians have a 5 point Vigor trait, it’s still pretty meager.

Altruistic Healing was the most obvious go-to trait for it, as it benefits from being a social player. It’s just positioned in a selfish trait line now, and perhaps a little too strong if it were moved elsewhere. It’d need tweaking, no doubt.

Which reminds me, I completely forgot to mention something in the first post!
Altruistic Healing and Monk’s Focus are both Grandmaster Valor traits.
This makes it a 100% yes or no choice for added sustain. (Virtues IX: Absolute Resolution adds very little by comparison.)
The sole reason I can think of why they designed it like this, is to prevent people from obtaining both traits simultaneously: mere speculation, of course. This hints at it needing serious tweaking if they were to ever relocate AH.

Vargamonth.2047:

Noah.4756:

Battle Presence should not be in the Honor trait tree but in the Virtues tree because it affects Virtue of Resolve.

Battle presence is perfectly fine in Honor. That’s the traitline with Healig Power and where most guardian healing tools are.
Moving it to a traitline that reduces recharge on virtues and grants boon duration, when passive VoR doesn’t grant any boon and you’re not going to activate it, doesn’t make any sense to me.

I’ve actually tested Battle Presence in the past, and if it has not changed meanwhile…
Only the Guardian loses VoR upon the skill being triggered. The party members still get VoR through Battle Presence while your own VoR is on cooldown. With that in mind, you can spread an instant heal, additional regeneration, and only sacrifice your own regeneration momentarily. Shorter if it were relocated to Virtues, perhaps.
This paired with its Master trait Absolute Resolution, would give it some synergy – I’d have to test if that one’s effect also stacks.

So it’s indeed fine where it is, though it would suffer only slightly by moving it to Virtues. I’ll admit that I was wrong: parking it in Valor would do it no good, at all, and lessen the odds of anyone ever bringing it again.

Good things to think about.

NoTrigger.8396:

Auruan.2837:

This has little to do with what Guardians were intended to be like.
Any error is lethal. The majority of Guardians sacrifice their self-sustain for more damage, which in turn harms teams in the long run.

sorry but AH harms teams in the long run because its selfish.

Yes, and this is why I think it may be interesting to relocate it, so that it becomes usable without doing “harm” to teams.

Right now, the sacrifices made turn it into Selfish Altruism. If it were relocated to be more easily accessible, and tweaked to not be too powerful, it could give an interesting amount of extra regeneration to secure the Guardian’s survival.

It’s all mere theorycraft, anyway.

Vargamonth.2047:

I don’t get the “Alternatives to provide the party with heals” thing. AH doesn’t heal the party.

I wasn’t referring to AH with alternatives, generally speaking guardians don’t support their team with their healing abilities because they are a weak alternative compared to aegis, protection, blinds and other defensive support utilities.

Vargamonth.2047:

Battle presence is perfectly fine in Honor. That’s the traitline with Healig Power and where most guardian healing tools are.
Moving it to a traitline that reduces recharge on virtues and grants boon duration, when passive VoR doesn’t grant any boon and you’re not going to activate it, doesn’t make any sense to me.

You’re making a good point here. Although the increase in health towards Battle Presence when investing in Healing Power is negligible. Personally, I would like them to rework the trait and put it in Virtues. It would give guardians a motive to invest 30 points in Virtues, most guardians stop at 25 just to pick up AR and extra damage.

Vargamonth.2047:

I don’t see why nobody would take WoM over WoP.
Damage wise WoP is clearly better, that’s for sure, but support wise there are many chances for WoM to outperform WoP:

• With enough Boon Duration you easily get permaprot from hammer without WoP. If you are more interested on providing sustain than on dealing damage (or sustaining yourself through AH), WoM is better choice.
• For mace, WoP and WoM both provide similar party wide healing outputs.
  WoP benefits more from boon duration, while WoM has the benefit of not being a boon (so you can cover the regeneration lost with different sources).
  WoM also means a lesser symbol uptime, which is bad for damage, but really good if your party want to reliably blast different combo fields.

IMHO a Mace/Hammer pure support guardian would work quite better picking WoM over WoP.

Support roles, especially guardians healing capabilities, are in a pretty bad position in PvE. You’re making it sound like every guardian out there is running Cleric healing builds. As far as I know they are the abomination of our class. These traits only shine when you go full support and unfortunately aren’t significant enough to include them in damage type builds. As of now it is better to invest in traits like 15 in Radiance, 15 in honor or 20 in Virtues.

Noah.4756:

You’re making it sound like every guardian out there is running Cleric healing builds. As far as I know they are the abomination of our class. These traits only shine when you go full support and unfortunately aren’t significant enough to include them in damage type builds. As of now it is better to invest in traits like 15 in Radiance, 15 in honor or 20 in Virtues.

This pretty much sums it up, too. Right now, players only run the extremes.
Either they’re full Berserker, full Soldier or full Cleric (Cleric is more WvW, but some don’t swap for PvE). When I show up in the more comfortable Knight/Berserker, people raise an eyebrow. And woe if you try to prove Guardians can benefit from Valkyrie pieces.

The lack of hybrid building is also partially to blame on the trait layout.
Guardian traits either have great basic traits, and a shoddy Grandmaster set, or an amazing Grandmaster trait, with nothing else to show for prior.
In my opinion, Radiance is our only solid trait line, which can be put to full use in any build. Compared to other professions, one trait line with optimal synergy is really not much.

Altruistic Healing suffers from the latter shortcoming: no synergy with the rest of its line. The selfish Valor traits contradict the purpose of Altruistic Healing completely. It’s the only trait we have that benefits at large from playing supportively, yet to obtain it we must waste thirty points better spent elsewhere. We lose some, we gain some, but isn’t that just a waste?

Let me just add another question:
If Altruistic Healing was toned down to only 33% to 50% of its current healing, and available in Honor for 10 or 20 points, would you opt to pick it? Why or why not?

Vargamonth.2047:

jihm.2315:

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

wrong keeping your self healthy is what makes you give more support

And who are you supporting then?
If your party wide healing is not enough to keep yourself alive, it won’t be either for the teamates supposed to deal damage.
If your healing is enugh for them to stay alive, then so it’s for you and there’s no need for AH.

by spending my shouts and cooldowns on them?

Vargamonth.2047:

jihm.2315:

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

wrong keeping your self healthy is what makes you give more support

And who are you supporting then?
If your party wide healing is not enough to keep yourself alive, it won’t be either for the teamates supposed to deal damage.
If your healing is enugh for them to stay alive, then so it’s for you and there’s no need for AH.

I play Guardian as well, have done so since beta. Also Monk player since GW1.

This is an opinion, so dont take it too seriously/aggressively, but
In GW2 PvE, I honestly dont believe in defensive support.

To me, every class is self-sufficient, Arenanet has designed the classes to be so.

Defensive support is just extra baggage that gives you the ‘feeling that you are helping your team’, when this isnt even necessary in the first place.

I have to say this: If a party member tells you that they need your defensive support/heals, then they are probably not a very good player to party with in the first place. I actually consider it an insult if a player tells me they are bringing defensive support to keep me alive, no matter what class I am playing(be it Guardian or Thief) because they are insinuating that I am not good enough to take care of myself and that I need them to survive.

If you have offensive support that increases DPS such as TimeWarp/Banners/Frost Spirit/Fury, then by all means, bring them. Stability is borderline welcomed, because being knocked away for 3 seconds can reduce DPS by a lot. But if you are bringing defensive support to keep the party alive, please dont! unless it is part of your natural defense(such as activating Virtue of Courage) and you cannot replace it with something else.

No matter how much defensive support you bring, Leeroy will still die. The solution is not to bring even more support by going full Cleric with max boon duration, but to not bring Leeroy to the dungeon in the first place.

tl;dr
Defensive support keeps your party alive through boons.
AH keeps your party alive through the F(Revive) key.
Both work equally well if your party members cannot stay alive on their own.
Both are equally useless if they can.
The ultimate solution is to get better party members or make your current ones better.

(My Hall of Monuments smells of rich Elitism)

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

You talking about pve or pvp?

Turtle Dragon.9241:

jihm.2315:

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

wrong keeping your self healthy is what makes you give more support

I play Guardian as well, have done so since beta. Also Monk player since GW1.

This is an opinion, so dont take it too seriously/aggressively, but
In GW2 PvE, I honestly dont believe in defensive support.

To me, every class is self-sufficient, Arenanet has designed the classes to be so.

Defensive support is just extra baggage that gives you the ‘feeling that you are helping your team’, when this isnt even necessary in the first place.

I have to say this: If a party member tells you that they need your defensive support/heals, then they are probably not a very good player to party with in the first place. I actually consider it an insult if a player tells me they are bringing defensive support to keep me alive, no matter what class I am playing(be it Guardian or Thief) because they are insinuating that I am not good enough to take care of myself and that I need them to survive.

If you have offensive support that increases DPS such as TimeWarp/Banners/Frost Spirit/Fury, then by all means, bring them. Stability is borderline welcomed, because being knocked away for 3 seconds can reduce DPS by a lot. But if you are bringing defensive support to keep the party alive, please dont! unless it is part of your natural defense(such as activating Virtue of Courage) and you cannot replace it with something else.

No matter how much defensive support you bring, Leeroy will still die. The solution is not to bring even more support by going full Cleric with max boon duration, but to not bring Leeroy to the dungeon in the first place.

tl;dr
Defensive support keeps your party alive through boons.
AH keeps your party alive through the F(Revive) key.
Both work equally well if your party members cannot stay alive on their own.
Both are equally useless if they can.
The ultimate solution is to get better party members or make your current ones better.

(My Hall of Monuments smells of rich Elitism)

i agree that going full support seems a bit lame at the moment, but trying to be an all around player has its benefits, i found that having 600-700 healing power can be a good benefit for the group when you manage to combine it with front line damage.
i puged even with zerkers and we did really good most of the times .
no one asks for support builds but when u see your teammates in trouble you instinctively want to help them, i think its a matter of character and playstyle others want to see boss go down as fast as possible, i like having good damage , giving some support and minimizing wipes .

Auruan.2837:

Vargamonth.2047:

Noah.4756:

Battle Presence should not be in the Honor trait tree but in the Virtues tree because it affects Virtue of Resolve.

Battle presence is perfectly fine in Honor. That’s the traitline with Healig Power and where most guardian healing tools are.
Moving it to a traitline that reduces recharge on virtues and grants boon duration, when passive VoR doesn’t grant any boon and you’re not going to activate it, doesn’t make any sense to me.

I’ve actually tested Battle Presence in the past, and if it has not changed meanwhile…
Only the Guardian loses VoR upon the skill being triggered. The party members still get VoR through Battle Presence while your own VoR is on cooldown. With that in mind, you can spread an instant heal, additional regeneration, and only sacrifice your own regeneration momentarily. Shorter if it were relocated to Virtues, perhaps.
This paired with its Master trait Absolute Resolution, would give it some synergy – I’d have to test if that one’s effect also stacks.

So it’s indeed fine where it is, though it would suffer only slightly by moving it to Virtues. I’ll admit that I was wrong: parking it in Valor would do it no good, at all, and lessen the odds of anyone ever bringing it again.

Good things to think about.

I’m a bit shocked; didn’t know about Battle Presence not being disabled on VoR activation.
I still think Honor it’s a better placement. BP + AR might be too powerful for things like sPvP, or even WvW.

Aza.2105:

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

You talking about pve or pvp?

PvE, it’s what the thread seemed to be about.

Vargamonth.2047:

Auruan.2837:

Vargamonth.2047:

Noah.4756:

Battle Presence should not be in the Honor trait tree but in the Virtues tree because it affects Virtue of Resolve.

Battle presence is perfectly fine in Honor. That’s the traitline with Healig Power and where most guardian healing tools are.
Moving it to a traitline that reduces recharge on virtues and grants boon duration, when passive VoR doesn’t grant any boon and you’re not going to activate it, doesn’t make any sense to me.

I’ve actually tested Battle Presence in the past, and if it has not changed meanwhile…
Only the Guardian loses VoR upon the skill being triggered. The party members still get VoR through Battle Presence while your own VoR is on cooldown. With that in mind, you can spread an instant heal, additional regeneration, and only sacrifice your own regeneration momentarily. Shorter if it were relocated to Virtues, perhaps.
This paired with its Master trait Absolute Resolution, would give it some synergy – I’d have to test if that one’s effect also stacks.

So it’s indeed fine where it is, though it would suffer only slightly by moving it to Virtues. I’ll admit that I was wrong: parking it in Valor would do it no good, at all, and lessen the odds of anyone ever bringing it again.

Good things to think about.

I’m a bit shocked; didn’t know about Battle Presence not being disabled on VoR activation.
I still think Honor it’s a better placement. BP + AR might be too powerful for things like sPvP, or even WvW.

BP is always good to have in any dungeon or wvw when u stick with your captain or breaking doors

Just to clarify:

The current dungeon meta doesn’t use healing type support, and won’t ever do unless you make it so insanely powerful that many other things would become completely broken.
I’m speaking about a situation where we could see things like a Guardian getting the long term benefits of AH (which involves using a staff midfight, Empowering Might or a quite long party exposure to symbols), which belongs mostly to play-what-you-want groups.

If the idea is about increasing the survivability of guardians on DPS meta setups with little investment, I completely disagree.
Guardian is extremely powerful atm, one of the top classes without any doubt. IMHO it would be much healthier to decrease warrior base survivability than increasing guardian one (which is better than most, and should require a survival boost across the board).

Since you stated you play ele..how do you survive while other guardians drop like flies? How do you die a lot on your own guardian yet stay alive on ele?

I never suggested I die a lot on my own Guardian. It happens at times, mostly during lengthier fights where others also fall short, be it in terms of DPS or their self-sustain in turn.

It’s just that I notice other Guardians blatantly pick up the meta without taking into account their own capacities first. It discourages some players from wanting to take part in LFG, and the most stubborn ones of them all even go all out Cleric just to stand out. Just to be stubborn.

Which is what got me thinking about how perhaps Guardian could use a (small) sustain adjustment. Not saying we should suddenly have it in every build, but making it more accessible, or even tweaking the other traits in the Valor line may make it more interesting. Any other suggestion is welcome, of course!

As for the Elementalist:
30/30/0/0/10. Dagger/Focus. I mixed Soldier gear with the Berserker gear until I reached a comfortable level of survivability. Vitality/Regen food. Earth has an invulnerability on the Focus. Add Arcane Shield to it and you’ll find that it works fine, even up close. High risk, high pay off, high offensive support in form of Fury/Might blast finishers where it’s due.

It’s just that Elementalist can perform at all ranges with a whole collection of builds that people find agreeable. Again, they have a lot of synergy. Guardians are currently narrowed down somewhat, the Valor line being “selfish”, and some of their traits overall could really use a tweaking.

Altruistic Healing is simply my favourite contender, since it’s a trait that rewards supportive play. It’s not bad, but it could be better without becoming too powerful. It also seems like somewhat of a controversy to be using it by this point, making it all the more interesting to discuss right now.