Guild Wars 2

Are there any detailed posts/guides on healing/boon priority for the purposes of raids?

I’ve always assumed that in regards to boons, the priority is:
1) Party
2) ??? (any other player closest? lacking the boons?)
3)minions?

For healing:
1) Lowest in party
2) Party
3)????
4)Minions?

I’m particularly asking in regards to minions (ranger pets, necro minions, phantasms, etc) But this is a good opportunity to figure out priorities otherwise, as well. This is very important information for optimizing your groups and comps, and I’m personally hoping as a necro that bringing minions isn’t stealing boons or healing from people that could use it first.

I’m also particularly interested in the case of buffs like elementalist regen/soothing mist. Since they aren’t heals directly, do they follow heal rules, boon rules, are they the same?

Any detailed info would be appreciated, as I’ve heard conflicting info.

Boons and buffs prioritize party/sub-groups first, and closest players within the group or other players if the group is too far away.

And minions below that? I assume it ignores if players have that boon or not already or anything?

Does healing prioritize at all based on % hp?

Healing Priority list and boon priority list are the same:

1. Yourself
2. Players in your party/subsquad
3. Players in your squad but not in your subsquad
4. Players not in your party
5. Pets
6. Minions
7. Phantasms
8. NPCs

This is compounded by range, so if you use a shout on a guardian with yourself and 2 others in your party, one player not in your party, and one pet within range, it’ll go to them while being unable to reach the rest of your party who are out of range.

To my knowledge, % HP is not an affector of healing priority.

An in-game example of proper usage: In a raid, if you have one dedicated healer, they should be in a subsquad by themselves. This makes it so other squads do not receive healing/boon priority and the heals are more evenly distributed to those in range.

Does this answer your questions?

Edit: Oh look, a dev beat me to it lol

Jon Olson.8439:

Priority is:

1. Party/Subgroup
2. Squad
3. Allied players
4. Your kennel
5. Allied players’ kennels
6. All other allies

This is good information, thanks!

For heals, is there any priority given to allies that actually need the heal? Say I have 10 people in my subgroup and 5 are at half life, will my AOE heal affect the 5 who are at half life or will it randomize and uselessly heal a few who are full on HP? If this is not the case, could you at least track the change to make it the case?

And people say the devs aren’t talking to us anymore…. (<3 Anet)

My big question is more along the lines of raids. I know a lot of groups I keeping their druid (or other healer) in a sub-group of their own, but let’s say you don’t. Where do the druid’s heals go in this situation: 3 people in the druid’s group are at full health (including the druid) and 2 are at 50%. 3 people in the second sub-group are at 50% and 2 are full health. Will the heal go to the 5 people at 50% health?

What about the case where the 3 players in the druid’s group who were at full health are instead missing only 10 health. Will the system still apply the full heal to those players, ignoring the players who clearly need the heal more and essentially wasting that healing, instead of applying it to those at 50% in the other group?

In the case where the druid is in their own group, do their heals prioritize the players at the lowest health, given every single player is in range?

Any further insights on this system would be great!

Thanks for some official information, glad to get a response. I assumed heals were “smart” in that it would prioritize lower HP targets, but apparently not the case. Seems fairly easy to test, though!

Any confirmation on if range from the center of the cast would be nice too (or if it somehwat randomly selects targets)

How i believe it shoould be/ i believe it is/ 99.999% sure/we should test (but i am lazy)

“MAXIMUM TARGETS” = SKILL MAXIMUM TARGETS
1-> The skills determine all people in range(skills like Signet of inspiration)/in the target Range(skills like TimeWarp)
(lets name those as “APPLICABLE”)

2-> IF there are more “APPLICABLE” than the “MAXIMUM TARGETS” THAN
go to 3
IF NOT, APPLY TO ALL THEM END

3 -> IF subgroup “APPLICABLE” number people is bigger or equal to “MAXIMUM TARGETS” THAN
apply to “MAXIMUM TARGETS” random people between those people END
IF NOT Apply to those "subgroup "APPLICABLE"", subtract the number from the “MAXIMUM TARGETS” and go to 4

4-> Randomly apply “MAXIMUM TARGETS” left on the “APPLICABLE” left players, IF there are still targets left, apply to clones/phantasms/pets/spirits ETC if targets left, you just lose some potential on the skill.

Can any Dev tell if my statement is right or wrong please?

Does this apply differently to ground targeted AoEs? On numerous occasions, I have dropped Symbol of Swiftness under my character (while stacked with many others, for example, in WvW) and not a single pulse of the symbol applied swiftness to me. I started with zero swiftness and ended with zero swiftness.

The only other factor here is that I was not in a party at the time. But it would be silly to expect that the caster him/herself would get zero priority just on the basis of not belonging to a party (well, to me, at least).

has this changed in the last 8 months?

Nemui.6753:

has this changed in the last 8 months?

It hasn’t changed but there was some misinformation about heals not being subgroup prioritised floating about.

Healing prioritisation in raids works as follows:

Top priority
1. Players within your subsquad sorted by proximity to the centerpoint of the healing ability. (It doesn’t prioritise the caster of the skill any higher than other players within the same subgroup).

2. Players in other subsquads sorted by proximity to the centerpoint of the healing ability.

3. Pets / Minions / Clones.

4. Allied NPC’s.
Lowest priority

If a player is at 100% HP when a heal is allocated to them, then that heal overflows using the same prioritisation rules. Interestingly, buffs attached to heals (i.e Grace of the land) will still be applied to the person who the heal was originally allocated to.

Heals do not prioritise low HP targets (i.e 10%) over high HP targets (i.e 90%). It’s all done through proximity and subsquads.

Did you test if a condi removal or a heal has priority for application when a skill does both? Ie. Seed of Life

Editting for clarity: If you have 6 players inside seed of life, the 5 closest are missing hp and have no condis, but the 6th person has a condi, which 5 get hit?

Or, if you have another another 6, the 1 person with a condi and no hp missing is closest, and the other 5 who are missing hp are further away, who gets healed and who loses a condi?

Are the 5person caps for healing/condi removal separate, or is condi removal only applied to someone who can receive the heal, or vice-versa.