Guild Wars 2

Due to constantly seeing posts on the forums about how you can’t play a support/healer, or the game hates you for it, or GW2 is all about the damage, etc, I decided to give a basic overview of some -healer- roles that actually work in the game.

There are 5 classes that can do a full on healer role. The warrior, guardian, mesmer, engineer, and elementalist.

Warrior: Shouts build, focused on making shouts heal and purge conditions via traits and runes. You are a rapid burst heal or sustained heal fighter, packing a group rez if needed, while plinking away with a rifle, or getting directly into combat with a greatsword, hammer, or what have you. You use Soldier runes, with the shout grand master trait in tactics that makes you heal on every shout. Mix in a full defense trait set as well, and clerics gear, and you’re an endless fountain of health, for yourself, and for your allies, while constantly buffing, and constantly fighting.

Guardian. Mace/focus. 30 points in honor. Superior sigil of water. With clerics gear and a little crit on the side, you are an AoE heal aura at all times, that deploys an AoE healing field, while healing on every third auto attack, and being able to shoot out a bouncing beam of healing. All before any regen boons.

Mesmer. Mantra gatling gun. Mantra of pain, specced to give your phantasms AoE regen. Sword/pistol. deploy duelists while burning mantra of pain charges, and using your utilities and elites to shift the fight between mantra charges as well. Constant, albeit slightly slow to come out (no cooldown though, basically a healing pulse every 5.3 seconds) healing, with regen atop it. Destroys your DPS sadly, but mesmer is a utility class anyway.

Engineer. Bombs heal allies. Medkit. bomb kit. supply drop. go nuts with healing spam. Don’t know enough to say more.

Elementalist. Water builds spam healing as well. I’ve seen it done well, but I don’t know enough myself.

…I hate to bump my own stuff, even when it’s on the first page, but if anyone else has a good ranger/necro healer build or knows enough about Engi/Ele healing tactics to help cover that, it would be much appreciated.

Good post, might have been covered before well thought out. I would like to add that thief’s are great at rescuing downed players with there 2 different utility stealth mechanics as well as, group re gen if your stealth ed by the thief.

Barbarka.9362:

Good post, might have been covered before well thought out. I would like to add that thief’s are great at rescuing downed players with there 2 different utility stealth mechanics as well as, group re gen if your stealth ed by the thief.

Group regen is nice, and the stealth is nice, but that’s more of a resurrector perk than anything. They can’t output a decent amount of burst healing, and can’t spec to do more than regen, so I left them off the list.

I don’t think the issue is that you can’t do healing. The issue is you don’t need to do healing, and stats-wise the +heal is a weak multiplier.

E.g., for a guardian, instead of specing to do small aoe heals, you could just as well spec to propagate boons of all sorts, keep yourself healed and let the other get along. Consider as a player, would you rather receive 1-2k heals, or receive 1/3 less damage and have a few stacks of might?

The other thing related to this — frequently people confuse healing with being all about healing, like a WoW or Rift healer. Go ahead and be a healer, but you better do more than just heal. If you look at what the characters would be doing — bombs heal allies, but also blow up the bad guys, the warrior shouts but that doesn’t slow them from deploying offensive and control abilities. My guardian gives might on crit, and giving a boon grants a heal, so it’s all 3 “trinity” functions in one ability.

you forgot necromancer. staff #2, dodge mark then getting traits so exiting death shroud heals and life leech heals people around and then wells to heal and turn conditions to boons.

Yeah, I think people who complain are the ones who want to do nothing but healing, or those who don’t want to take care of their own healing. In GW2 everyone must do everything. You have a choice in doing one thing slightly more frequently than others, but you cannot choose to ignore any one aspect of control, support or damage. It’s just not the same as the trinity games.

Nayru.3947:

There is nothing and never has been anything wrong with the “holy trinity.” The holy trinity has more variety than the auto attack, auto attack and auto attack GW2 combat.

The only reason dedicated healers aren’t in GW2 is because they lacked the skill to implement them into the flawed solo combat system.

So yeah people can go water ele, or some other useless sub-par “healing” build, but I’d kick them from my group in a heartbeat.

Spam dodge + 6 and you stay alive. Takes so much skill.

The funny thing is it really isn’t sub par at all. A guardian healer is sitting on the enemy, doing damage while flooding the area around him with healing, allowing people to go into melee and regenerate faster than they are being damaged, as long as they have decent armor. I personally have a friend I take with me to most every group who runs a heal guardian. As a mesmer in knights gear, I’m usually topped off between hits from all the healing he performs.

Likewise, I have another friend who runs a heal warrior, with a greatsword/hammer combo. He’s not even specced for healing power, and we can still feel those heals, and he kills things quite quick as well. Both of them are consistant fountains of healing who spend their time in melee killing things with the bonus damage from being in melee while keeping the rest of the group in melee, doing bonus damage from being in melee, and largely removing the need to rez people.

Mantra mesmer is a bit more iffy, but it’s still deploying 3x phantasmal duelist, which is good damage. It can still work though and pulses a good amount of healing every time MoP is charged.

Bomb engineer I don’t know too much about, but I do know it stays close to the enemy, and heals with every attack it performs.

I honestly don’t know enough about water Ele, but I’ve played with a few water healers who really helped the group.

As a thief, if someone puts down a water field, you can spam blast finishers w/ cluster bomb for some pretty fast AOE group heals. It’s not reliable healing that you can do on your own, but a unique attribute of the thief all the same, that could lend some value to the group.

People don’t say it because there are no classes with healing abilites.
They say it because your healing for roughly 2k and being hit for 15-20k in the same amount of time.
Sure it helps survivability while leveling, and sometimes in some of the minor fights in dungeons. But most of the longer fights (the ones where healing should actually matter) it doesn’t come anywhere near keeping up with the damage output.

So you just pray that your buggy dodge doesn’t fail or that you don’t get a root/charge/mega bomb combo to your face while your 30+sec cooldown cond removal is on cooldown because of condition spamming mobs. Or that the mobs don’t have some lame 10+ second flame thrower ability that can’t be dodged. Or some Lame knockdown spam they have that says you block but you still end up on your kitten for 5-10secs….. or any of the other hundred mechanics they gave bosses that seem to be immune to every ability we have.

kendokken.3257:

People don’t say it because there are no classes with healing abilites.
They say it because your healing for roughly 2k and being hit for 15-20k in the same amount of time.
Sure it helps survivability while leveling, and sometimes in some of the minor fights in dungeons. But most of the longer fights (the ones where healing should actually matter) it doesn’t come anywhere near keeping up with the damage output.

So you just pray that your buggy dodge doesn’t fail or that you don’t get a root/charge/mega bomb combo to your face while your 30+sec cooldown cond removal is on cooldown because of condition spamming mobs. Or that the mobs don’t have some lame 10+ second flame thrower ability that can’t be dodged. Or some Lame knockdown spam they have that says you block but you still end up on your kitten for 5-10secs….. or any of the other hundred mechanics they gave bosses that seem to be immune to every ability we have.

Most people don’t have anywhere near 20k health, and can survive decently fine. If you mix healing (and it’s alot more than 2k in practice, trust me. Guardian can rack up about 300hp/second before mace/focus burst heals even come into play, or any regen buffs) and damage, you get a much better result. Warrior can burst heal the group for 45k total, in under a second, as I stated. Again, factoring for the entire group, but that is almost 100% of a thief/guardians lifebar, and more than half of anyone with medium health. Instantly. On a 20s cooldown or less. Without stopping to do it.

Trust me, if you actually build a proper combat medic, you will see and feel the results. 5 combat medic warriors can all press just one shout, and gain a ton of might, fury, and heal to full instantly.

As for the idea of just CCing 5 combat medic warriors, Shake it off instantly goes through your CC, and they’re all back to full.

I did Guardian Healing for a few weeks and it’s VERY effective. Had several people comment as such. I’m in the process of converting to Guardian Control though because the healing got boring to me. Control can be just as effective in that you stack toughness and vitality, then stay alive while generating aggro on the mobs…which in turn protects other players.

Using these as a point of reference:
http://www.noxxic.com/gw2/guardian/control/pve/core-build-and-traits
http://www.noxxic.com/gw2/guardian/control/pve/stat-priority

Nayru.3947:

There is nothing and never has been anything wrong with the “holy trinity.” The holy trinity has more variety than the auto attack, auto attack and auto attack GW2 combat.

The only reason dedicated healers aren’t in GW2 is because they lacked the skill to implement them into the flawed solo combat system.

So yeah people can go water ele, or some other useless sub-par “healing” build, but I’d kick them from my group in a heartbeat.

Spam dodge + 6 and you stay alive. Takes so much skill.

I have only one flaw with the Trinity… anyone can do it.

It takes skill to NOT take damage when fighting an enemy – that’s why no matter the MMO I’m in my motto is “Healers are for people who get hit”

Whether it’s automated die roll or active dodging those who rely on others to keep them alive through a fight deserve to loose them… The trinity was assembled for people who are too weak to win solo.

And as far as the ‘Spam dodge and 6’ arguement… I use healing seed for my 6 skill – it grants regen in a field. I find myself throwing it out to benefit those around me not because I got hit.

You cannot generally assume you will never get hit. It’s simply impossible to never, ever, ever get hit when fighting ranged enemies.

I dont recomend this to anyone sadly.
Anyone gimping themself to be full support is not benifitial to a group dungoen.

Should also have good Damage/Control as well.
All 3 Damage/Control/Support is equally important to understand and master.

I dont recomend forcing holy trinity into gw2.

Please add Shield to the guardian section, in addition to AoE prot you get a knockback/projectile absorb/AoE heal, and can even trait for shorter cooldowns on them.

AnemoneMeer.7182:

You cannot generally assume you will never get hit. It’s simply impossible to never, ever, ever get hit when fighting ranged enemies.

Blind, stun, daze, reflect, absorb, dodge, knockdown, launch…

If you don’t see where I’m going with that, what I mean is there’s skills you can use to prevent yourself from taking damage. Control the situation 85% or more of the time throughout the fight and when the enemy is dead your health auto regens no need to use a healing skill.

I’m not saying taking damage can be avoided at all costs, taking so much damage in a fight that healers are necessary to keep you alive is weak.

I run an Elementalist, I run Glass Cannon at level 80… I solo Orr mobs even ranged ones. I can’t afford to take damage due to my health pool and the more I bother healing myself the more my DPS suffers, so even if I end the fight with HP in the hundreds instead of the thousands – ranged enemies aren’t any more difficult to survive against than melee. In fact thanks to the fact that melee mobs seem to be coded (in Orr at least) to attack you from behind and run faster than you, ranged mobs seem easier to defeat in comparison.

I didn’t come to your thread to bash healing… just found the title interesting and decided to check it out. Saw the post about the trinity being a desired element and threw in my 2 cents about how it’s worthless to me. Healers aren’t bad for the game… the thought that they’re required to accomplish anything does their archetype no good.

Thief healing is best done through venomancer/stealth healing.

You’re looking at a 30/0/30/10/0 build:
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.7.3.10.20.0.0.0.0.0.154.157.158.159.178.0.0.0.454.458.462.0.0.0.483.489.492.498.0.0.0.0.0.30.0.30.10.0

With high healing power and power equipment to fully boost leeching venoms to absurd levels.

Used correctly by staggering your venom use, you can make every hit for everyone near you heal for 400 for the next 16 attacks. On a 30 second cycle.

For emergency healing fire down black powder shot then switch to shortbow and use an unfragmented clusterbomb in the black powder field for AoE stealth that will apply regen to everyone it hits.

Healing in the form of health refilling is the most uneffective form of defense in GW2, I wouldn’t push people to be full healers and therefore being carried in dungeons.
No high-end team will take a person who focuses on spamming green numbers and nothing else.

A support thief based on blinds/stealths/screen for instance negates a ton more damage than any healbot could ever dream of – and this while still doing heaploads of damage.

Please play GW2 as it is meant to be played when you are with others.

Red Falcon.8257:

Healing in the form of health refilling is the most uneffective form of defense in GW2, I wouldn’t push people to be full healers and therefore being carried in dungeons.
No high-end team will take a person who focuses on spamming green numbers and nothing else.

A support thief based on blinds/stealths/screen for instance negates a ton more damage than any healbot could ever dream of – and this while still doing heaploads of damage.

Please play GW2 as it is meant to be played when you are with others.

You’re assuming they don’t attack the enemy.

A heal warrior is in melee with a greatsword using 100b or an axe and using Evis, the entire time.

A heal guardian is using mace in melee, the entire time.

A heal engineer is in melee, spamming bombs.

A heal mesmer has three phantasmal duelists out.

They do damage as is, they can take CC tools as well. But they also use a build that keeps the healthbars of allies up. Shouts can be used mid attack. Mantras don’t stop your phantasms from firing. Bombs do damage as well as heal.

Please stop thinking it means playing a WoW healing priest where you stand back, and do not attack the enemy at all for fear of aggro.

Alice.8694:

Thief healing is best done through venomancer/stealth healing.

You’re looking at a 30/0/30/10/0 build:
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.7.3.10.20.0.0.0.0.0.154.157.158.159.178.0.0.0.454.458.462.0.0.0.483.489.492.498.0.0.0.0.0.30.0.30.10.0

With high healing power and power equipment to fully boost leeching venoms to absurd levels.

Used correctly by staggering your venom use, you can make every hit for everyone near you heal for 400 for the next 16 attacks. On a 30 second cycle.

For emergency healing fire down black powder shot then switch to shortbow and use an unfragmented clusterbomb in the black powder field for AoE stealth that will apply regen to everyone it hits.

Wow, I stand at least partially corrected. That’s not bad at all. Over 6k healed over time before regen. Not quite as good as some of the others, but still not bad at all.