Guild Wars 2

My apologies if this is a topic visited multiple times previously.
Straight to the point, a year later and it still bothers me that there isn’t a dedicated healer in the game.
I like that they wanted to break the meta and therefore create a whole new one, but I don’t understand why that should require taking out healers entirely. With the play-styles of the classes/jobs and the way the combat system works, it wouldn’t matter if there was a healer or not, I suppose.
However, as someone who plays the healer in every game that I get the chance to, I there’s an emptiness that I have.

Has anyone discovered a way to get that feeling in the game or is it simply unavailable?

Mesmer Mantra-Healers push some of the highest green numbers per minute in the game. I find them even stronger healers than the often pointed to Elementalist in Water attunement.

I’ve built potent, effective healers out of every class except Thief, and I’m still working on that one . The new heal-venom opened up some opportunities there.

Thing is you only benefit from a healer over other roles in a very select number of scenarios, WvW being probably the most prominent. So with healers basically decreasing your effectiviness in many situations, and being poorly rewarded or skipped over entirely by game mechanics that track damage done and nothing else…. there’s not a lot of energy going into exploring that part of the system.

I play staff ele and it’s about the closest you’ll get. We just did Balthazar and I spent most of the temple assault on water dropping healing on the pact. That said it’s not often you actually need such healing (WvW mostly.) But when the situation calls for it, there’s a reason people say “water fields down.”

I’ve also got 30 in water with reduced recharge on water skills. So yeah, I also miss the healer and took a substitute.

Engineers can do some pretty nice healing too if needed and traited properly.

I played for a while during beta and after the release, but I found the content, combat and PvP really boring. I’m not sure why, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask, am I missing something? GW2 seems to be successful, but I don’t understand it. I want to like it-strangely enough-but I’m finding it difficult to play more than an hour at a time without being utterly bored the whole time. :P

It would be awesome if healing power got a buff. I love this game because its more like an fps, but seriously, healing is just so much fun. Playing a healer type is one of my main reasons for wanting to switch games.

The reason dedicated healing was removed from the game was the problem that the trinity caused for the game. If you make content that requires a healer, you have to wait for a healer and you are dependent on a healer. Since most people want to DPS, this often means a lengthy wait. Anet didn’t want people to have to wait much to start a dungeon. In this they have succeeded.

If they make the content so you must have a healer this strategy fails. If they make the content so that you don’t need a healer, then you don’t need a healer…at least not in most places in PvE.

That said, there are plenty of people in my guild who enjoy healing and run dungeons with us and play that play style and we’re happy to have them.

We don’t need them to be healers, but unlike speed run groups, we don’t require them to be full DPS either.

Be a healer in wvw. Solved.

Yes there’s a substitute, it’s called not getting hit. It’s called control. All the professions I’ve played has some form of control or avoiding damage. It’s a very different mindset from games where all your attacks root you or a single class does only X well.

You can basclly run a healing guardian. Not only it heals for nice amounts, provides regeneration, has best rezzing in the game and provides AoE Stability/Condition cleanse, but also is a tough tank and buffs allies, keeping them might and protection stacked.

Some classes can achieve more burst healing, like Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer (yes, necromancer) but when it comes to best healing/support class in the game, it’s just Guardian all the way. There’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular classes and demanded for every dungeon

A dedicated healer does not really work here. The idea is for your group to bring a main heal and a few other extra heals that can also support heal others. If everyone brings that there should be tons of heals.

Some examples of these extra heals:

Warriors – shouts
Guardians – symbols that heal (from what I remember, if not symbol some other name)
Thief – Putting invisible on other players can also heal
Mesmer – Healing clones/phantasms
Engi – Elixir Gun/Bomb heals (most effective on human for the extra F Key heal from the dwayna heal)

I enjoy using a dungeon runner warrior with shout heal trait, soldier runes to clear conditions, and lower shout cooldown trait (I think warriors have mostly lower shout cooldowns than Guards and Rangers so we work really well with this rune and these traits). Trait a warhorn and you’ll clear conditions on your group very often while getting decent life-saving heals from the shouts. It’s basically a lot like that “Sonic Boom” warrior build but I’ve used it since before I heard about that. It’s not a dedicated healer class at all but I can still do a fair amount of damage, tank well, and offer great support with periodic condition removal and group-healing, which is nice since it’s good to be able to shift gears as a jack-of-all-trades in case other group members die. I tend to go with Soldier, Knight, or Celestial stats for a good mix of defense and offense. But if you equip Celestial stuff as a warrior, make sure you can make frequent use of the Healing Power and Condition Damage, I recommend the shout heals and longbow to do so.

Well, there never was supposed to be a dedicated healer. That’s probably why there isn’t one.

As some people have mentioned, you can provide some healing to help offset the damage.

However, you could also make a support-orientated character, which is more about mitigating damage (Protection, Aegis, Condition Removal) before it’s happened, rather than simply healing after the damage has been dealt.

mantra heal with mantra of pain and 600 toughness on channelling last night i was able to (with some knights gear slotted) tank and out heal a zerk theives dps albeit i was ensuring he couldnt get my back by spinning 360 degrees a millisecond xD

needless to say he kept coming back and i had more than enough dps to burst him down, all these heals get put out to your party, you want to be an on demand healer? then pick the mesmer or warrior with shouts, you want to be a full support healer then pick ele or guardian.

the best healing I have ever received in a dungeon has been from a Berzerker Engie.

Personally. I really LIKE that they did away with the trinity, and I honestly hope they never introduce it.

be a guardian then. Pop protective fields and there you go. Rather then party healing (which guard can do also), you become party damage preventer. It’s better to prevent then to treat;)

Actually, I’m still pretty glad there isn’t a dedicated healer in the game – or the need for one. While it would be nice if the game tracked (and rewarded) anything other than raw damage, I am sick and tired of waiting for a healer to show up before I can do challenging (or any) content.

That said, I usually trait my necro to provide some party heal through deathshroud 4, and I’ve yet to see anyone complain It’s quite nice to be able to be able get multiple people out of downed state (with luck and timing, at least) while still dealing damage.