Guild Wars 2

Hello

I first wanted to play a Mesmer because of how awesome they look.. but I don’t think they heal, and that’s what I want to do in PvP.

So are Elementalists a viable healing class? I noticed they offer support and heals through their water attunement. Also are guardians a healing class? Any other healer I don’t know about?

I sure miss my Monk class from the original GW.

Every class has some healing abilities. It’s not the job of just a single class to heal anymore. Its a group effort for that, tanking and damage output.

Nothing really seems to specialize in healing. I tested a support water elementalist staff build in PvP but it was hardly practical unless used in a structured team.. and, even then, it wasn’t as useful as a damage build. Paladins have some better support skills (in my opinion) and so healing skills with Tome (elite skill) but it’s far from what I’d call a healing class.

You’ll be disappointed if you try to approach the water elementalist or guardian in that mindset. They have some healing abilities but they pale (incredibly so) to everyone’s self heal and dodge abilities.

I have played my elementalist in water attunement using a staff and, while you won’t be able to keep up someone that is being focused (i don’t think any “healer” in this game can do that), you certainly have some nice skills that can help your teammates survive if they play smart.

You have Water blast which doesnt do much damage, but it heals targets in the blast radius so it is very helpful to your melee friends. Healing rain has a BIG radius so it is pretty easy to heal with it. Geyser, on the other hand, is more difficult to use since its radius is very small. Your teammates must be aware of it otherwise it will be wasted.

For CC you have Frozen ground which is a nice AoE snare. Combine it with Ice spike to make your enemies vulnerable.

Overall i enjoy my Elementalist in Water attunement a LOT.

After playing both past 20 and PvPing with both, I would have to say Engineer, Guardian or the two closest classes your going to get to a pure healer. With that said niether are actually dedicated heals, I found Engineers have the most healing type abilities while Guardian have the most mitigation (shields ect.) type abilities. I love playing heals myself and was actually quite dissapointed that pure heals were not part of the game, I love the game don’t get me wrong but the dissapointment was there.

I’m hoping in future expansions they bring back the monk, some of us believe it or not do enjoy playing a true support class.

Actually Mesmers can heal, If you put 20 points in Inspiration you can pick the trait ‘Heal allies when you cast a mantra’ if you then for example pick ‘Mantra of Recovery’ every time you finish channelling that ability it will heal allies for a decent bit when they are close enough to you.

I’ve been using this setup in dungeons. You also get ‘Phantasms grant regeneration to nearby allies’ in that same trait line. Haven’t gotten to the 30 point traits yet. Regardless they are able to heal somewhat.

thank you very much guys. disappointing that there is no dedicated healer, but it makes more sense for the game.

i think i will try a guardian and if i don’t like it, i will stick to the elementalist.

thanks

Liminality.9743:

Nothing really seems to specialize in healing. I tested a support water elementalist staff build in PvP but it was hardly practical unless used in a structured team.. and, even then, it wasn’t as useful as a damage build. Paladins have some better support skills (in my opinion) and so healing skills with Tome (elite skill) but it’s far from what I’d call a healing class.

I think you are talking about Guardians. There are no Paladins in GW2.

Fay.2735:

Actually Mesmers can heal, If you put 20 points in Inspiration you can pick the trait ‘Heal allies when you cast a mantra’ if you then for example pick ‘Mantra of Recovery’ every time you finish channelling that ability it will heal allies for a decent bit when they are close enough to you.

I’ve been using this setup in dungeons. You also get ‘Phantasms grant regeneration to nearby allies’ in that same trait line. Haven’t gotten to the 30 point traits yet. Regardless they are able to heal somewhat.

that seems pretty epic!! i have to try THIS first..

Nuzt.7894:

After playing both past 20 and PvPing with both, I would have to say Engineer, Guardian or the two closest classes your going to get to a pure healer. With that said niether are actually dedicated heals, I found Engineers have the most healing type abilities while Guardian have the most mitigation (shields ect.) type abilities. I love playing heals myself and was actually quite dissapointed that pure heals were not part of the game, I love the game don’t get me wrong but the dissapointment was there.

I’m hoping in future expansions they bring back the monk, some of us believe it or not do enjoy playing a true support class.

i hope so too. i play support in everything.. down to MOBA games on smite and LoL.

Landua.4857:

i hope so too. i play support in everything.. down to MOBA games on smite and LoL.

Well ‘support’ is VERY much in the game, try out a staff guardian sometime (or water elementalist) it’s just that ‘pure healer’ is very much NOT in the game.

Landua.4857:

Nuzt.7894:

After playing both past 20 and PvPing with both, I would have to say Engineer, Guardian or the two closest classes your going to get to a pure healer. With that said niether are actually dedicated heals, I found Engineers have the most healing type abilities while Guardian have the most mitigation (shields ect.) type abilities. I love playing heals myself and was actually quite dissapointed that pure heals were not part of the game, I love the game don’t get me wrong but the dissapointment was there.

I’m hoping in future expansions they bring back the monk, some of us believe it or not do enjoy playing a true support class.

i hope so too. i play support in everything.. down to MOBA games on smite and LoL.

Yeah I’m kinda hoping for that as well. I played monk a lot in the original.

I tried a guardian in PvP with a healing build and it worked out pretty good for me. With a staff I had quite a few healing abilities, the 4th staff healing skill is pretty good and has a short enough recharge time that you can use it fairly often (I used 20% shorter recharge time on 2h weapon skills), healing breeze, hold the line, sanctuary, signet of mercy (for quick revives in pvp), and the elite tome of courage and you can heal for quite a bit of time. I wouldn’t really call myself a main healer while I was playing, but I could definitely keep people alive for quite a while and felt I was contributing to my team a lot. Don’t know how that would work in PvE though.

Yeah I forgot about the Guardian elite, with the elite guardians are pretty capable heals, didn’t much care for the staff heals though. All in all I still prefer the Engi.

Staff Guardian is probably the best healer (although he can’t really help anyone who is being focused – no class can) and the Staff Water Elementalist is probably the second best.

Support wise, I think Guardian blows Elementalist out of the water, but that is just me…

I think you should take a hard look at all of the classes. Guardians have a lot of support abilities that I personally enjoy, but there are several different types of support in this game. Some of the support abilities of the other classes don’t provide direct heals, but they do provide valuable buffs and debuffs. I’ve personally been surprised at the number of times I’ve been reliant on necros for support. They provide some light healing as well as lots of debuffs. They place traps on the ground that do crazy things. As a guardian, I always enjoy running into one because they make my life as a melee player much easier. I’m told that other professions also have neat support abilities or builds too.

Guardians have a lot more healing than people give them credit if they spec for it. Give me a staff and out of my 9 normal choices (- the elite as well you want to use tome of courage which in its self is massive healing for 20 seconds) 7 are heals. If you use your traits you can turn virture of resolve into a passive regen for those around you as well. One thing that ele does better is condition removal. Just cant beat healing rain.

There is not stand and spam healer as is typically in mmo’s. But there are professions with more healing and support type options that others.

Guardian, Elementalist, and Engineer can do a fairly nice amount of healing when setup for it, but often it is condition removal, and boons like protection that count for more than the healing they can do.

Ideally rather than healing damage done to your allies, you focus on reducing damage done to your allies by removing conditions, providing boons, and controlling the battle field with crowd control and barriers. healing really only serves to top someone off or by a second or two for their personal heal to come off cool down.

Guardians are really strong in these area’s, but you can play a support mesmer as well. Mesmer’s have some nice projectile reflects and group buffs they can give.

ele’s can actaully get healing set armour at 80 that boosts healing and condition with every aditional set peice you have so i would say they would be the best for end game heals as long as your sporting that set of armour

You can go full support on your character if you enjoy that (I don’t know if every profession can do this, but most should be able to).
Note that I said “support”, not “healing”. There aren’t classical healers that keep the group alive just through heals in Guild Wars 2. But there still are different ways to support the group:

- healing, this usually works through an AoE effect or field, it is mainly used to help keep the HP up against smaller damage sources like auto attacks, conditions or stray AoEs, but don’t help much when a player was hit by a burst attack
- condition removal, very important in some dungeons
- reviving downed players asap, there are also skills that revive players at range and traits that give some bonus when you revive someone
- giving out boons, either to mitigate damage (protection, aegis, regeneration, indirectly through vigor or swiftness) or to boost their offensive power (might, fury, retaliation)
- doing controlling effects and conditions on enemies to protect players from damage, things like stuns, snares, immobilize, blind, weakness, interrupting bursty skills and so on
- setting up and using combos, light field + projectile or whirl finisher removes conditions, water field + burst finisher does an AoE heal

You are right, both the Elementalist and Guardian have good healing capabilities. The Necromancer can also be built for healing, though he probably doesn’t have as many options for it. The ranger has a healing spring for water combos. Not sure about the other professions.