Guild Wars 2

What class do you think is the best healer ingame?

The elementalist is the best support class while attuned to water. The water auto attack is a good constant heal for meleers, healing rain is a good anti condition/party regen, geyser is a strong heal but small aoe heal, and if traited changing to water attunment will give a heal and aoe regen to people around you.

Engineer, Guardian, Elementalist. Pick one and build Healing Power.

There are no Healers in this game.
Wrong game =/

Thank you jedi master. You solve my problem.

@dreamy there are a lot of healer in this game. Know your game

a regeneration ranger played right is near invincible unless multiple players are on him, he’s the best and most efficient (quick aplying) healer currently though it is self heals, what exactly are you going for anyway pve/pvp?

To elaborate on what Dreamy said, there are no healers in this game in the traditional sense- i.e. can sit and do nothing but heal and keep the party alive on their heals alone. If other players don’t dodge, control, heal themselves, etc, they WILL die no matter how many heals you throw on them. You can still help with your heals, but they must take responsibility for themselves, and focusing solely on healing while ignoring other aspects of your class (notably control/damage) will severely kitten your potential.

I say this as someone who has played an elementalist since launch and focused too much on healing initially. When I started balancing out how I fought and focused more on controlling the enemy with my other attunements to prevent damage in the first place, I became a far more effective player.

tl;dr you can still heal, but don’t expect it to be like traditional trinity MMOs.

F I R S T.3976:

Thank you jedi master. You solve my problem.

@dreamy there are a lot of healer in this game. Know your game

There are NO HEALERS at all in GW2…
GW2’s Combat system is based on 3 Combat mechanics: Damage/Control/Support.
Learn the combat system and perhaps, you’ll understand the moment you focus on only 1 aspect of the fight, the more of a liability you become to the group, and solos for yourself.

Here are videos I recommend you watch:

Video#1: This video will show you what the basic combat mechanics are in GW2.

Video#2: This video will give you an idea of how All 8 Classes apply them.

Hopefully these 2 videos help you understand. Good luck

The heals you receive from others or give to others are fairly small and won’t keep someone alive through heavy damage. They help if the person is in need of a heal, but it’s more in the category of “better than nothing” than a “keep you alive” heal.

Like DreamyAbbadon said, there are no healers. But there is support, which includes healing (some).

Engineer and Elementalist play great support roles. The engie can do very well with elixer R, healing turret + blast finishers (there are quite a few available, as well as the turret itself after creating the field), elixir-coated bombs, and the elixir gun for supplying a good amount of control and support for the team. This however is a little more in-your face. The ele with staff has awesome heals that affect a lot of people. Healing rain (staff 5) and geyser (staff 3) both heal and are water fields that work with blast finishers (earth 2, earth evasive arcana, arcane wave (if specced) and any blasts your team can provide, like thief cluster bomb) to support the team. Switching to water with 15 points specced there heals in the area, and condition cleanse on regen with the water grandmaster trait further helps. Finally, water evasive arcana is also small-area player-based aoe heal. Combine that with your chills/cripples/stuns from range and the other combo fields you lay down, and you are probably the best healing support spec in the game.

That being said, every class has very valuable roles that can be played in support if you want to spec for it. Rangers also have some great healing support with the best water field in the game (healing spring), which can be blasted as above (not sure how many a ranger has), the elite spirit to res people, and the pet to go res people. Mesmers don’t have area-heals (although you can trait for mantas to do that in small bits – probably not what you want) but do have great access to chaos armor, null fields, and the staff skill-5 provides aegis to block hits. Guardians have amazing support in terms of providing stability, heals, aegis, and other boons. Thieves support isn’t really healing, but they can blast water fields like none other (cluster bomb on the bow), so work well with the other professions. Necros have some wells, signets, and marks that can revive and heal people, but I am not an expert. Warrior’s shouts and banners can do quite a bit of party healing over time, as well as buffing stats like toughness and power or providing a quick res.

Also, I disagree with Astral Projections to an extent. The straight-up skills you provide for healing may be very small, but blasting in water fields (especially if you get off a few blast finishers) provides some awesome aoe burst heals. Also, keeping high regen uptime on your team, and cleansing conditions can turn the tide of a fight.

As others have stated, some professions are better at healing than others.
But in high level fractals most things will 1 or 2 shot you, healing becomes somewhat inferior there.
Example: i reflect a projectile attack that would have done 10k damage(preventing the damage on my party members), while at the same time attacking.
or: i stop attacking and heal a little bit.
Not only is my projectile reflection stant cast, so i dont have to stop attacking, it also prevents more damage instantly than a hela couldve healed.

You can make a good support character that has decent AoE heals, but you won’t be a “Healer” in the traditional sense of being the sole person in charge of keeping everyone fresh. You’d be more focused on keeping people topped off in between the times their own heals are down.

But focusing on healing alone will only make you fall behind. You can make a support character, but you need more than simply burst heals. Boons, reflects, combo fields, ect are all important, as well as doing damage.

The best burst healing I have seen comes from the Elementalist’s Frost Bow. The number 1 skill spams point blank healing, much like the staff number 1 skill, only more. And Frost Bow gives you a healing skill buff as a bonus.

Tbh I think any skill that you can use to spam protection does more for keeping people alive than the direct heals do. When I played auramancer (elementalist with aura sharing) the small protection buffs +boon duration were very effective, especially because you could cast them while ressing someone to give you both protection.

My Necro is a darn good self healer with support heals and condition removals as well.

Yes, there aren’t traditional healers, but there are classes that do better with group healing than others.

The typical source of AoE direct healing is water fields and blast finishers.

Elementalists have the most ready access to water fields, since the staff has two in water attunement. The problem is that the Elementalist does not have access to spam-able blast finishers.

Engineers do well with group healing because they can blast their own water fields (healing turret overcharge and toolbelt skill), but my understanding is that the cooldowns are somewhat restrictive. I don’t play my Engi enough to really say.

Rangers have access to Healing Spring (water field heal skill), but it has a 30s CD, and Rangers are also limited on blast finishers.

All three of these classes provide more direct healing when paired with a class with access to spam-able blast finishers, such as a shortbow Thief.

Necromancers can actually do well with group healing as well with traited wells, it’s just a different process.

F I R S T.3976:

Thank you jedi master. You solve my problem.

@dreamy there are a lot of healer in this game. Know your game

He means there is no Class DEDICATED to healing…..all classes can heal themselves and most can provide some sort of support that results in healing nearby allies.

NO CLASS targets an ally and uses a HEAL skill on them….that’s what he meant by it being different in GW2.

Brother Grimm.5176:

F I R S T.3976:

Thank you jedi master. You solve my problem.

@dreamy there are a lot of healer in this game. Know your game

He means there is no Class DEDICATED to healing…..all classes can heal themselves and most can provide some sort of support that results in healing nearby allies.

NO CLASS targets an ally and uses a HEAL skill on them….that’s what he meant by it being different in GW2.

Thanks for clarifying. <3

So um why was a thread from June necroed. No really why?

Adine.2184:

So um why was a thread from June necroed. No really why?

Because a player by the name: Krocaine.9743
Has Bumped the thread… lol

Other than that, I wouldn’t know why.

Krocaine.9743:

The best burst healing I have seen comes from the Elementalist’s Frost Bow. The number 1 skill spams point blank healing, much like the staff number 1 skill, only more. And Frost Bow gives you a healing skill buff as a bonus.

Why did you necro! Such a no-no.

ESPECIALLY this thread…. so sad.

I thought I smelled something ….. ripe.

Any serious look at pretty much any aspect of the game, and you’ll see that healers are infact pretty vital to GW2 play – like it or not, particularly in events with large amounts of players participating.

Water fields and group healing is essential to WvW zerging, both in keeping front line damage soakers alive, and in keeping people on siege under fire operating.

You know those world events were throngs of players love to throw themselves at world bosses? News for ya – it’s group healing that keeps people alive. Be it living story stuff (look at bosses like Viscount and Lich), or things like temple bosses.

Watch your healthbar at events like these. The sheer amount of players throwing out heals pretty much guarantees you will benefit from someone else’s healing – it’s exactly why stacking is such a commonly used tactic, aside from group buffs with boons and other things like banners and such, as well as the ease of use with mass revival skills.

The very nature of GW2’s large scale player mechanics (ie, zerging in all forms, be it champ trains, open world zergs or WvW blobbing) encourages the use of healers.

That being said, anyone looking to build or play solely by healing others will be sorely disappointed. There are more useful ways to support your parties and groups. (Hey imagine that, those things called ‘support’ builds!)

I have a Ranger support build which does fairly well but personally, I think what really helps are boon durations. My boon duration is increased by 45%. The boons I share with my group are Regeneration, Swiftness, Fury for 22 seconds with a 35 sec cd so from when it was used, I only wait 13 seconds inbetween rebuffing the group again. When I use my Jungle Stalker, he gives another 5 stacks of might with a 25 sec cd. and my Red Moa gives Fury with a 25 sec cd as well. These boons combined with Sun Spirit (Fire Damage), Frost Spirit (Extra Damage), Stone Spirit (Protection), Spirit of Nature (Extra Healing/Reviving Skills) with my Healing Spring to cure conditions/heal my allies, this build works great for me. Also, when someone is downed and I revive them, my healing is doubled and when they are revived, we both automatically receive a 20 sec Swiftness boon. I have even soloed quite a few champions as well. Yes, the dps is low and takes a bit but it’s still possible As someone else mentioned in this post, if you have the Ranger trait build done correctly, it can be a strong support build.

If you get ascended clerics with an ele, you can have around 3500 attack with bloodlust sigil, WvW buff, and stone and around 1600-1700 healing power with mango food(same buff as stone but for healing). You do decent damage, and spec for healing power/ CD reduction of water spells/ Condition Removal(with runes of dwayna for more aoe regen, condi removal).

You can really notice the difference in the strength of your healing when playing correctly. Save geyser for regroups, a well timed Healing Rain and using your ranged blast finisher(arcane wave), can put out a lot of healing. If your peels/big cooldowns are down, you can spam water auto attacks for around 800 heals on your melee train if you just right click enemies around them. It has a 3/4th cast time which doesn’t count for projectile travel speed, but it’s essentially 800 hps for your melee train, stronger regen, stronger passive water regen, and stronger evasive arcana heals. It really adds up once you get use to the build and how to position yourself/ manage cooldowns.

Well I built a healer’esque character anyways with my Guardian and I’m at 1470 healing power but could do better with ascended items. It’s sad that the developer feels healers don’t like spending their time just healing or supporting others as a passerby or as part of a group. I’m the type of person that would go around and heal anyone on any server/team if it allowed me to play freelance. I get giddy when someone is in need and that’s my fun, otherwise I just sit there clicking on dye combinations and changing my appearance.

While it’s nice to try something different, playing their game, by their rules, and being punished in a sense for not playing, their way, is what ultimately takes the fun out of it.

Esperas, I feel your pain as I’ve played with a lot of healers who love doing just that – healing. Unfortunately, one of the core concepts behind making GW2 different from other MMOs out there is to get away from the holy trinity roles – dps, heal, tank. As mentioned above, you can get to be very good at healing but the game puts the responsibility for staying alive squarely on your own shoulders, with supplemental help from healer type skills from other players. Give it a shot and you might be surprised how much fun it can be to fight and heal at the same time.

Here is a summarized answer for you.

There are no healers in pve.
- In dungeons, the best way to keep your party alive is to finish off the mob fast.
- In open world…seriously nobody cares at all.

Healers are useful in wvw as a small fraction of a zerg. Even a small roaming group. While you get your satisfaction of making a difference, healing doesn’t reward you loots.

In tpvp/spvp, there are some builds (not sure if they are still useful) that builds around cleric gear but you are not gonna kill the enemy just by staying alive. Try search for retaliation guardian. It is an old build but you can play around with it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_field

The best necromancy class in the game is ‘forum posters’.

Just to add, while players that like playing healers feel they are being “forced” to do something they don’t want to (by not being allowed to play as a healer), EVERYONE else feels LIBERATED from the chore of being FORCED to have to LOOK FOR A HEALER every time they want to step out of a city.

This thing just won’t stay down…..(beats down RISEN HEAL THREAD)

No real healers, they are more like supports, you are responsible for self healing.