Guild Wars 2

While Guild Wars 2 features a definitive end to the classic class trinity setup, dungeon design and so forth still necessitates the need for people to play as support-style characters. Given the prevalence of defiance on many champion level boss mobs, this makes control as a means of support less useful than pure, direct healing. This healing could be either burst healing (as in you are healed for X amount all at once) or HoT healing (or heals over time, such as the regeneration boon or other non-boon forms of regen/rejuvenation). Another form of support healing lies in boon manipulation. Three paradigms exist with respect to boon manipulation: removing conditions, converting conditions to boons (or boons to conditions on enemies), or applying boons directly to your allies. We are NOT healbots and that play style is just not supported in GW2. You will have to do more than hit one or two buttons to be an effective healer. This compendium is devoted to helping you do just that, and achieve success in an active support role.

This compendium is meant to be a compilation of healing-centric builds among all classes. There is a belief that healer-focused builds harm their party success but I disagree. If your allies are able to focus more on their damage output and less on either healing or boon manipulation, so much the better. As a healer in GW2, you are not going to be standing there staring at green bars. If you do that, you and your allies will certainly die. No, a healer in GW2 is a task that requires a highly active individual, able to focus on not only tending their allies, but applying numerous conditions to the enemy (such as vulnerability), stripping enemy boons, or curing ally conditions.

Personal damage is not the only prime concern in any dungeon; it is the success of the group as a whole that matters. If those of us who enjoy playing as support characters can contribute in a meaningful way while keeping our teammates alive, then we have done our job. Sure, a team with no healer/support members might be able to stack multiple classes and rely on certain mechanics to burst their way through bosses with ease. That is not what this compendium is for. It is not for discussion of the usefulness of healing specs vs. glass cannon specs. It is not a place to flame or bash healer-focused players, and it is not a place to argue on the quality of one classes’ healing or support abilities compare to others. There is no “one best healer or support” class, build, or setup in the game. What this compendium is for is to showcase different builds in progress for healing, what works, what doesn’t (based on experience), and how different abilities can be used. Saying X heal is good and Y heal is not does not help us as a community. X might be better in one situation and Y might be better in another. That is what we need to focus on. Also, within the compendium will be a list of all abilities that provide healing, coefficients (for healing power) on them, radius of the ability, and cool down, among other data. Nearly all of this is available on the wiki, but it is not all in one central location.

The Supporter/Healer Compendium is meant to help with that. Have a spec to submit with info on the spec? Go ahead and post away and I will include them in the main compendium. If you find that your experiences with any ability differ from the available wiki information, test it and then post about it. This is meant to be a resource for all of us, if we all contribute it will help those interested in trying out a healer/supporter role in determining the option that best fits their play style or give them the tools to create one all of their own.

See something incorrect in this compendium? Please contact me and let me know what is incorrect and I will see that it is changed! I will be editing the posts below and have links to them in this post as they are filled.

General Coefficient and Healing Information

In general, some abilities offer standard equations for how their healing is calculated and how much your healing power contributes to the effectiveness of the ability or boon it applies. The main healing boon that relies on a standard coefficient is Regeneration.
Regeneration (Boon) uses the following general equation for applying its healing (at lv 80):
Regen (Boon) Healing / Second = 130 + (0.125 x Healing Power)

So, if you have 1000 healing power, and apply a Regen boon to your allies, each second of the duration, you will heal for 130+ (0.125 × 1000). This results in 130 + 125 = 255 healing per second. In this case, you can see that your healing power produced an extra 125 healing per second, nearly doubling the effectiveness of the boons HoT. Healing Power always scales linearly, so if you had 2000 healing power in this case, you would have 130 + 250 = 380 healing per second.

When we look at other abilities that heal, in every case, they heal for a base amount + some amount based on a percentage of your healing power. What varies the potency of any heal is the coefficient. In this case, the coefficient for the Regen Boon is 12.5% or 0.125 of your healing power applying to the healing that the boon produces every second. If you had zero healing power, your healing would heal for only their base amount. In the case of a Regen boon, with no healing power, you still heal for 130 per second, the base at level 80. This is important to keep in mind as some abilities make use of healing power, some do not. Others benefit greatly from stacking healing power, while other heals make poor use of the stat.

Another healing note is that not all HoTs apply the Regeneration boon, and if two people stack Regen boons it does not increase the overall amount of healing per second, just how long the boon lasts. The higher healing power Regen boon is applied first, and then the lower applied second, for the total duration of the boon. If that seems confusing, just remember that if two people both stack the same boon for healing, they just last longer, it doesn’t make the healing produced stronger. However, you can stack different kinds of healing over time, such as the Guardian’s Virtue of Resolve. When traited, Virtue of Resolve provides a PBAOE (it radiates from the Guardian’s location) HoT, producing an effect called Rejuvenation, not Regeneration. These two abilities stack. Elementalists have a similar effect that they can radiate while in Water Attunement as well. In the case of the Guardian, this Rejuvenation has its own equation (at level 80):
84 + (0.06 x Healing Power) (untraited)
84 + (0.06 x Healing Power) + ((84 + (0.06 x Healing Power )) x .25) (traited)

One thing to note here is that this ability gains half the benefit of your healing power compared to the Regen boon. Instead of 12.5% of your healing power applying, Virtue of Resolve applies 6% of your healing power to its heal. Again, with 1000 healing power, that means that an untraited Virtue of Resolve at level 80 will heal for 84 + 60, or 144 healing per second. A traited Virtue of Resolve at 1000 healing power is 180 healing per second. At 2000 healing power, untraited, VoR would produce 204 per second, compared to 255 per second when traited.

When taken together, if you had both running at the same time, you would be effectively healing for (assuming 1000 healing power and no trait to buff Virtue of Resolve’s healing potency) ~400 healing per second. That is pretty respectable. If you traited your VoR and stacked more healing power, that value goes up accordingly. The main thing to remember with our heals is that every ability, generally, uses a different amount of our healing power (by percentage) to enhance its healing potency and that for some classes, builds, and even some abilities the amount of healing power really needed varies. Healing power is important, but it is not THE only stat we need to focus on. In every case, Rejuvenation will be less effective for healing than your Regen boon, but the power of Rejuvenation HoTs is that they –stack- with the Regen boon. We should look for every opportunity to stack those heals that we can stack to enhance our healing potency and throughput while allowing us to continue doing either damage or other supportive activity.

Healing Ability Compendium
(Coming Soon)

Healing/Support-centric Builds

Engineer: Coming Soon

Elementalist: Coming Soon

Guardian: Coming Soon

Warrior: Coming Soon

Necromancer: Coming Soon

Ranger: Coming Soon

Mesmer: Coming Soon

Thief: Coming Soon