Guild Wars 2

So, i’ve been testing Water Bot Elementalist. New Water Grandmaster trait + monk runes + sigil of benevolence (celestial amulet, traits 0/0/2/6/6). It’s great for team fights, you feel like a Healing profession .

Anyway, i’m not sure if it is viable in competitive matchs. Anyone have tested or seen this build in competitive tournaments?

I’ve been testing it, and its really making me consider maining Elementalist. The playstyle is insanely fun and takes quite a bit of skill.. I’ll repost what I wrote in the ele forums:

I was scared this trait would be essentially useless in that even with the 35% increase the heals wouldn’t be enough to make any noteable difference, but I was happily proven wrong after a few hours of research and theorycrafting these past couple days with a build similar to this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWnMISLDW4A+MAdEGAoMcxkRBRKPiZGbA-TkAAyCsI8S5lzLjXSvseN2A
(Note: Currently torn between Water Cooldowns and Boon Removal on Water Swap. Right now I’m running cooldowns)

I’m using runes of the monk (Boon duration & +10% outgoing heals), and sigil of benevolence (.5% outgoing heals on kill) and renewal (heal allies on weapon swap) with a celestial rune in an 0/0/2/6/6 setup. This trait so far has been absolutely awesome for my purposes. In Team Death Match my build keeps my entire team topped off (was PUGs vs PUGs though). The only challenge I had was ensuring no one died like.. ever.

So I recorded some of my progress on the skills. Skills in parenthases are how much it affects me personally. This is with Staff – Celestial Amulet & 30 water, +35% outgoing healing and no charges from Benevolence:

Water Elemental: 5,000*

Healing Rain: 329x 15 = 4935(3660), 7470 w/Soothing Mist

Geyser: 1349 x3 = 4047 (1035 x3 =3105)

Evasive Arcana Water Dodge: 2985

Water Attunement Swap (Cleansing Wave): 2196* (1757)

Water Blast Finisher: 2028

Regeneration: 329 (244)

Soothing Mist: 169

So basically, this means..

• Dodging in Water Attunement is always preferable than BLASTing a water field in Earth Attunment. Larger heal AND aoe condi removal.
• Soothing Mist + Regen = 500 health per second for your team. Essentially giving AoE Healing Signet.
• Haven’t calculated “Heal allies on weapon swap.” I think it’s about 1k
• Numbers with an asterisk (*) are estimated and are likely higher than those displayed.
• All of this ignores the fact that others will be contributing heals & healing themselves as well.

So far this build has been working surprisingly well. I’ve been recording footage of some of my tests and once I clean up the vids a bit I’d be happy to post them. This trait makes elementalist have hands down the best healing in the game and makes it possible to play an actual pure support/healer role in PvP without entirely screwing over your damage.

The best thing about it is that -keeping with the prestige of playing a staff Ele- it’s not easy. This isn’t a build where you can simply mindlessly spam heals and assume you’re playing at 100% effectiveness. Most support players know that heals are only 50% of the role. You also have to effectively CC, deal noticeable damage to have some form of pressure, and share the right boons at the right time. This requires good positioning, excellent awareness, a general knowledge of combo fields/finishers, and sufficient skill with the staff weapon. No mindless healbotting here.

The build is awesome in Team Death Match, can bunk surprisingly well and offers unparalleled team support from heals, boons, and CC. I’m scared to say it, but Elementalist is slowly worming its way into becoming my main if this build continues to prove effective.

Interesting. I’d love to see healing eles become part of the meta.

Well…as long as it doesn’t result in bogged-down stalemate games. =P

Some testing may be needed, but if the healing power is also applied by sigils, then sigil of blood + sigil of benevolence should offer the perfect balance between self sustain w/o using all your heals, and allied support.

Going to test out my ele this evening for sure. And in a weeks time, when my transfer “block” is up, ill be testing this very build mentioned by the OP, with some modifications, in WvW.

I think that cleric + Shamans will offer the best possible balance between sustain and support.
OR perhaps i should test this with Zealots? DPS healer, intriguing thought that one.