Guild Wars 2

Hi guys

I was bored, so I decided to try and make a full healing elementalist due to the lovely new additions coming the 15th. I’d love suggestions! (I am considering actually running this in certain guild groups in wvw after running the numbers). I edit to update after suggestions.

The role of this build is to heal and not die. Unfortunately there is no Healing, Vitality and Toughness stats (I hear people grinding their teeth already!) so I figured, I guess we’ll let our monk do a bit damage as well. [All exotics besides weapon]

Here’s what I’m thinking

Full cleric gear w/ Monk Runes
Magi Trinkets (Divine Amulet)
Zealot Staff w/ Superior Sigil of Water (Energy if it stays the way it is is better) and the new Benevolence (I heard it’ll stack with similar boosts, would like a confirm)

Traits will be 0.0.2.6.6

Earth: Earth Embrace
Water: Piercing Shards/Aquamancer’s Alacrity/Aquamancer’s Benevolance
Arcane: Arcane Mastery/Arcane Energy or Blasting Staff/Evasive Arcana

Using the Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Blast, LH and Ice Bow (In zerg switch to defensive cantrips?). FGS for mobility. Also considering Ice Elemental if it doesn’t get insta killed like most summons.

Defensive Stats are not very good, with about 16k hp and 2.1k armor. Damage stats are also not amazing at 2.67k attack and 30% crit chance (If I do damage, it’ll be with ice bow 4 on a shadow refuge/seige, which hits 535 per hit at these stats)

I have been give the suggestion of going scepter/dagger. I’m still leaning towards staff because of more constant heals

Heals
All heals are heal value including 1.25 (AB) 1,125 (Sigil Bene) 1.1 (Monk). Still need new values, but I need to unlock stuff.

Staff 1 – 3/4 second – 240 radius with 1082 heal
Staff 3 – 16 second – 240 radius Water field 2s with 5227 heal
Staff 5 – 36 second – 420 radius Water field 6s, grants regen [do regen heals get benevolence bonus as well? If it does, 8289 heal over 6s]

Arcane Brilliance (blast 20s)
Arcane Wave (blast 24s)
Lightning hammer (blast every 1.5sec on aa + leap) versus Flame Axe (ranged blast every 5 sec)

Ice Bow 1 – 3/4 second – 240 radius with 1404 heal (I take ice bow for siege clearing with meteor shower/nuking shadow refuges)

Dodge cleansing wave will do 4k.
Swapping to water 3k
Soothing mist 2.2k

Ice elemental heals for 6.5k (25s) assuming it doesn’t increase with healing power, new effects, etc.

Sigil of Water is 370 with a 0.1 scale currently, and will change to no longer need crits, making it more reliable. On the stats as they now stand, its about 500 aoe heal (if benevolence works on this as well, 750) with a 30% chance (let’s say 225 heal extra per auto attack every 10 secs (I believe they proc on damage aoes as well))

All values are per person who is not me (up to five targets)
Btw It doesn’t split the healing between people right?

So what do you guys think? =P

Points in earth seem like a waste, if you really want more healing you should have evasive arcana and maybe soothing winds. Also, expect to be disappointed by water blast and ice bow healing.

If you want healing, you need blast finishers - there’s no point in speccing so heavily for healing power otherwise.

I’d recommend swapping out heal and a signet for Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Wave... maybe chucking the Conjured Flame Axe on your utility bar, too (since its #2 is yet another blast).
Arcane Mastery is probably more useful than Blasting Staff in this case - your blast finisher effects’ ranges aren’t increased by the trait, and you’re going to be doing buggerall damage so won’t really need it for hitting foes with.

At this point... yeah you need to decide if you want to keep the earth trait line, or shift 20 of those points to Arcana for Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana.
If sticking to Earth, I guess Diamond Skin (largely for anti-snare when retreating), or you could play with the new Stone Heart - but as a Master trait I’d definitely take Rock Solid because yey stability.
However, Evasive Arcana gives you TWO more sources of healing - the dodge in Water Attunement, and the blast finisher from Earth. Chucking an Energy Sigil on your weapon (if they’re still worth taking) would complement that well.

S/D gives more direct healing than staff, mostly because scaling on staff skills and blasts is atrocious, and also, those staff skills are ridiculously complicated to get full potential out of.
Staff water #1 is useless anywhere but in rare pve cases, the range is too low, the healing too low and to top it off the coefficient for healing power in that one is horrendous. It also leaves you sitting in water stopping you from using most of your actualy useful skills (mass cc <3). Elementalist spamming water #1 is something beyond useless, he´s a complete liability to any group.
Staff water #3 is bit better, the coefficient is still bad and to gain benefit targets need to stay in radius, which is in most cases a death sentence. But hey, atleast people can blast the field.
Compare that to scepters water trident, instant effect with large radius, good enough range and full benefit from healign power. Cleansing water same thing except that it´s pbaoe, which shouldn´t be a probelm as you need to be in that range anyway for water swaps to have effect.

You will want EA in any healing build, dodges in water give more healing than any of the weapon skills.
You will want elemental attunement for high uptime regen. That regen does wonders over time, huge amount of healing potential from that given enough time.

So in short, atleast 30 in arcane for EA(regen) and EA(healing), get s/d for simple to execute heals that gain full benefit from healing power.

The thing is though, that most groups will want those waterfields for the blasts, which btw benefit absolutely nothing from all that investment into healing power as bulk of them will be from your team, and thus most of the actual healing is not done by you (and even if it was, the scaling on blasts is still horrendous, so you will not get big benefits from all that healing power).

Oh, and realise that after investing everyhting into healing power (literaly everything, life stacks, food, gear, runes…everything), you can heal just about as much as tome using guardian with 0 investment.

cheese.4739:

If you want healing, you need blast finishers – there’s no point in speccing so heavily for healing power otherwise.

I’d recommend swapping out heal and a signet for Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Wave… maybe chucking the Conjured Flame Axe on your utility bar, too (since its #2 is yet another blast).
Arcane Mastery is probably more useful than Blasting Staff in this case – your blast finisher effects’ ranges aren’t increased by the trait, and you’re going to be doing buggerall damage so won’t really need it for hitting foes with.

At this point… yeah you need to decide if you want to keep the earth trait line, or shift 20 of those points to Arcana for Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana.
If sticking to Earth, I guess Diamond Skin (largely for anti-snare when retreating), or you could play with the new Stone Heart – but as a Master trait I’d definitely take Rock Solid because yey stability.
However, Evasive Arcana gives you TWO more sources of healing – the dodge in Water Attunement, and the blast finisher from Earth. Chucking an Energy Sigil on your weapon (if they’re still worth taking) would complement that well.

^^^ This is good advice.

Although I would keep both blasting staff and arcane mastery and drop elemental attunement, because the water auto attack does good AoE healing with the radius boost and scales well with all the healing power.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Blast

On a max healing power build with 25 stacks, you will have roughly 2k healing power. That translates to 870 AoE healing on the water auto attacking.

Thanks guys for the input! I already changed several things thanks to the advice.
Here is the current mock up
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEEQFAWnMISLDWABWPAdEGAIPS5FWEFwo8IGesB-z0BBIrAZRFRjtupIasqaAqGYaVLq2jlRrGA-w

Why I started with Earth (Agreed with the move towards arcane)
My original reasons for earth were survivablity. I wanted that 300 toughness, reduced mobility conditions and actually find those GMs the most interesting. Signets was for similar reasons. I made a new mock up removing these things based on your guys suggestions (and threw 10 points in air for a tiny bit more healing because I didn’t like most of my options, though I will miss the toughness I think.) The arcane blasts are looking worth the trade off though!

Sigil of Energy
Sigil of Energy is a good idea, I’ll definitely consider it if it is still nice post patch. Sigil of water is so lackluster atm, maybe it’ll get even more of a buff though, so we’ll see. I’ll be updating the new numbers shortly (on dodge heals should be pretty interesting.)

Autoattack heals
Ice bow healing without healing power is already enjoyable to me already simply because its on an auto attack and does a very decent amount considering this. But my real hope is that the double multiplication over outgoing heals will make this build shine in niche situations such as zerg versus zerg in a choke point(while being useless everywhere else, but hey, that’s why I have 10 slots). The thing I try to remember is that if I can keep the aa going, I’ll be providing an otherwise nonexistent form of extra survival. But I’m really not expecting much until after I tested it!

As for the spamming water 1 the whole time, I’m hoping it won’t come to that. With staff 3 potentially being a second heal in the case of some classes on a 16s cd, and having fire for aoe denial (some people reflexively dodge aoes, the larger the battle, the more likely they won’t risk tanking it. It might cost just a few people a dodge) and of course the beautiful crowd control, I didn’t forget about those, don’t worry =) I could see myself spamming water 1 in a stacking situation in a choke point however, aiming at my group if I switched too early to water, or don’t dare to leave it. This is probably less effective than aoe dps, I’ll give you that… But hey, if we get new shinies, we should at least try them!

Weapons
Btw does scepter 3 really scale better? Because on the build editor it is actually scaling poorer…
Oh and I went LH instead of FA because its has blast every 1.5s autoing, with an on demand leap as well rain is 6s water field, so probably get 2-3blasts with hammer chain) If I’m closer to the front lines, I’d be LH if I’m backlining I’d probably go axe.

Gunna go fix the op now, thanks again

Edit
Guardian tome heals better?
I took the same gear, and snagged some healing traits + healing signet.
The auto heals better than the staff heal (but can’t get our new 25%) However its 20 seconds every 180 seconds.
Even if you pull off the full heal with a 20k average once in those 20 seconds, its 111 per second (20k/180) if a fight lasts that long. [unaffected by benevolence]
The aa would net a bit more, with 2.4k ish [with benevolence sigil] per 3/4 -> 26 × 2.4 = 62400, 62,4k/180=347 per second.
Let’s toss in the resolve virtue at 617 per 3s for allies.. 206per second. (if the multiplier works here was well, let’s just assume that.) => 247.

705 per second with tome and similar investments.

Geyser heals for more and scales slightly worse than trident.
The guy saying is inferior probably forgot it ticks 3 times. Regeneration in that sense has a very poor scaling of 1/8.. only it heals 20 times in the period that a 20sec cd heal needs to heal once.. which means that it gets massively bigger benefit from healing power

Also dont let those people fool you about spamming water 1 on stuff.You might be completely worthless but math wise you will heal the party for more than switching up immediately to max the occurance of healing ripple (Assuming you hit a target once every 1.35 sec and the allies are inside the 240 radius) plus evasive arcana isnt actually on swap effect so it can go along with spamming 1
Id say throwing 2-3 autos for every water rotation mght be actually worth it in terms of healing without preveting you from your other duties. Besides the last auto can happen entirely on a different attunement which means its 1.35 sec faster before you get the water on swap effects again
ps : you wont even get 2 blasts from l hammer chain in healing rain ..already tried it !! :P It has huge after cast and needs to hit a target to proc the whole chain

I’d perhaps suggest shard of ice (water II) instead of piercing shards (water IV). You won’t be doing very high damage to begin with, especially in water attunement. Getting the vulnerability stacks on those arcane skills can actually provide a DPS benefit to your teammates instead of simply upping your personal damage in an attunement that has little damage potential.

You could use piercing shards to cast meteor shower and then swap, but the targets must have vulnerability on them to get that bonus damage, so sometimes it actually won’t even work.

I guess piercing shards could probably work nicely with the ice bow though.

I’m afraid you could possibly run into a bit of condi clearing trouble when you swap your water grandmaster to the new one. Evasive arcana cannot cure immobilize, and you don’t have any cantrips with you.

I’m also not sure about dropping blasting staff. Even though it doesn’t add to your healing potential, it does affect a lot of the CC abilities that can be important in group play (i.e. WvW zerging). I guess you can always swap it in and out as needed though (I’d probably swap it for arcane energy).

Also, just make sure you know what soothing winds is doing. It’s just giving you 100 healing power. It will maximize your healing potential, but keep in mind that you’re electing not to take something like earth’s embrace or conjurer, both of which could be quite useful. I’m not saying it’s a bad choice, but that you just need to have a perspective on what it actually is providing you.

Autoattacks
Awesome, thanks for the information about the LH! I was thinking pvd, but if the aftercast is too much then its a shame. 1x blast + Leap might still be nice, if you consider it comes with a static field as well for control.
I’m really hoping the autos pan out, thanks for the advice about being able to switch during cast, I didn’t know that one yet (elementalist is my least played class unfortunately XD).
I just tested the autoattack heals, its a bit difficult. I can’t self target, but if it hits the ground near me, it still heals without enemy target. I tried using an npc target to help me test, it didn’t aim towards him. It only aims in the direction I’m facing. I can modify the arc by adjusting my camera, I am able to shot pretty consequently at my feet by looking down, and can shoot full range by looking upwards. In between is more difficult.

Btw thanks for the clarity on scepter! I think your idea of using aa in between would make up for it though, especially if I can’t get my healing power maxed.

Trait thingies
I’d rather keep blasting staff as well, if only for aoe denial/cc you suggest, Yams. Condition clear is my biggest worry right now, I’ll just have to stick to the aoe clearers I guess. Survivability in general is worrying me, I might dump soothing winds for earth, because I think it will be more valuable in the end. Its basically [edit better estimate] 50 healing 10% speed [worthless usually] 100 prec 100 fero versus 100 toughness (220 when attuned to earth) 100 cdamage (apparently Icebow bleeds, but doubt its worth it) and the 3 seconds extra before death.
Conjurer is also an interesting choice, but I found that until this point I’m actually throwing away my conjured weapons if I don’t auto attack the charges very quickly (20ish seconds in ice bow is about max, based on what I do currently in my tests, for 2x ice storm, auto attack uses up the rest of the charges in between nicely actually).. It’s not great choices all around.. Maybe if I went full magi instead of clerics this would be worth more? But my damage would be even worse for useless crits and getting hit even harder.

Snow.2048:

Maybe if I went full magi instead of clerics this would be worth more? But my damage would be even worse for useless crits and getting hit even harder.

Even if you went full magi, soothing winds would only provide about 120-130 extra healing power, so I think if you’re already getting 100 from it that’s probably a good amount (10 trait points worth).

I use it on my healing staff ele with magi armor and weapon and cleric’s accessories (accessories are ascended), so it has similar stats to yours. However, mine is cantrip focused and uses ether renewal, so I don’t worry too much about a lack of condi removal, stability, or escape utilities. However, that does mean I miss out on blast combos from the arcane utilities.

I think it will largely end up depending on the situation in which you’re applying yourself. In zerging, I don’t know that the arcane skills will be the best choice due to the fact that you have to give up the valuable survival utility contained in the cantrips. However, the arcane skills can definitely be good for solo or small group roaming, especially since blasting staff is not as necessary in those scenarios (not sure if the conjure weapons are that useful in the latter, I don’t play with them much). The trait points would be the same either way, you would just need to swap out the particular trait choices and utilities as needed.

Runes of the water also contain a condi removal on them, although it depends if you’ll want to use the new runes of the monk for the extra outgoing healing.

As a side note, if you use the heal bonus trait and you make a cleric soldier mix your signet of restoration can heal for over 400 a tick. That plus regen plus water 5 trait and you got more passive heal than anything. Ofc you would be weaker against condis. Annoying dd bunker returns

Yes. For those that want a short summary of the great wall of text above,
the cleric soldier bunker build for DnD and Staff are in theory much more group friendly.

Guardian tomes can be chained(rarely is there just a single guardian), they are ground target with large aoe, are .75 cast time without any real aftercast, offer protection egen and blinds too and to top it off the healing per second with very little investment is better than what ele can do with full investment including the new trait). What´s more, they aren´t locked into the role, if there´s no healing needed, they can reserve their cooldowns and do their other jobs efficiently, while ele specced into healing power is essentialy guy who lacks everyhting else all through the fights.

Autotattacks are beyond useless in real situation. You lose too much (your other skills are crying because you neglect them), gain too little(healing is really mediocre, and scales horribly) and they aren´t even reliable in hitting allies.

Scepter #3 has 1.0 coefficient, each point of healing power is point of extra healing. Geyser has combined coefficient of .75 if all 3 ticks hit which they rarely do, most likely it´s goint to be .5 or at worst .25…..that´s 25-75% of your main stat completely wasted.

You´ll still want elemental attunement in that build, the high uptime buffed up regen is going to heal nearly as much as water swaps or EA during longer periods.

The forums always hate healing with the staff water autoattack but sooner or later you will be in a noob squad and for that its the best choice. So many times I’ve been in squads that were thinking of giving up until I switched to being a staff heal bot and then those noobs could finally do it.