Guild Wars 2

Does anyone have any numbers on how healing power affects our dagger heals and ether renewal etc?

I’m on the fence here, I don’t know if I should stack more healing power or get even more vitality, so I thought I’d start a debate; is healing power worth it? Or would you take more vitality? I mainly play a WvW roaming ele, sometimes in zergs, where healing would be useful for my team.

for the most part I don’t think we have a lot of blast finishers for healing on d/d, which is what you’d be looking for for group heals, compared to staff. D/D is more of an offensive wep set then staff, so I’d focus more on offensive/defensive boons, which you can stack well as an ele on yourself and group, and keep a staff in the bag for when you need it. I do run 30 in water, but that’s more for sharing aura’s then group heals. I don’t know any numbers on how healing power increases, but I’m sure someone has done a spreadsheet somewhere.

Vitality only helps initially, you need a large enough health pool not to get exploded before you can react. Beyond that, mitigation is your friend and that means toughness/healing power. The numbers aren’t huge but over a long fight they add up far more than vitality would.

I’ve been running AC power/vit/tough gear, but I’m thinking of trying a precision/vit/healing power gear some time just to see if it makes a difference. With ele I’ve found that with all the boons we can maintain, my biggest concern has less to do with keeping myself alive when someone is plinking at me, but more the massive backstab crits that can take you down in 3 or 4 hits if you’re not prepared or if mist form is on CD. I’ve been very pleased with with the gear I’m running now.

as far as your specific question, I just don’t think d/d is the right wep set if you’re looking to be traditional “healer.”

I’m more thinking along the lines of in a 1v1 battle, would healing be worth it over going for something else like condition damage or more vitality. I have power/vit/tough armor and weapons, so this is for jewels I guess. Fair point about healing doing more over the course of the battle compared to vitality.

Also when I’m in a big zerg I switch to a staff most of the time. When someone blasts in my water field, is it my or theirs healing power that counts? Also looking for some numbers on regeneration. When I give someone regen by switching to water I assume it’s my healing power that counts?

I prefer healing power to vitality personally, and with might stacks I’m not too worried about condition damage. I wear full zerkers exotic jewels for a little extra punch. I figure either I’m going down or they are, and if they’re going down, I want it quick.

i believe regen is affected by healing power yes. the best part of healing rain is not so much the healing it gives, but all your teammates sending out healing bolts, shooting regen arrows through it, blast finishers inside it, etc. I also pull the staff out when I come up to a keep, just more versatile for that situation.

as far as 1v1 goes, it’s rare I have to heal even once, let alone multiple times in that kind of fight. we can throw down so much damage, knockdowns, magnetic grasp to keep them from running, etc, as well as stack boons, especially protection when you need it, most of the time you should only ever lose a 1v1 to someone who is frankly just a better player than you, which happens to all of us, in my case I really only ever lose 1v1 to really good thieves who get sneak me and I flub a mist form, or to any mesmer worth their salt, other then that, you should be fine.

If you can get a good amount of both toughness and healing power, then an elementalist becomes one of the best bunkers in the game, second only to Guardians. You’d be amazed at the level of survivability a well-specced elementalist has. You’d think they’re squishy, but you’d be oh so wrong. Healing power is extremely worth it, as is the 15pt Water trait. I also really like the heal on Evasive Arcana in water attunement.

To put things into perspective, I did a few tests. My elementalist with his gear at level 80 has 741 healing power. I also had him specced for 70 healing power in the heart of the mists. Here’s what some skills healed for between the two builds:

Skill: 714 healing | 70 healing
Frost Breath: 314/tick | 196/tick
Ether Renewal: 780/tick | 636/tick
Cleansing Wave: 2166 | 1316

The 15pt water trait and the water dodge on Evasive Arcana heal for the same amount as Cleansing Wave. So the difference between someone specced for heals and someone who isn’t can be quite dramatic, especially if they don’t have the traits that allow them those extra two heals. Being able to pop into water attunement and then dodge once in order to recover some 4300HP is nice, especially since you can do it every 10 seconds. It more than doubles the healing you can do, and they’re both AoE, so it can benefit your team if you position yourself well.

I have actually been testing this out this week to see how much heal power I can sacrifice before I start being forced into water attunement more often or longer than I like to be in combat. I settled on just over 700 heal power as a comfortable level for me. Everyone’s play style is different though so it depends on what your goals are. I like to be able to heal up quickly and get back to the fun stuff. I’ve always seen survivability as more important than raw dmg though…a dead mage casts no spells. So I am running with 1738 power (well over 2k once the might stacks start rolling in) 1179 precision (Im an auramancer so I get the 20% perma crit during battle) 1638 toughness and 1556 vit.

Guys need to learn to read the wiki.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cone_of_Cold 32%
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave 100%

Rest is elsewhere and is the same across sets.

I will tell you with enough healing power you wont need to use your heal if its the signet. Reason I have EA still revolves around this fact. Ele overall scales very well with healing power D/D is no exception.

Loviatrix. has more precision than me but were in the same ball park I have 802 healing power and might stacks plus the high base damage of churning earth make up for the rest.

Ohh and your biggest heal is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Ripple. for argument sake staff http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Rain as water field is strong but due to CDs its not. On a funny note scroll back up to Cleansing wave. Read its tooltip. Its the same As ripple. In fact its better it has an innate cleanse. Now think of that combined with http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evasive_Arcana and the regen you get on attunement (if traited most are though) and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soothing_Mist. Now while regen and mist don’t scale well they heal often and stack. Now add in http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Restoration. Except the signet all the rest is group healing

Now think about it. The strongest weapon set heal as far as scaling goes is on none other than Dagger off hand save the beastly http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Trident which no one uses so it doesn’t count lol joking.

To repeat. Ele overall scales very well with healing power D/D is no exception.

This may kitten some staff eles off but were all DD here. Cone of cold if you look at it is the most consistent no passive heal we have. Its on a low cd of10 seconds (so it lines up with the lowest attunement cd), its mobile (so you can move with other players), it has relatively strong dps (vs no dps from other healing skills save the beastly water trident), and it has a decent range.

Thanks for the input, everyone. You have convinced me to go for clerics jewelery. Might start getting some berserker gear once I’ve played about abit to see how far I can push my damage.