Guild Wars 2

Today I got to thinking, “what if this game had a dedicated healer?” Well, I created a successful build that heals allies large amounts and offers lots or regeneration. Keep in mind, this build does well in 1v1 if played right, but it excels in large fights and group skirmishes where you are not outnumbered. It is not meant for solo roaming.

The traits are actually almost identical to the cookie-cutter 0 0 10 0 30 30, but just go 0 0 0 10 30 30. The build focuses on the staff because of its massive healing circkitten th of the healing skills in the water attunement are water fields too.

Earth Trait- III Earth’s Embace
Water Trait- XI Cleansing Water, V Cleansing Wave, I Aquamancer’s Alacrity
Arcane Trait- XI Evasive Arcana VIII Blasting Staff V Elemental Attunement

I chose 10 in earth because of the extra toughness (obviously since you will be just healing) and because Earth’s Embraces offers a good defensive buff.

Cleansing Water and Cleansing Wave where chosen solely because they offer condition removals. Aquamancer’s Alacrity was chosen because it shortens the cooldowns on water-based spells.

Evasive Arcana was chosen because of its aoe heal when you dodge in water and because the earth skill is a blast finisher. When you dodge in your water field while attuned to earth it heals allies within the circle for the same amount as it would if you dodged in water attunement. Blasting staff was chosen because of its wider area and elemental attunement was chosen because of the heal when you attune to water and the protection from earth.

The main idea of this build is to stay in earth and water, only going into air for some cc and fire for support damage.

Gear:

Healing Power, Toughness, Vitality

The entire purpose of having this kind of gear is to be a tank and to heal large amounts. I’ve played in spvp using this kind of build and I would not die unless I was focused 3v1 and dazed or feared out of my ether renewal. The most important stat would be healing power. Next would be toughness. Last would be vitality.

Healing Power, Toughness, Condition Damage

This build offers more damage support but less survivabilty (specifically if you got conditions from a necro and your lack of hp causes you to die). The bleed damage from earth 2 is large, probably over 7k. It is better to make healing power and toughness a priority though.

Utility Skills

Arcane wave- I use arcane wave solely because it is a blast finisher. I don’t use it for damage. Use it right after you put down a water field and you get an extra heal for you and allies.

Lightning Flash- Used for escaping

Mist Form- Used for escaping

Runes:
Superior Rune of Dwayna

+25 healing
+20% regeneration rate
+50 healing
5% chance to gain regeneration when hit
+90 healing
When you use a healing skill, heal yourself and nearby allies (10seconds)

Sigil

I use the steal health on weapon swap, but it is up to you

Things to keep in mind.

1. The earth 2 skill is a blast finisher. I haven’t figured out how it procs in the water field.
2. Ether renewal is a must if you want to survive condition damage
3. Don’t use blast finisher’s after water 3 (unless you use arcane wave immediately). This is because the field goes down too quickly.
4. Save your static field (air 5) for when you are taking heavy damage.

enjoy =)

To use Eruption as a blast finisher you first put it down on the ground then immediately put down either Healing Rain or Geyser right on top of it. But it has to be immediately otherwise you will miss it. The blast finisher is on the end of the animation of Eruption.

I noticed that right after I posted this. If you use healing rain then immediately use eruption it will still have time to work

FrownyClown.8402:

I noticed that right after I posted this. If you use healing rain then immediately use eruption it will still have time to work

Yea they changed the cast time of Eruption to 1.2 seconds in the last patch. It would be close but there should be enough of an overlay between the 2. Safer to do eruption first then the water field though.

FrownyClown.8402:

I noticed that right after I posted this. If you use healing rain then immediately use eruption it will still have time to work

This is correct but you have to be fast. If you have even a tiny bit of lag then you’re not going to manage it.

sinzer.4018:

FrownyClown.8402:

I noticed that right after I posted this. If you use healing rain then immediately use eruption it will still have time to work

This is correct but you have to be fast. If you have even a tiny bit of lag then you’re not going to manage it.

It was possible before the most recent patch and buffs to cast times etc, it should be rather easy now.

Also, step one to any support guide
1. Stop thinking you´re a healer.

After you understand that you´ll be more likely to contribute to fights (you know, like preventing the damage from being done alltogether with cc, the thing staff is absolutely brilliant at)

6k regeneration on healing rain, 3-4k heal on water three. 2k heal on attunement swap. 2k heal on dodge roll. 2k heal on dodge roll if your in earth with blast finisher. 2k heal on arcane wave blast finisher. 2k heal on eruption blast finisher. small heal from water auto attack. heal from rune of dwayna. Thats about as “healy” as it gets. I agree though. The heals aren’t a game changer and you should learn to do other things besides that.

FrownyClown.8402:

6k regeneration on healing rain, 3-4k heal on water three. 2k heal on attunement swap. 2k heal on dodge roll. 2k heal on dodge roll if your in earth with blast finisher. 2k heal on arcane wave blast finisher. 2k heal on eruption blast finisher. small heal from water auto attack. heal from rune of dwayna. Thats about as “healy” as it gets. I agree though. The heals aren’t a game changer and you should learn to do other things besides that.

“1560 healing power would be maximum amount of healing power achievable with 30 in water and full clerics (everything possible ascended) and healing power runes.
With that your cleansing wave(x2, swap and ea) does 2862 healing, geyser does 3×1198 and blasts (2x, ea and arcane wave) do 1632. For full combo you described that would be 12 582 healing. Looks potent right?

Without any healing power apart from 300 from 30 in water that combo heals for 8613.
So basicly all that investment in healing power that makes your damage very low, toughness mediocre and vitality non-existant, has netted you 3969 more healing when you use all healing available, spend both your dodges, situate yourself near enemy and have put 2 of your attunements on cd."

Something from old topic about healing.

Healing others in this game is almost everytime a minor mitigation of damage, or last ditch effort (excluding some specific large scale wvw scenarios)

attune to water. myself and allies near me get a 2.8k heal (getting these heals off guild wars 2 wiki). now lets say I dodge roll to proc EA. thats 2.8k again. lets say I use a geyser now. Thats a potential 3.5k heal. Now I use arcane wave within it. thats 1.6k Now Ill use my healing rain. that is 5.9k heal over 5 seconds. then I will dodge roll in that with earth attunement for another 1.6k. That heals for about 16k hp. not to mention the constant regen allies get per second while I am attuned to water and the fact that I have extra regeneration duration and lingering elements.

You are right though. This is only a minor mitigation of damage. Pray you don’t have teammates that run into a big group and like to sit there and get hit.

I’m only arguing with you because you say it is useless. The healing potential coupled with your cc and allies own heal makes this a pretty decent build. This is not a build that will make enemies go “no fair you had heals”. It is going to take skillful circle placing and crowd control.

First of all, rune of dwayna gives regen, not healing on use of heal skill. If you really want healing, I’d suggest rune of water for the same healing power, but boon duration 15% instead and remove a condition on being hit rather than getting regen. Boon duration is better than regen specific anyway because of the large amount of boons ele gives.

As for the dedicated healer thing, maybe what Strang’s was talking about. You can think dedicated support, but that’s more than healing. It’s also might stacking, protection, crowd control, etc, so you should spec to do these things all around. I think you already understand this to an extent though, it’s just that you seem to focus far more on the healing part of it when you talk about it.

As for your sigil, sigil of battle is decent so you can do some moderate damage and for wvw an on kill effect sigil is worth considering as well, such as stamina for more EA rolls since you’ll be tagging enemies easily for loads of kills and maybe sigil of life for even more heals (and then switching to a different staff).

In the end though (and you even said it yourself) it’s just the cookie cutter build that’s been around for ages :p

yup. nothing new. Just thought i’d share with people a build that does decent group healing and that I really enjoyed playing. Thanks for the idea on the sigil. I might do that.

FrownyClown.8402:

attune to water. myself and allies near me get a 2.8k heal (getting these heals off guild wars 2 wiki). now lets say I dodge roll to proc EA. thats 2.8k again. lets say I use a geyser now. Thats a potential 3.5k heal. Now I use arcane wave within it. thats 1.6k Now Ill use my healing rain. that is 5.9k heal over 5 seconds. then I will dodge roll in that with earth attunement for another 1.6k. That heals for about 16k hp. not to mention the constant regen allies get per second while I am attuned to water and the fact that I have extra regeneration duration and lingering elements.

You are right though. This is only a minor mitigation of damage. Pray you don’t have teammates that run into a big group and like to sit there and get hit.

I’m only arguing with you because you say it is useless. The healing potential coupled with your cc and allies own heal makes this a pretty decent build. This is not a build that will make enemies go “no fair you had heals”. It is going to take skillful circle placing and crowd control.

It would be more than 16k with regen calculated in.
Without regen it´s still only 4k more than person with 0 healing power from gear, regeneration adds few thousand to that number, more if you coun´t regen from attunement swap, but it ticks over 12 seconds(3×4s procs from field) not 5seconds.
My point in previous thread, and aguess here too, is that all the investment in healing power has given you very little additional healing, compared to offense or defense you could´ve gained from stats.

However as i gather this is for more of a smallscale (2-15) usage i´m not all that much against it. It serves it´s purpose well enough, but i still don´t think it´s optimal or even near optimal way to play the class.

As a general rule, if you are a dedicated anything you are doing a bad job.

ill post some videos in a couple of days. I’m on a laptop so its too laggy to record

Healing Eles with Cleric’s gear are pretty nice in WvW though not for the reason people think. It’s because Cleric’s gear makes an Ele highly sustainable in PvP formats more than because it makes their heals for other player a lot better. Using blast finish-dedicated healing Eles are pretty good, though you’ll want to cycle through your other attunements for CC to help keep a zerg down. An Ele’s ability to cleanse conditions AoE is astounding and makes them a key player in PvP formats.

Cleric’s Gear Saff Eles in PvE are just about the worst thing ever though.

I usually go to fire for some damage and the extra dodge then lightning for cc then i go to water then i go to earth. The build isn’t designed to kill people (although I can usually win a 1v1 against an average/bad player). at least with Clerics the damage aspect seems more affective. I am currently running shamans gears in tpvp. it has condition damage rather than power. The conditions are too slow though imo

For burst healing, what I normally do is cast the healing rain, use Arcane Wave into Healing Rain, dodge roll and change to Earth and cast Eruption. Eruption will collide with Healing rain 1s before Healing Rain go away.

You can get a metric crap tonne of condition removal with the regen removes conditions (look at your rune set, and goeh, that’s 2 conditions).

Here is another pro tip, The elementals are really good. A friend of mine believes the fire eles have blast finishers, though we didn’t test to much (its hard figure out when [if] they do it). The Water eles are where its at, they both have a heal and drop chill fields, not to mention that you can pop the others for extra damage / tank.

It doesn’t matter which order you go for your heals, either earth for eruption then water for gyser/healing rain then dodge for water heal (if needed). Or water for healing rain then earth for eruption then dodge for blast finisher (same skill as water dodge but adds damage / bleed if it hits your foe).

sorry but those numbers arn’t impressive. I already dodge roll heal and swap for about 1.5k without any healing power gear.

also scepter/dagger is overall better at healing.

you cant use water fields in scepter. It doesn’t have a large area heal either. It has better crowd control than scepter. The dodge roll is at 2.6k at 1560 hp. Yes you sacrafice alot of potential points elsewhere, but once again, I am not trying to make an elementalist that can kill opponents.

S/D healing is not better then staff.
D has cleansing wave. S has trident which is less then cleansing wave from memory.
S/D has 1x crapier then cleansing wave heal and 2 cleansing waves (including EA trait)

Staff has 3 x cleansing wave (3x blast finisher) (this includes EA trait) + gyser heal (harder to use but it heals a lot)

EDIT: Most of these statements are incorrect, was me going off some old beliefs lol.

FrownyClown.8402:

I am not trying to make an elementalist that can kill opponents.

Which is a problem in my mind. Everything in this game is expected to have some killing potential and to be able to contribute to damage dealt to enemies (apart from spvp, but that´s a point capturing game, not fighting game). Even the most supportiest builds will want to squeeze every ounce of deeps they can, and imho clerics is a bad trade off, too much stuff lost for very small amount of healing.

And speaking of healing, people should really check the wiki for healing coefficients.
Blasts scale terribly (1500 healing power gives 300 more healing on blast) and anyone thinking of wearing clerics solely for blasts should feel bad.
Base healing of cleansing wave (attuning to water, water dodge with ea, dagger 5) is 1302 and coefficient is 1, so your full healing power is added to that number.
Blast in waterfield has base heal of 1320, but coefficient of 0.2 whichmeans that only 20% of your healing power is added to healing.
Water trident has base heal of 1448, and it coefficient of 1, so it´s flat out best burst healing skill ele has.
Healing geyser has 808×3 base heal, but it´s coefficient is only 0.25, which is really bad and to get full heal targets need to stay still, which is worse.

One of the worse mistakes that a lot of people do is thinking that you can be a healer, or a damage dealer or a tank …
Everybody has to consider doing their share of control, support (heal, but not only) and damage while surviving.
To put it in numbers, healing is like 10% of your job as an elem, so if you put 50% of your resources into that while ignoring the rest then you will have decreasing returns and your output will be lower.
For example, you intend to heal with your staff so you slot arcane wave in. It makes sense because you want the extra bit of heal from the combo. But if you slotted glyph of storm instead and casted it in earth then you would deal damage and control with blinds to the point that your team would take less damage (almost like a heal) and your enemies would have to play more defensively (almost like a heal). So by not dedicating yourself too much you can do a better job.

Strang.8170:

FrownyClown.8402:

I am not trying to make an elementalist that can kill opponents.

Which is a problem in my mind. Everything in this game is expected to have some killing potential and to be able to contribute to damage dealt to enemies (apart from spvp, but that´s a point capturing game, not fighting game). Even the most supportiest builds will want to squeeze every ounce of deeps they can, and imho clerics is a bad trade off, too much stuff lost for very small amount of healing.

And speaking of healing, people should really check the wiki for healing coefficients.
Blasts scale terribly (1500 healing power gives 300 more healing on blast) and anyone thinking of wearing clerics solely for blasts should feel bad.
Base healing of cleansing wave (attuning to water, water dodge with ea, dagger 5) is 1302 and coefficient is 1, so your full healing power is added to that number.
Blast in waterfield has base heal of 1320, but coefficient of 0.2 whichmeans that only 20% of your healing power is added to healing.
Water trident has base heal of 1448, and it coefficient of 1, so it´s flat out best burst healing skill ele has.
Healing geyser has 808×3 base heal, but it´s coefficient is only 0.25, which is really bad and to get full heal targets need to stay still, which is worse.

Numbers. How they prove things.

In sPvP there is a reason the bunkers go S/D or S/F. The scepter Trident is the top heal the elementalist has. It’s AOE ground targeted and has a higher base heal than Cleansing Wave and still has a 1-1 healing power ratio.

In the mists with full clerics on and the standard 0/10/0/30/30 you can heal:
Water Trident – 2731
Cleansing Wave (Dagger 5) – 2585
Cleansing Wave (Evasive Arcana) – 1292
Healing Ripple – 2585

Altogether thats – 9193 healing every 40 seconds for that full rotation.

However, the dodge roll and the cooldown on Trident means that every 20 seconds you would heal 6608.

In WvW/PvE you would be healing more due to Cleansing Wave being nerfed in the mists.

The staff gives you something the S/D doesn’t however and thats CC and area denial. While S/D has updraft and Earthquake, the CC on the staff for large (keyword large) engagements is normally better. In small mans though S/D would be better as the knockdowns and blowout are a bit more valuable.

I always am a proponent of a balanced build. Dish out damage, heal a bit, and be tough to take down. In my opinion this game isn’t very conducive to going the whole healing route for the elementalist as the damage you do in comparison to lets say the guardian is much less.

In PvE there isn’t even much of a need for healing/toughness if you are good enough because you can mitigate 100% of the damage with a good dodge roll/blind. Hence the popularity of the Lightning Hammer DPS builds.

For pvp, the staff is more of a support weapon. Not that anyone uses it lol. And the people I have seen using it scale from 1 (I can kill you so easily it isn’t funny) to 2 (I can’t even get a good shot in, while you will kill me eventually this is going to last a long while).
There is no middle ground. The build that I can’t get a good shot it in similar to the one listed here, and played by my friend who has ran that build in pvp since release. I have beaten him in a 1v1 duel situation once and that was by being a kitten trap ranger and hitting him with double traps lol. D/D bunker, unlimited fight, D/D destroyer of D/D unlimited fight, D/D GC I lose, S/D selfish aura -> unlimited fight, S/D fresh air GC -> I lose. Before the EA blast finisher nerf, that build was invulnerable the only thing that would bring it down was a lucky Mug – Backstab combo performed at the right moment.

As to trident, I previously thought it was slightly lesser then cleansing wave. Turns out when you switch from a lot of healing power and /d to not so much and /f you kinda think that the better one is worse lol.

The best part of a support staff ele in pvp is that it can cover the point in aoes while it dodges around giving out free heals to anyone that needs them.

Also, AFAIK geyser heals 3x although it lists 2, so it heals for ~3399 + 2585 + 1292 = 7276 every 20 seconds, if you cycle enough ~3399 + blast finisher heal? + (2585+1292) x2 every 20 seconds. 11153 + blast finisher heal (eruption) 1579, = 12732 total.
That’s if you could manage to stay in geyser and geyser does heal 3 times not 2 as listed (not sure on this).

Technically this applies to your heals: 2731 + (2585+1292)x2 = 2731 + 7754 every 20 seconds = 10485.

“In the mists with full clerics on and the standard 0/10/0/30/30 you can heal:
Water Trident – 2731
Cleansing Wave (Dagger 5) – 2585
Cleansing Wave (Evasive Arcana) – 1292
Healing Ripple – 2585

Altogether thats – 9193 healing every 40 seconds for that full rotation. " -Raif
You only calculated using trident once and Cleansing wave (EA) and healing ripple once lol. You could use it ~3-4 times.

Staff: As by your rulings
Geyser – 3399
Cleansing Wave (Evasive Arcana) – 1292
Healing Ripple – 2585
Blast finisher heal – 1579

3399 (G) + 1579 (erupt) + 1579(arcane) + 1292 (EA) + 2585 = 10434 which does not include the healing rain and its blast finisher (as to your logic, only using each skill once).
Again, that takes into consideration that Geyser heals 3 times and you can stay in the field for full duration. The healing value are going off gear that I could find closest to your heal values I think my heal values are slightly higher. I also don’t count waters auto attack of 500 heal (as you don’t auto attack as an ele lol). Also doesn’t count regen but that’s trivial. If geyser was to heal 2x it would be 1133 less heal 10434 – 1133 = 9301 which is still more but you need to stay in geyser for 2 seconds.

The biggest thing that the staff ele brings to the table is condition removal. 6 conditions when staying in healing rain (2 per 3 seconds), what’s annoying is that it should be 8 as healing rain lists 4x regen but only applies 3. Remove 2 conditions from self and 1 from allies when healing, Water dodge, change attunments removes 2 (if traited to remove as well as regen)

Staff also brings extra duration on frost aura. S/D gets 7 sec according to GW2skill (not in game atm) and staff gets 5 sec (from blast finisher according to wiki) + blast finisher before 5 sec of frozen -s-o-i-l- ground is up (none of that no res bull here) for an additional 5 sec netting around 10 sec to all allies nearby.

There is almost no argument here, staff is amazing in a group combat situation. S/D is a better solo weapon set and S/F is a good support v ranged set. Even when there is 1 Staff support ele and 1 S/F selfish aura ele in spvp (hot joins) you get called the Troll eles

BTW, your healing per 20 and healing per 40 is much higher if you used the skills more then once :p.

I use a similar build in Spvp and it is by far my favorite
Note however i always duo queue with my friend who is a zerker guardian together we can take 2v5 easily

I use staff
with Superior Sigil of Hydromancy (Chill enemies when weapon swapping)
and Runes of the Dolyak
0/0/10/30/30
my Utilities are
Arcane Blast
Arcane Shield
Cleansing Fire
and my elite is
Tornado!!

works really well as a support type mage

Tornado under healing rain will fire so many Healing Bolts and knockback any enemies allowing you to stand in the point to capture it or hold it for a few more seconds waiting for reinforcement

I don’t take mist form cause so far it’s trash for me conditions always kill me while in mist form and i’d rather be healing myself

I don’t take mist from because it removes you from counting toward the point. Also, focus invulnerability is 1000x better.