Guild Wars 2

Dolan.3071:

This…. Is actually a good point. I run D/D with healing power myself so the staff healer being far from combat didnt even cross my mind. Also I do believe that the Earth EA isn’t actually Churning Earth, it just looks like it and is actually just Shockwave, which does NO damage?

It’s churning earth, minus the damage aspect. It cripples, bleeds and blast-finishes. (Shockwave is immobilize, bleed and projectile finisher). The duration of the conditions is slightly different as well.

It’d be pretty OP if it was the full effect of Churning Earth, as CE is actually the second biggest single hit in the game, after Warrior’s Kill Shot. A fully-traited-for-glass-cannon elementalist would potentially be one- or two-shotting people by dodging if EA’s earth effect was the full skill.

I actually play staff elementalist, full cleric’s gear, with a support-oriented trait set-up and playstyle. Heading into range to heal people with traits puts me in a lot of danger I’m not as geared towards surviving as D/D is (although I can and do regularly aim my trait-heals at players that need them). Yet… mostly I’ve only posted in this thread to give arguments in favour of healing spec as a D/D. I think the only weapon elementalists get which can’t be used as group support on a decent level is Focus, which has very situational skills that actually have a group support capability. Ele focus is a very selfish skillset, without powerful auras.

Reiterating

The dagger attacks twice as fast and therefor benefits from healing signet and sigil of blood more. Do your math again. Compare the dps too.

The aura build with signets kinda sucks for healing. Do not think its your job to be everything to everyone.

Runes of Dwayna let you prock regen on your bros which procks the Water XII trait to remove conditions.

I can’t hug every cat.

Ugh. My computer crashed and I finally got it back up again. I’m not gonna be able to reply to all of you this time. Sorry. D=

This is what I’ve gathered so far……

Healing stat is NOT useless for D/D ele IF you follow certain criteria in your build. That’s… fine, I guess. Annoying that I have to be like everyone else and spec heavily into Water and Arcana for it.

In short, here’s how to make healing for D/D viable:

30 points into Water- Make sure you get condition removal and cantrip-related Traits;
30 points into Arcana- Make sure you get Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana;
10 points wherever you want it- Why not do Air like everyone else?
Make sure your health is between 10k and 14k to get the most out of your healing. (It will be if you follow this.)
You’ll still die if you don’t use 2-3 cantrips and plenty of condition removal, though.
Use Signet of Restoration for your heal slot.
Pick an amulet. You’re choices are Cleric’s Amulet, Cleric’s Amulet, or Cleric’s Amulet.

If I sound bitter, it’s only because I am.

Oh, two more things… Most people don’t stand beside me waiting for me to heal them. In fact, they generally don’t pay any attention to me what-so-ever. I do my best to run around behind my teammates to heal them, but in a lot of cases a larger, targeted AoE works best. I’m not asking for that, I’m just letting you know that half of my AoE heals do not heal my teammates because they run away the second I click it. Dodge rolling into them is definitely the most sure way to heal allies for a D/D ele.

And, like someone else kinda mentioned, we don’t really have a whole lot of ways to get Auras via combo fields. In fact, we have only one way of doing it on our own (which is totally ridiculous to rely on). We have to create a fire field, then switch to Earth and use Magnetic Grasp, hope it lands, then use Magnetic Leap. I don’t think I have ever done it quick enough to actually get Fire Aura/Armor from it, because you lose a second when attuning and it takes half a second to cast Magnetic Grasp then about half a second for it to become Magnetic Leap, and then Magnetic Leap has to animate (though it might trigger part-way through the animation, rather than on landing….. maybe).