Guild Wars 2

Hello. I’d very nice like to hear my Ele for healing, problems is I don’t know how useful can it be
Where and when are healer Eles wanted? 100CM is the first thing that comes in mind but I wouldn’t gear a character JUST for that. How about WvW? Raids? Would definitely like to learn about the the demand.

Also I would thank anyone who could share their build, especially if the gear has carry over to a other made modes (Wvw and Fractals, for examples)
Thanks a lot!

I think this depends on what server you are on and how overstacked they are. Just now there is much more rallybots on some servers than can care to mention. So the amount of guardian staff circles means you can afford to backline and not worry on healing people so much ( Numbers wars) . The other factor is when you are on a server with less cohesive zerging and experience on the WVW battles. I too am debating a healing ele on my server, the problem is there is lack of experience on WVW with players that they don’t know how to carry themselves. I mean purely selfish PVE builds, guardians who wont share might on staff 4 , eles not using water-fields or even water atunement. So so bad

I want to make a ele healer build as well, be interesting to see what cost effective and good suggestions comer in .

Heal Temp is a strong build for curtain cases. And weak other places. So lets look at the pro’s and con’s and from there then talk about where (and when) heal temp can be/is usefull

Pro’s:
– Very strong sustain healing. This is due to Soothing mist and regen.
– Strong condi cleance (group)
– Fairly strong passiv heal, from mainly soothing mist and regen. Meaning that a heal temp can ress a downed and still heal at the same time.
– strong AOE heal, with a wide range. Making healing a spread out group easy.
– Good protection uptime (group wide, and 40% prot. Not the normal 33%). This can vary depending on build though.

Con’s:
– Minor burst heal
– Weak CC (better if you sacrifice your healing for a duration).
– LOW dps
– NO group buffs (offensive)
– Due to prot and regens importens for the heal temp, boon duration is importent and minstreal (=thoughness) is usefull = less usefull if you dont want to tank.

So, knowing these pro’s and con’s what, when and where is a heal temp usefull (good)?

Lets talk PvE first, due to the very low dmg and the heavy support. A heal temp NEED a group. So not made for any kind of single play.
In fractals and even more in raids, where heal temp can shine is in fights that are low on dps check. But heavy in mechanicks or other things that can kill your group. Even more so in a less org. or less skilled group.
Speaking fractals, any kind of necro/tanky group can benefit from a heal temp. even more if they dont stack or have problems with agony.
Speaking raids, some bosses will be made easy with a heal temp, here are a few: Sloth (use water overload to ignore shake), Mathias (if the group spread out, heal temp still heal all). VG. Cairn. Can also be used on alot more bosses with less effect, like Trio, Escort, Xera, Daimos.

PvE TLDR: the better a group, the less usefull heal temp is. The more punishing a fight the better heal temp is.

WvW:
– Roaming: Not very usefull.
– Group: 15+ size groups, VERY usefull. The heal temp is along with Guard, rev and necro part of the strongest group sett ups in WvW group play. The heal temp will be in change of proc and regen uptime as well as supporting with burst heals and burst condi cleanses. A few commanders have attempted to run without heal temps (since no dps from them) and these commanders have a tendensy to die all the time

So what kind of build/builds do heal temp run? I will list a few with proc/cons quickly mentioned.

Max Heal: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYCcYilXAz9pmV/qEDgAwPsoCcAeAA-TxxGQBKS9HPqEkcPAAAcBAGy+D1S5Xb0BQKA/2pB-e
Mainly for PvE (raid) where thoughness can be a problem. Strong heals but no protection.

Same but with protection: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYCcYilNAb4BEAKgErgUwZ09uGYPsA-TxxGQB1S5niU/BAXAAy9AAajOAPqEcI7PQKA/2pB-e

Max Protection: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYCcYilNAzdvGYPsDPgAQBkYFkCqAA-ThxGQBDZ/B6p+DBV+BgLAwEVCSuHAoDgUA+tTD-e
Notice the 2 small changes in the trait-lines water and tempest. This lower your heal output but make you able to spam out protection. Very usefull in WvW. The water sigil can be swapped to a superior sigil of consentration or superior sigil of life for even better WvW capabilitys.
To play a max protection build in raids. use the same build, but do NOT change the 2 traits in tempest and water. But keep the traits “Soothing Power” and “Gale Song”.

Same builds can also be played with Dagger (mainhand) and either warhorn or focus offhand. This is mainly for WvW and provide you with a more mid-ranged healer. Dropping some condi cleance but gaining some more cc and might/fury share.

How to play these builds?
This depend on you trait choice more then anything else. If you pick:

- “Soothing Power” and “Gale Song” then you want to stay in water attunement 99% of the tame and mainly focus on auto attacks + skill 5. Your skill 3 will be your burst heal and overload will be condi cleance + extra burst heal. Your utility skills will be your main source of auras and thereby your protection source. So you want to use them 1 at a time, spread out over time (low on protection). This is by far best played with staff.

- “Powerfull Aura” and “Unstable Conduit” You can here more freely swap between attunements and you will need to overload on all attunements to keep protection up all the time, use your utility skills to fill in if you have a gab in protc uptime. The heal from this variant is lower but win on protection. This build can be played with either staff or dagger/warhorn/focus.

Personally I mainly use the minstreal + staff and run “Soothing Power” and “Gale Song” in training raids. And “Powerfull Aura” and “Unstable Conduit” in WvW.

I hope this was usefull

ohh god just realised what a wall of text that is…. lol

Sigfodr.9576:

ohh god just realised what a wall of text that is…. lol

Thank you for that! Just what I needed hehe
I too prefer the ministrel build
How much have you experimented with that? How much carryover does it have to PvE as well?
Im very interested in that, the playstyle is what worries me since Im not really sure how to put out much sustained heals

In all honestly, I really want to play this build with Scepter/Warhorn. Whats your opinion on that? I dont like staff as much, and D/Wh has like zero range, which is very bad for WvW and surviving in general [And it’s an Ele we’re talking about here]

The great thing about elementalist is that they are adaptable. You want the definition of “glass cannon”? That’s ele! You want the tankiest healer around? Also ele. Pretty cool!

SrebX.6498:

How much have you experimented with that? How much carryover does it have to PvE as well?
Im very interested in that, the playstyle is what worries me since Im not really sure how to put out much sustained heals

In all honestly, I really want to play this build with Scepter/Warhorn. Whats your opinion on that? I dont like staff as much, and D/Wh has like zero range, which is very bad for WvW and surviving in general [And it’s an Ele we’re talking about here]

Carryover: as mentioned above, you can with succes run it in raids (minus gors+kc where druid simply do alot better). It mainly works well for less skilled groups, but can be used by all. The benefit of heal temp over druid is generally 2 things. 1) greater healing, and 2) stronger AOE healing (in a big aoe).

For open PvE.. sure you can run it, but in open pve you can run anything.

How to do sustained heal: In the staff version, you simply do alot of sustained heal by simply staying in water all the time and by using auto attacks. Thats it.
In the dagger/warhorn or dagger/focus you need to use aura for all your heals.

Generally staff is THE heal weapon for raids. And for fractals either staff or dagger/x will work about the same.

Scepter in raids: Dont have nearly the same heal capebilitys as staff. As in not even close.

Scepter in fractals: works well, simply use the sagger/x build and swap dagger for scepter. Abit less healing but with more might stacking abilitys.

Scepter in WvW: Generally less usefull the staff or dagger/x. The reason is that if you want to be ranged, staff will do ALOT more healing. And if you can be abit closer to your enemys (mid-range) then dagger will preform better, due to its faster hits. Scepter generally need a enemy that dont move (like a boss in fractals) and where you dont need to heal alot (like in fractals). So it is not really suited for WvW support temp.

ahh I see I made a small trait mistake in the builds above. You generally want to run “Invigorating Torrents” and not “Harmonious Conduit” in tempest trait line. My bad. If you miss stab, blame your guards

And you are super tanky, 3100+ armour, close to 18k HP and perma 40% protection, perma vigor and perma regen. Not to mention lots of condi cleanses.

Another small change you can do for WvW is to swap the utility skill “Aftershock” out for either “Lightning Flash” or “Armor of Earth”. Personally I run “Lightning Flash” just to jump over red AOE or to replace myself if I am sleeping and have moved away from my commander.

Healing Ele is META in PvP Right now even though it sucks. IT’s the only build they can run in PvP and be sort of effective with their mediocre heals and auras. however anything can burst them down- anything even if youre tough.
ANet doesn’t want ele to be DPS in PvP and with this condition meta – they like to keep ele backed into a corner with only one ‘sort of viable’ build. This isn’t the first time anet did this to ele builds – this is the 3rd. At one point ele was never even used in pvp because how useless they were.

In WvW however it’s a different story, Healing ele is in demand with organized wvw guilds and zergs. You are a huge asset to your zerg/team with your boons, auras, etc – especially if you have warhorn. Minstrel set is the preferred but it’s stupid expensive – 1 piece of minstrels can cost upwards of 200g.
PvE wise – no, healing ele is kind of pointless when stacked up against the damage output that they can do. But play your way!
and Raids – I believe it’s leaned towards burn ele.
Fractal ele can do bit of both – but boons preferred which usually means warhorn! or focus

I have been playing as an Auramancer (D/W) for a while now. Recently have been playing on other classes but now I am returning to my Ele once again. I would like to try playing as a staff healer in www. Can someone tell me more about the rotations and how/when to use what powers?

Thanks!

Honestly the “bunker” ele build seems like complete garbage to me, at least in PvP. It can’t really bunker and it doesn’t support much. I have no idea why it’s labelled as “meta”.

Permanent protection and high sustain aren’t enough support for you? It’s useless in PvE, except for carrying noobs, but it is clearly good for PvP.

Feanor.2358:

Permanent protection and high sustain aren’t enough support for you? It’s useless in PvE, except for carrying noobs, but it is clearly good for PvP.

Permanent protection might have been enough for me 3 years ago, and it certainly doesn’t look like it has high sustain to me, especially not on allies. Do elaborate as to where this sustain comes from though. I have my doubts but perhaps I’m missing something.

Tempest isn’t a Bunker in PvP, it’s a Support. Druid is a Bunker. Tempest’s sustain remarkably hinges on them being in team fights, not fighting duels as they lack the damage to finish duels while their sustain will only last for so long.

Outside from the obvious Healing and Protection that they bring, they also bring a great deal of Condition Cleanse with Soldier runes and Overload Water.

The ability to grant a whole team Shocking Aura or Magnetic Aura is a massive advantage in combat, because these Auras can’t be corrupted, removed or otherwise counter-acted. Once you slap Magnetic Aura on an ally, then that’s 4s of them being invulnerable to blockable projectiles. Shocking Aura can entirely negate an enemy’s (or enemy team’s) burst and can even interrupt skills where the Attacker is usually invulnerable, such as Relentless Assault or Blurred Frenzy.
A lot of their personal sustain comes from Focus, specifically Air 4/Earth 4+5. They also have some powerful CC with Water 5 and Air 5.

2 often overlooked skills are Blazing Speed and Ring of Earth. The former is an Evade that hits quite hard even without much Power, while also being a quick Mobility Skill. The latter Blocks projectiles in an Area (Meaning you can use it to peel for allies) while activated and has a very short CD, making it a perfect tool for fighting Dragonhunters or other projectile-reliant professions.

A lot of their sustain also hinges on their Trait synergy. Diamond Skin is easily maintained when you can heal back up from most anything, while Perma-Protection from Elemental Shielding is a fair reality when you have such an abundance of Auras at your disposal.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Feanor.2358:

Permanent protection and high sustain aren’t enough support for you? It’s useless in PvE, except for carrying noobs, but it is clearly good for PvP.

Permanent protection might have been enough for me 3 years ago, and it certainly doesn’t look like it has high sustain to me, especially not on allies. Do elaborate as to where this sustain comes from though. I have my doubts but perhaps I’m missing something.

Auras → Elemental Bastion → Powerful Aura.
It will outheal a druid, though it doesn’t have the same heal spike as one. Needs to utilize Unstable Conduit, otherwise it won’t produce enough auras to really make it.

I like the WvW approach with water field blasting better (just more fun to me), but it likely won’t work well in PvP.

Feanor.2358:

Auras -> Elemental Bastion -> Powerful Aura.
It will outheal a druid, though it doesn’t have the same heal spike as one. Needs to utilize Unstable Conduit, otherwise it won’t produce enough auras to really make it.

I like the WvW approach with water field blasting better (just more fun to me), but it likely won’t work well in PvP.

1k healing from each aura isn’t exactly the most impressive thing in the world. There’s Overload Water which is decent and WtPA (assuming you can actually hit every wave of healing), but that’s still really not much. I don’t see where this supposedly amazing healing comes from. The staff offers good healing but that isn’t part of the meta build. The only decent thing this build does that I can see is good condition cleansing and sharing shocking aura.

I don’t think druids heal that much either, although they make better bunkers.

I don’t really play much at all and still have plat rank at PvP with a support build, so it certainly doesn’t suck at all.

The key thing to understand is what Swede explained: current ele is not the old bunker, but a far more support oriented one.

Yes, a good support ele shouldn’t die 1v1 vs any class if his ability’s are not on CD and can hold his feet long enough in 1vs2 vs competent players to let help arrive. But more than that vs decent players and you will eat dirt in 2 secs.

And while sometimes it WILL win you games holding a point vs 1 or 2 players its 100% certain that other player doing that would be better because of how much you can heal and support your team.

IMHO the key thing is that people underestimate aura share. Yes, you loose team condi clear, but people pick tons of condi clearing already or they just insta-explode when some necro or condi build looks at them. What they cant pick is immunity to ranged atacks, 30%-40% dmg red (protection + frost aura) and free pseudo-melee interrupts. Auras do that and even come with might and top healing stats. (600k per match is the prom)

The all in soothing mist staff heal ele is good for endless heals its just super boring and not that great at dealing with burst dmg. The aura heals are better at doing with burst dmg and a bit less boring.

What you should go for is the in-between healing builds where you can both heal and condi dmg or soft cc (sadly power dmg dose not work with healing all that well you need too much to make power dmg worth it such as crit chase and crit dmg where condi only needs one thing).