Guild Wars 2

I have 3 level 80s (Ele, Mesmer, Eng), I really enjoy my Engineer the most and as of lately it really has consumed most of my online time. I really do not have any complaints of the class except two things…turrets still need to become more mobile (but that is another discussion all together) and their healing skills truly need to become a little more potent. I am currently working on world exploration. I was fighting in Kessex Hills in the destroyer area when I realized that the burning the destroyers were doing to me was severely taking down my hit points. So I use my Elixir H (as I am a HGH FT build and run with 1/2 Exotic Knights armor and 1/2 Zerker Armor) realizing that my Elixir H barely even moved my health bar (when I was out of combat but still suffering from burning) and suddenly I am downed from the burning. I don’t see how there is any reason when just suffering from 1 condition that I get downed even after using my heal skill. When I am on my elementalist I hardly ever use my heal skill (though I also run an Aura D/D build which keeps me almost full health all the time) but even my Mesmer has never faced an issue like this as his heal will give him a significant amount of health (even without any illusions up). I’d just like to see engineer’s heals just get looked at and possibly get a decent buff so they are on par with everyone else. If other engineers disagree or maybe have opinions please let me know as I know there are other heal skills and with the Med kit the toolkit heal can be used twice within a short amount of time if traited right but I use elixir H so that I can get the use out of it with my HGH trait.

Trait 409, then when you use Elixir H (or any other elixir) you remove the condition and heal.

Yes, Destroyer’s burn damage hurt =(. I suggest removing the condition rather than trying to heal through it with Elixir H. Elixir H doesn’t heal for as much as our other healing abilities because it also gives you a random boon. It also might be helpful to fight destroyers with something other than a flamethrower because they are immune to burning damage.

The problem wasn’t killing the destroyers as I take them down extremely fast, its the condition dmg they do compared to the amount of healing elixir H provides. And yes I know about using the trait so that your elixirs remove conditions, that isn’t the point I am trying to make. And even though Elixir H gives a random boon (which lets face it, doesn’t even compare to some of the other high healing skills the other classes get when using a healing skill). For example elementalists have basically the same ability (not as random as ours) that gives them a boon based on what attunement they are in but has a bigger heal potential behind it. I understand there are options around the condition but should a heal really barely move your health where it is almost worthless to use when you are very low on health and you hope to just survive the condition. I don’t use the condition removal trait as since I use FT as my main weapon I have the increased 15% FT/EG dmg since it improves the damage my FT does by a large margin. I’d just like to see a heal skill actually have some effect on my HP rather than slightly move it up compared to other classes that seem to at least 1 big burst healing skill.

Kelinur.8693:

The problem wasn’t killing the destroyers as I take them down extremely fast, its the condition dmg they do compared to the amount of healing elixir H provides. And yes I know about using the trait so that your elixirs remove conditions, that isn’t the point I am trying to make. And even though Elixir H gives a random boon (which lets face it, doesn’t even compare to some of the other high healing skills the other classes get when using a healing skill). For example elementalists have basically the same ability (not as random as ours) that gives them a boon based on what attunement they are in but has a bigger heal potential behind it. I understand there are options around the condition but should a heal really barely move your health where it is almost worthless to use when you are very low on health and you hope to just survive the condition. I don’t use the condition removal trait as since I use FT as my main weapon I have the increased 15% FT/EG dmg since it improves the damage my FT does by a large margin. I’d just like to see a heal skill actually have some effect on my HP rather than slightly move it up compared to other classes that seem to at least 1 big burst healing skill.

I’m not saying 409 is your only option. It seems you just need to equip some condition removal of any kind.

Kelinur.8693:

The problem wasn’t killing the destroyers as I take them down extremely fast, its the condition dmg they do compared to the amount of healing elixir H provides. And yes I know about using the trait so that your elixirs remove conditions, that isn’t the point I am trying to make. And even though Elixir H gives a random boon (which lets face it, doesn’t even compare to some of the other high healing skills the other classes get when using a healing skill). For example elementalists have basically the same ability (not as random as ours) that gives them a boon based on what attunement they are in but has a bigger heal potential behind it. I understand there are options around the condition but should a heal really barely move your health where it is almost worthless to use when you are very low on health and you hope to just survive the condition. I don’t use the condition removal trait as since I use FT as my main weapon I have the increased 15% FT/EG dmg since it improves the damage my FT does by a large margin. I’d just like to see a heal skill actually have some effect on my HP rather than slightly move it up compared to other classes that seem to at least 1 big burst healing skill.

I hear what you’re saying man. I sometimes feel like Elixir H doesn’t heal didley squat, but I’ve found other ways to work with it and I really don’t feel like it’s a top priority.

I agree maybe it isn’t a top priority as engineers are struggling with a lot of other things compared to the other classes, for example the turret bonuses imo didn’t seem to really do anything for us except maybe help the turrets last a little bit longer. But I just felt it was worth mentioning as it is just another thing the Devs need to look into improving for the engineers.

You could try switching the healing skill, Med kit is currently 1 of the strongest healing skills in the game. as well as provides condi removal/swiftness/fury

sometimes it’s best to adapt and change skills rather than ask for a “balance”, specially if you look at the track record of engineer “balances”. if tried to balance Elixir H will probably end up looking something like this:

Drink Elixir H to damage yourself for 50k, if you miraculously survive, you will be healed by 1.250hp! and gain one of these random buff next time you’re hit "

warrior: instantly down you
guardian: deletes your character
Mesmer: Deletes your account
Rangers: Turn you into a tree.
Engineer: Both accounts will be banned and deleted.

Healing skills in general are lackluster if one look at them in individual HOT terms.

In part likely to avoid heal bunkers in SPVP, in part to drive home the lack of tanking and so get us to move more for defensive reasons (just wish that camera inaction with terrain and PVE map designs in general didn’t so strongly contradict that goal).

The profession that still heal bunker/tank seems to do so not because of single skills, but because they can not just string healing skills together but also gain healing from other combat activity.

Guardians drip healing on every boon, and they dispense like boons like santa dispense gifts.

Elementalists, specifically those with evasive arcana, can heal on virtually every dodge they do (or they can choose to harm by swapping attunement).

Warriors, oddly enough, can heal on every shout if they so choose (and they seem to shout a lot).

Closest i have come on engineer is coated bombs and backpack regenerators, and i don’t think the numbers get close to warrior, never mind elementalist or guardian.

Never mind the big variation in how effective healing power are towards boosting output of various skills and traits.

Elixier H gives u 2 chances for protection. Protection is one of the most overpowerd things in the hole game: if u got 2500 armor (usual value for engineer imo) protection means +1250 additional armor – very strong! Butyes, this doesn’t help against burning. But counter to conditions is primary vitality not healing.

Yeah, protection is weird if put side by side with its counterpart vulnerability. While the latter has to be built up over time, protection goes straight to max and stays there.

What I’ve found with engineers is that for our builds and our class in general, we have very hard counters.

Its hard for us to make a build that gives us all around things. We also have a weakness, and that weakness always hits hard, but thats mostly for PvP. PvE its a bit easier. I’d suggest looking into Elixer Gun, 409, and medkit. ALso don’t forget the overcharge on a turret removals ALL conditions, however it has quite the cooldown (40-60s or something like that).

Dimes.7281:

Elixir H doesn’t heal for as much as our other healing abilities because it also gives you a random boon.

This is not true. Elixir H is the most healing we have in one skill. I will sometimes slot it for this reason alone, when I need the most healing I can possibly get and don’t have time to run through Bandages or fiddle with the Healing Turret water field.

The boon is a welcome bonus on top of the best healing. By Tossing the elixir as well as drinking it normally means you are likely to get protection.

^Actually the Healing Turret has the most healing. With the AoE Heal + Regen blast finisher, the Healing Turret heals for the most HP out of any single heal. Also the perma regen is nice.

The thing with heals is that you have to look at them on a recharge basis. Elixir H has up to a 20 second recharge, the turret has up to a 16 second recharge, and the med kit has up to a 14 second recharge. This makes them very fast healing skills, especially when compared to others. I’ve heard the elementalist and Mesmer mentioned, so I’ll go over their heals:

Ether Feast: Good heal on a 20 second recharge, and with 3 illusions it can beat out Elixir H if it gets regen or swiftness… but not protection. No available traits.

Mirror: This skill is great for trolling enemies and protection, but it doesn’t heal that much on it’s time slot. Healing turret when picked up has a 16 second recharge (no traits), and it heals for quite a bit more than this. Bandage self also heals for more in a shorter time frame with the right trait points.

Mantra of Recovery: This, I must concede, is an awesome heal if you trait for it. The 3.5 second activation time before usage hurts, but healing 5240 in 14 seconds is pretty good. If you have the traits, you’ll heal 50% more, increases damage, and even has an AoE heal effect. It’s pretty good, but does require a lot of investment to get those bonuses.

Ether Renewal: The short recharge is deceptive, with an activation time of 4 seconds it is quite longer than it looks. It does cure conditions, though.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony: IMO the go-to skill for elementalists. It has a lot in common with Elixir H: Same recharge (both before and after traits), gives up to two boons on use, and so on. The trait choices here change what happens, with whichever one cleaning conditions or giving might. An important thing to note here, however, is that the glyph heals for less than the Elixir.

Signet of Restoration: Hard to pin this one down. Long recharge with a short heal, but heals on attack.

So overall, the engineer heal skills aren’t inferior to other class heal skills (from what I’ve looked at so far). There are some with different strengths and different weaknesses, but at the end of the day I’ve never had a problem healing with my engineer. On my necromancer, however…

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Ether Renewal: The short recharge is deceptive, with an activation time of 4 seconds it is quite longer than it looks. It does cure conditions, though.

I find it to be the absolute best heal in the game. Cures 8 conditions and basically a Get Out Of Jail Free-card. It has a tiny recast and can be used for getting out of zergs in WvW. Only downside to the skill is that it is interruptable. Other than that, it’s great.

But I agree with the OP. Our healing skills are really bland. I don’t know what it is, it is just that Engineer heals seem so plain when put up against Mirror, Well of Blood, Ether Renewal, Healing Spring, and the like. We have one regular heal (Med Kit), one heal that gives a random buff (Elixir H), and one heal that is just a turret that sits there.

Elixir H is a great skill imo, it’s just that it’s different than the healing skills that some other professions have. Particularly if you’re running an HGH build, Elixir H is a skill that you want to use as often as possible because it ISN’T a huge burst healing skill like some of the other classes (particularly guardian) have. However, between the elixir itself and the toolbelt skill, it can mitigate a lot of damage and/or provide a lot of healing over time, if you use it early enough to have that time (if you get double regeneration from the elixir/toss, the total healing will be around 8k without any healing power.) It’s rather silly to be complaining about the lack of burst healing on Elixir H when it isn’t designed to be a burst healing skill, it’s designed to be a utility healing skill.

If you want burst healing/direct healing, you should go with the med kit, as you can get up to 14k direct healing out of it.

Also, as far as engineer healing skills seeming bland, with the right traits, I think that elixir H is far far from bland. If you have HGH, the skill + toolbelt skill gives you two random boons and two stacks of might for 20s each, that’s getting a whole lot from one skill. Med kit is also more than just a “regular heal”; the toolbelt skill is just a regular heal, but the kit itself gives great healing and great utility through condition removal and fury/swiftness.

Some of this has already been covered, but here are my 2 cents:

If you want to trait for enhanced performance you get 3 stacks of might on heal as well. An interesting and fun build around a medkit would be to take enhanced performance, speedy kits, and the alchemy skill that gives you vigor on swiftness. Just by swapping to your medkit you get might, swiftness, and vigor. This can happen every 5-10 seconds. With a little boon duration you can get 6 stacks of might, perma-switfness, and perma-vigor just from popping in and out of your medkit. As already mentioned, the medkit has very high direct healing and some condition removal.

If you are into turrets and carry a healing turret and a thumper turret you can combine the toolbelt skills of each for an area heal plus regeneration. Turret F1 is a 1 second water field and the undeployed thumper turret toolkit is a blast finisher. There’s the blast combo of dropping a healing turret and then exploding it in the initial water field too; that’ll give a self heal, an area heal, and regeneration in an area.

There’s the elixir gun super elixir. That combined with the regeneration of the toolbelt skill and the trait for regen on kits offers a surprising amount of healing as well.

When looking at protection, protection injection and the protection on crit are pretty nice traits for 10 points that add a lot to survivability.

My opinion is that our healing skills are quite varied and offer a variety of playstyles. I will say though that the condition removal options we have are limited. 409 is nice, but it really does mean you need to build around elixirs. So alternatives would be dedicating a utility slot for Elixir C or the elixir gun.

Aristio.2784:

Our healing skills are really bland. I don’t know what it is, it is just that Engineer heals seem so plain when put up against Mirror, Well of Blood, Ether Renewal, Healing Spring, and the like. We have one regular heal (Med Kit), one heal that gives a random buff (Elixir H), and one heal that is just a turret that sits there.

Bland? We have a turret that, when placed, can be blasted for a water heal field. And it can detonated. And overcharged. And we have a toolbelt skill when it’s not down. We have a medkit that lets us drop items that not only heal but remove conditions and buff with fury & swiftness. And our teammates can benefit from both of these heal skills. That doesn’t sound bland at all.

Elixir H is our blandest heal skill, but can benefit pretty nicely from a few elixir-based traits.

I’ve never had a problem healing thru things with my Engi. All of our heal skills are x2 with our toolbelt and offer a range of ways to use them.

In my opinion, the OP’s problem isn’t that Engi’s heals are lackluster, it’s that he’s trying to heal thru a very hard-hitting destroyer burn. Remove the condition and you won’t have to heal. You can’t expect 1 skill to be a cure-all for every situation. Gotta adjust.