Guild Wars 2

The AED was always a pretty interesting design idea, but as most of us can agree (as seen by it’s abysmal useage rate) the opportunity cost vs the risk/reward of the kit generally isn’t worth it. It’s satisfying when you manage to use it properly, but since you can use any of the other heals on cooldown twice within the cooldown period of the AED and get almost as much healing on top of helpful mid-fight buffs, you’re basically completely giving up sustain at the cost of a risky burst heal that ultimately isn’t a whole lot better than the healing offered by the other options, and that is only if you’re actually sustaining deadly damage every 40 seconds, which really shouldn’t be happening if you’re mitigating damage properly.

So, what if we simply gave the AED some sustain? It’s essentially a life support system, right? What if it literally operated like a signet? Where every X seconds it either heals you a small bit, cleans a condition or pulses a boon like regeneration for a few seconds so long as the AED is off cooldown?

That way, you’re still getting a sustained benefit while you’re saving your AED for a critical moment. A passive effect wouldn’t do much to change the high risk/ high reward nature of the device, but it would reduce it’s opportunity costs compared to other heals, and a good passive effect could actually let the AED compete with the healing turret or Elixer H.

I like the sound of the AED having a passive effect, something which the Engineer lacks in its utility skills. Possibly some sort of “on hit effect” similar to the Necro’s healing signet. Maybe as a compromise reduce the effect of the AED heal?