Guild Wars 2

Why is this skill called “altruistic” when it heals you and only you?
Altrustic means unselfish.
It should heal everyone in the group, amirite?!
Discuss.

Because it heals more, the more altruistic (spreading boons to others) you behave

if it would heal everybody in the group, it would be plain AoE healing and way too strong the way it currently is – thus they’d have to nerf it to the ground, making it unusable as your own sustain when you run zerker. pretty much eliminating the zerker-AH/purevoice guardians – which is a rather useful build, even if some people will claim they don’t need any sustain because they are perfect dodgers. I know I need the healing from AH in CoE, alpha auto attacks alone bring me down without it.

also, if you really want to do group healing. try taking a mace. I’ve tried it on the second ogre champ in the oger event chain. with gs/hammer I had problems with him and sceptering him down worked but was slow, so I decided to try mace (still with zerker) and never got under 80% health. the damage also isn’t that bad. if I imagine this same healing spread to 5 people it might just be worth it.

tl;dr: if you want aoe healing, use mace, it’s what it was invented for. if it’s not good enough for your purposes, consider that a dedicated healer does not exist. altruistic healing heals you because you act unselfishly and for the good of your group => altruistic.

Altruistic Healing – mean that You are so dedicated Altruist that ever altruistic act (like spreading boon) will heal you. Giving boons to Your allies gives you so much satisfaction, that You can forget for a while that boss punching your face

@up I tried also – but when there was only me and one warrior we still didn’t make it in time but I’m using mace+shield everyday

Are you trolling?

Altruistic Healing is definitely maybe an oxymoron, which is typically odd that Anet would name the trait as such. Maybe, they thought it would have a quiet presence.

It is also naturally strange that this isn’t the first thread on this subject. It is probably now the least favorite of guardians and no longer an open secret.

Alturistic… (buff others), healing (heals you).

Seems pretty easy to understand, its almost like a sentence. Be alturistic and gain healing!

Araris.7839:

Alturistic… (buff others), healing (heals you).

Seems pretty easy to understand, its almost like a sentence. Be alturistic and gain healing!

But is this truly altruistic?

The guardian is giving something in order to gain something. They are incentivized into providing those boons. The concept of altruism involves self-sacrifice without any expectation of receiving compensation or reward, either directly or indirectly.

As such, one can argue that this healing is not actually altruistic because part of the reason the guardian performs this act is to heal themselves. When using this trait, the guardian is expecting to receive the reward of self-healing for the act of providing boons to party members. In fact, this trait will also trigger for boons applied to yourself, so you do not even have to provide something to others in order to receive this benefit. As such, it contradicts the notion of altruism.

If instead this trait were to provide only benefits to allies and provide no direct or indirect rewards to the guardian (i.e. parcel the current self-heal out in small packets to only other allies), then it would perhaps fit the definition of altruism better.

aophts.9862:

Are you trolling?

me? no why do You think I am?

@Yamsandjams: as I said previously Altruistic healing as a trait can be explained that Altruism (giving boons to allies) is Your life-dedication, so while You are doing this You have very reason to live (and do it more :P) and that’s reflected in healing