Guild Wars 2

So i just dinged 80 and decided i wanted to become a healing guardian and yes yes i know arena net butchered healing in this game but i thought a guardian with full healing gear would be decent… but after running a dungeon i realized its so weak loosing 50% crit chance and crit dmg for a pi pool of healing that only helps on trash mobs is rather frustrating.

Its a real shame because i played a monk in gw1, paladin in wow, cleric in rift, healer in every single other game ive ever played, yet in gw2 it just feels pointless and weak to me to the point you may as well not even play it.

Doubtful but i hope one day they give us a proper healing build that actually heals, i miss the trinity i really do, mass dps does not satisfy

Lol I think you in the wrong game homie

lilstev.3498:

Lol I think you in the wrong game homie

So they want all mmo healer players over the last 15 years to quit?

Remember playing a support role involves more than just healing. The protection and stability you give out combined with control skills helps more than you might think, especially in WvW.

Look at it this way, you have boons that offer unique mechanics to combat, and skills to prevent/absorb damage. Even your elite skill (defensive book) has a raw heal (number 5).
There is a very noticable difference when you run a dungeon with a support/healing guardian and when there isnt one present. You wont see the big flashy numbers, but all these small feats make up for something big. Just look at all the defensive and supportive tools you have, none of the other classes (with all the high stats you point out to miss out on) cannot offer this.

Adam Chattaway.6418:

lilstev.3498:

Lol I think you in the wrong game homie

So they want all mmo healer players over the last 15 years to quit?

No, but they flat out told us before the game launched that there would be no dedicated healer in the game. Each class would be responsible for the majority of their own healing, although most classes could also do some ‘support healing’ for others in their group. However, that ‘support healing’ was never intended to be powerful enough to carry a group with it, imo. As such, yes, to try and run ‘full heal’ is crippling you, since its not really the intent of the gameplay.

Edit: I had 2 Monks in GW1, and a Priest in WoW. Running a healing class is to my taste as well; however I understood when I came to GW2 that I would not be able to do that. Still, I am able to do enough support healing on my ele to generally keep a teammate (or 3) up long enough for him/her to heal themself, and I find this enjoyable. I am still contributing to the overall damage, and able to help keep people alive by cycling through my attunements. I love it honestly.

Adam Chattaway.6418:

lilstev.3498:

Lol I think you in the wrong game homie

So they want all mmo healer players over the last 15 years to quit?

No they want them to adapt, there is a huge difference that’s is fairly obvious to see.

Adam Chattaway.6418:

lol so i just dinged 80 and decided i wanted to become a healing guardian and yes yes i know arena net butchered healing in this game but i thought a guardian with full healing gear would be decent… but after running a dungeon i realized its so weak loosing 50% crit chance and crit dmg for a pi pool of healing that only helps on trash mobs is rather insulting.

Its a real shame because i played a monk in gw1, paladin in wow, cleric in rift, healer in every single other game ive ever played, yet in gw2 it just feels pointless and weak to me to the point you may as well not even play it.

Doubtful but i hope one day they give us a proper healing build that actually heals, i miss the trinity i really do, mass dps does not satisfy

my whining about pugs would also go down by at least 50% if they can see the same things you have.

nacario.9417:

Look at it this way, you have boons that offer unique mechanics to combat, and skills to prevent/absorb damage. Even your elite skill (defensive book) has a raw heal (number 5).
There is a very noticable difference when you run a dungeon with a support/healing guardian and when there isnt one present. You wont see the big flashy numbers, but all these small feats make up for something big. Just look at all the defensive and supportive tools you have, none of the other classes (with all the high stats you point out to miss out on) cannot offer this.

buy every class in this game nearly has a support role from warriors giving 15% crit dmg banners to rangers butting down healing spirits and wells or ele water, and our skills seem to have such a long cooldown that i dont feel it justify such a big dmg drop for a 40-50 second 2k heal or a 90 second cd shield that could jsut block 1 auto attack

The warrior priest in warhammer online was an amazing class to, ive never played a healer as fun as that was especially in pvp.

I’ll have to try some other builds, hell i may just go dps guardian in berserker gear lol seems to be what people are doing… that or hammer protection spam

Echoing what MurderousClown said.

Yes, every class can support and that’s by design. Guardian’s support is primarily healing/block/boon based. Even your weapons can create healing aoe circles. But you won’t see big numbers like in WoW because rather than a dedicated healer taking care of the entire group, everyone is responsible for their own health. But when you throw out a full channel of staff #5 you give everyone a big heal & stack lotsa might. Together they let your whole team continue attacking, deal more damage, and potentially save a dodge. Talk to the ranger or ele in your party and strategize your blast finishers in their water fields. You’re a bigger help than you think.

Also, do some research into other professions. Guardian is a great support class but maybe there’s another that you like better. After all, Guardian =/= Paladin. For instance, my Engineer can drop an aoe healing turret or drop med kits for my party, toss helpful elixirs on my allies, cleanse conditions from my allies, create aoe healing bombs, drop a healing light field, and seriously hamper enemy movement. Built for support, an Engi can be very helpful. So can most professions. Check em out and good luck.

As a support engineer I can say this; you’re playing the role wrong. Guild Wars 2 isn’t about healing, it is about preventing or reducing damage in the first place. As a support guardian (there is no healing guardian, period), your job should be on keeping the party going as long as you can through other means. Your heals are weak, and most of them spread out over a period of time, so they are preventative at best. You set those up before the part starts taking a lot of damage, and most rely on them just to slow down the rate of damage the party takes.

Really it falls to each player to deal with their own health bars when they get low, you can just help them stay alive long enough to use their own heal skills, or to prevent them from needing to as often. Those weak heals we bring are only part of support, and not the most important part by a long shot. Instead one of the most important tools you can bring is condition removal.

A full stack of bleeds can destroy a player in a matter of moments, and effects like cripple and immobilize can get you killed almost outright. As a support player it is your job to keep these effects off the party. Likewise using boons like Protection, Vigor, Stability, and Agis are invaluable. Imagine how much your party will love you if you manage to pop that one-hit-invincibility of yours just in time to block the boss’s strongest attack?

Ultimately think of it like this; you’re job isn’t to heal the party, it is to keep them from needing healing in the first place.

Guild Wars has always been like that, even back to the first game wherein the Monk’s protection prayers skills were valued above healing prayers, and it was possible -through damage mitigation- to solo farm most areas with only 55hp.

To sum it up, prevention is better than cure. Stop trying to heal and start trying to block.

As someone who has played Guardian as his main since launch, yeah the others are spot on. It isn’t about raw healing, but rather the boons and keeping the group alive in that manner.

“Save yourself” allows you to strip off conditions from nearby allies, put them on yourself, and then you get a nice set of boons for a short time. With that you just prevented the enemy from doing extra condition damage to your friends. If you use Smite Condition then that cures conditions and deals extra damage to the enemy.

So as a Guardian it isn’t about making sure health bar go up, but rather how to shift the conditions and damage in a way to keep everyone going and still put hurt on the mobs.

Just adding… do not compare the Guardian to the Warrior Priest from Warhammer. That class was so overpowered compared to its counterparts. I know you played other healer types so I am not judging you for enjoying that play style. But Never try to use an OP class in another game to show why a class that plays differently in a different game is not up to snuff.

Guardian is not a healer. Even the Altruistic guardian build (which I run) would be the equivalent to an OFF healer in other MMOs. People in GW2 are responcible for their own staying power, even the healer builds are there just just supplement those .

So let me re-iterate.
You first state you knew a.net butchered the dedicated healer?
You still tried to make one
And realized a.net succeeded at accomplishing their goal?
What is this thread about?

Ok that said. I have a “healing” guardian too, which basically mean I try to help my party a little bit more. Focus on relatively decent area heals means the dps only has to self heal once every three times. This ups dps significantly by reducing individual heals and keeping people alive (downed people don’t do damage). That also works on bosses. Yet people still have to watch their own back and I like that. If they die, it’s still their fault. What don’t you understand about this mechanic?

You made a healer, not a dedicated healer. And that’s a big difference. Dedicated healers are boring, but healing still has a lot of merit in this game.

I think 99% of the problem is the fact that the “healing” stat is just sooo crap…really it is.

TBH warriors are probably the best healers in the game because if they use shouts to heal they pretty much can’t fail whereas those of us who use fields etc can easily fail and the aoes are always nuked by boss aoe’s so no one wants to use those aoe heal fields. That and they also get bonus’s themselves on top of those heal/shouts.

Healing in GW2 is more about keeping yourself alive rather than healing the party. It is not intended that you should be doing so much party healing that your party does not need to rely on their own healing skills.

Don’t think of yourself as a healer, think of yourself as a support player. Healing is just a small part of the support role. You also provide buffs that make the dungeon easier for everyone.

Lol this thread… Marnick’s got it right. I run a healing (full 100% healing gear FYI) Guardian as well and I’m not seeing the issue here. I’m assuming most aren’t aware of Energy Sigils? Which would explain some of the wrong things being said here. Try running energy Sigils in both your weapon sets and then see the wonder of 1.5k+ dodge heals

Guardian healing is pretty useless yes. Its why i made a guardian in the beginning because i did enjoy playing monk in gw1. however i quickly realized how weak it is and rerolled warrior.

You can definitely still play support as a Guardian, thats my main role in our small man, but as others have mentioned it’s not all about the healing(although you can definitely put out a decent amount).

Whats your spec, what food buffs are you running, what sigils, runes, weapons etc?

In the context of this game, where healing is weak, Guardians can put out a lot of healing and lots of boons. Learn to adjust your expectations accordingly and you will quickly understand Guards are a great support class. Every class gets a powerful self heal you don’t need to be able to put out tons of heals to keep others a live. But you can put out a lot of small healing .

It’s not about ~just healing~. You’re doing alot more than that.

Have said that, you can build in a rotation of healing and do fine, but you ~NEED~ to put in dmg along w/ other things as well:

- Direct Healing: Dodge Rolls, Staff #2, Staff #4, Shield#5, VoR, VoC, Symbols & Mace
- Passive Healing: Regens (VoR, Battle Pressence, HTL, Dwayna Runes)
- Boon Support: Stability, Swiftness, Protection
- Area CC: Rings, Lines, Shield, Bubbles
- Damage Negation: Shield #5, Consecrations, Blocking attacks (LOS & Protectors Strike)
- Damage: Symbols, Staff #1 & Mace

I have some video’s of support builds in both small group play and zerging. Check them out so you’re not walking into this w/ a misconception of how “Healing” works in this game.

You are not a DD Healer.

Wukunlin.8461:

my whining about pugs would also go down by at least 50% if they can see the same things you have.

Well, I’m sure we are just too ignorant to understand all those geniuses out there.

There is no healing, no tanking.

If you aren’t putting out at least decent damage you’re hurting the group more than your 1 support skill every 15 seconds could possibly help it.

The real question is why do they have healing gear when they don’t want people healing and it’s so useless?

Delete all non-zerker gear imo.

Aeolus Skylla.5037:

Lol this thread… Marnick’s got it right. I run a healing (full 100% healing gear FYI) Guardian as well and I’m not seeing the issue here. I’m assuming most aren’t aware of Energy Sigils? Which would explain some of the wrong things being said here. Try running energy Sigils in both your weapon sets and then see the wonder of 1.5k+ dodge heals

Ah yes, the dodge heals that have a range of ~150. If you dodge backward from melee you won’t even heal the person on the other side of the mob.

If Guardian heals didn’t have such pitifully short range they might be decent. As it is, their value is vastly overstated because even if it looks ok on paper, it’s horrible in implementation.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Ultimately think of it like this; you’re job isn’t to heal the party, it is to keep them from needing healing in the first place.

I want this build for my guardian…

I run a support/damage/defense hybrid build. It’s tanky, it keeps allies alive, it keeps a ton of might on the party, it hands out boons like candy (that also happen to last a really, really long time), and it ensures that enemies have a very difficult time stunning or immobilizing my allies. I heal for around 700 on a dodgeroll, and with perma-vigor I can dodge every 5 seconds. BUT, I’m not expecting to keep an ally who won’t use his heal skill alive. I can keep an ally who gets stunned from taking a few attacks that might have one-shotted him, give protection to mitigate the next few, dodge next to him once or twice and pop VoR to give out some extra health and regeneration as a buffer, and in general help keep them alive until they can use their main heal.

What I can’t do is save them from their own idiocy if they refuse to use their main heal, or if they insist on “tanking” every hit. If I play right, everyone on my team will have an easier time staying alive and dealing damage, and I’ll deal pretty impressive damage myself. However, my skilled play is not a replacement for a team with their heads screwed on straight, and it never will be.

guardian heal in zergs wooooot!
if i play with my guardian i see the numbers… passive of the f2, regen, dodge, staff… i use the sigils whats recharge my endurance if somebody die! perma dodge ftw!

Ostra.3927:

Just adding… do not compare the Guardian to the Warrior Priest from Warhammer. That class was so overpowered compared to its counterparts. I know you played other healer types so I am not judging you for enjoying that play style. But Never try to use an OP class in another game to show why a class that plays differently in a different game is not up to snuff.

Guardian is not a healer. Even the Altruistic guardian build (which I run) would be the equivalent to an OFF healer in other MMOs. People in GW2 are responcible for their own staying power, even the healer builds are there just just supplement those .

Warrior priest were not that OP tbh and diciple of khain was far more dps than a warpriest.

Adam Chattaway.6418:

Warrior priest were not that OP tbh and diciple of khain was far more dps than a warpriest.

Not to derail this conversation too much—and I can’t speak for any time in the last 2+ years—but, at least during the time I played, Warrior Priest was the most disturbingly overpowered class I’ve seen perhaps in ANY game I’ve played (at least in a PvP setting). I played both sides and, even on the side of the WP I could see how overpowered it was to have WP on our team.

That said, I’m not sure that it’s entirely relevant to the conversation at hand here. I won’t say anything other than to echo what others have said: there’s not really a way to build a dedicated healer in this game. You can pour whatever you want into improving nothing but healing and I think you’re always going to find it underwhelming in PvE. However, I do encourage you to try other things and explore the ideas that this game does encourage in both PvE and PvP—you might just find that stepping out of your comfort zone of “being the healer” can be fun!

Adam Chattaway.6418:

… i thought a guardian with full healing gear would be decent…

it is decent … if you only want to heal. Unfortunately, healing isn’t the primary method for mitigating damage in GW2. Therefore, healing overall, regardless of profession is pretty lackluster.

^^ Disagree Completely.

Zylonite.5913:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Ultimately think of it like this; you’re job isn’t to heal the party, it is to keep them from needing healing in the first place.

I want this build for my guardian…

30 virtues, you’re welcome.

Back on topic, I think Tome of Courage is a most excellent source of healing, at least in wvw including the ability to fully recover entire groups. Sure the cooldown is very long but it’s not you don’t have any other methods (staff 4, shield 5), and just rolling around. All the little bits add up.

One just has to not take it literally and realize that support “aka keeping people alive longer” is on par with healing because in both cases you’re making it longer for people to hit the floor. What is the difference anyways? If you cannot comprehend this, then you probably are a failure as a guardian and should reroll like a thief or something.

Yaki.9563:

The real question is why do they have healing gear when they don’t want people healing and it’s so useless?

Delete all non-zerker gear imo.

Clerics and other healing power stats are quiet strong in bunker setups for PvP. But they are just awful in PvE. The biggest support a guardian has is (PvE pov):

- protection
- stability
- reflexion
- blinding
- vun-stacking
- aegis
- condition remove
- might stacking

None of it scales with HP. The only thing you can think of, is to take the +40% boon duration rune set, because you can spam a lot of useful boons.

Adam Chattaway.6418:

So i just dinged 80 and decided i wanted to become a healing guardian and yes yes i know arena net butchered healing in this game but i thought a guardian with full healing gear would be decent… but after running a dungeon i realized its so weak loosing 50% crit chance and crit dmg for a pi pool of healing that only helps on trash mobs is rather frustrating.

Its a real shame because i played a monk in gw1, paladin in wow, cleric in rift, healer in every single other game ive ever played, yet in gw2 it just feels pointless and weak to me to the point you may as well not even play it.

Doubtful but i hope one day they give us a proper healing build that actually heals, i miss the trinity i really do, mass dps does not satisfy

Play mantra healing mesmer they can aoe heal much better and remove aoe conditions with shatter while granting free regen. I recomend rune of water or dwayna.

I guess PvE noobs here never heard of WvWvW.

I run a healing/support guard and regularly can turns a PUG into an unstoppable band of spec ops hardcases. For healing I usually find Battle Presence just puts most players over the top – they’re used to looking after themselves and a continuous trickle of HP that stacks with and supplements normal regen make decent players invincible.

I also run +70% might duration, 50% crit chance and Empowering Might – with a fast ticking weapon like 1-h sword you pretty much proc Empowering Might the instant it goes off internal cool down and my staff #4 12 stacks of might buff lasts 17 seconds.

Zelulose.8695:

Play mantra healing mesmer they can aoe heal much better and remove aoe conditions with shatter while granting free regen. I recomend rune of water or dwayna.

I have one of those too, and it’s great fun.

I’ve built fun, capable “healers” out of every class in this game except Thief and I’m still tinkering with them (thieves are already by far the most awesome rez’ers and they do have an AoE heal… hmm…).

Thing is, when you make a healer for GW2 you have to understand all the forms of “keep us from wiping” at your disposal (condition removal and well-timed AoE aegis are ‘heals’ too, after a fashion) and you can’t neglect your own DPS contributions – you’ll only be healing when something goes wrong, not the 100% heal-bot button mashing you see in many other MMOs.

lilstev.3498:

Lol I think you in the wrong game homie

Agreed. It is clear there is no monk. Sadly, if someone wants to play a monk, they need a different game. Personally, I prefer this style game over always needing to look for a healer or specific other classes.