Guild Wars 2

I’m a lvl 60 Norn guardian. I really wanted to max out the healing sub trait (Honor) It just doesn’t seem to do a lot compared to the bang for your buck you get with heavy defense and damage. Is it just me or is the healing only marginal?

For most 99.9% of battles, I’m feeling that ending the battle quicker with damage, and reducing damage through defense work way better. Also, maybe its hard to notice, but I don’t feel as if I am greatly impacting other players with the healing. Yes the vitality is always nice, but still.

Agree? disagree? please, feel free to tell me. I ’d love to hear how its working for you.

well for PvE i would never go with healing.. Google it and you will see that Healing Power doesnt really give you that much for that many things.. Doesnt affect Meditation heal or the Altruistic healing in a good way.. Only thing I found so far that scales well is the Dodgeroll heal wich IIRC gives same ammount bonus heal as your Healing Power stat.

For PvE, dont build around the Healing stat, but dont skip the whole traitline, remember that you dont choose the lines for the stat, you choose them foor the traits, the stats are just a bonus!

Hmm, I think I agree. (and I only pve) My first level 80 was a W. The regen from healing signet was trenendous. There wasn’t even healing in a trait to raise. plus I am not seeing a big difference in healing others. Like you said, I’d throw a few points into it, but it isn’t a game changer.

I cant play without 15-20 points in honor. The heal on dodge is realy nice in both pve and pvp. But i dont stack +healing

Speaking as a guardian in full cleric’s gear…

Healing power is one of those stats that is only useful if you have a lot of healing that you can do for other people. It’s inferior as a survival stat, yes, and the healing that HP gives you on any individual skill is pretty low. However, once you have five heals on your bar, all able to also hit allies (for example, a mace+focus / staff shouter build) then the healing that you get from the stat very, very quickly adds up once you count all of the targets that get hit with it. It’s very much a support stat. There’s been a number of times where I’ve rescued someone from downed state, and then they ended up very quickly reaching back to 100% health simply due to all of the healing I’m constantly outputting between my weapon skills, “Hold the Line!”, Healing Breeze, and the dodge-roll heal.

It’s not like in most MMOs where you’re constantly outputting huge burst heals. Healing in GW2 seems to mostly be for the purposes of sustainability, and in that sense it’s very useful.

thanks, you guys confirmed what i already knew. Still, always good to get a second opinion.

Grakor.3450:

Speaking as a guardian in full cleric’s gear…

Healing power is one of those stats that is only useful if you have a lot of healing that you can do for other people. It’s inferior as a survival stat, yes, and the healing that HP gives you on any individual skill is pretty low. However, once you have five heals on your bar, all able to also hit allies (for example, a mace+focus / staff shouter build) then the healing that you get from the stat very, very quickly adds up once you count all of the targets that get hit with it. It’s very much a support stat. There’s been a number of times where I’ve rescued someone from downed state, and then they ended up very quickly reaching back to 100% health simply due to all of the healing I’m constantly outputting between my weapon skills, “Hold the Line!”, Healing Breeze, and the dodge-roll heal.

It’s not like in most MMOs where you’re constantly outputting huge burst heals. Healing in GW2 seems to mostly be for the purposes of sustainability, and in that sense it’s very useful.

Thanks, I see what you mean. I’ve just reached the conclusion that this game pretty much is a single player game. (perhaps a very good one) Once I realized that, I was happier with the game. When I stopped expecting the game to play like an MMO, I enjoyed it more.

As for the guaridan, if a weapon skill happens to heal then great. I’ll take it. Like I said, most of the time its about you personally suriving when soloing or zerging. Grouping is useless for all intents and purposes anyway. The exception being dungeons, but there’s no real payoff there. The endgame is a grind for karma for weapons and exotic armor.

I’m not ranting or even complaining about GW2. These are just my observations. Perhaps the game plays differently than the devs intended. It is what it is. Often times it was a lot of fun. Thanks for your reply.

If you are going for quick fights, I think Vitality is better than Toughness. Toughness really shines in extended fights and actually helps Healing even more.

Grakor.3450:

I’ve just reached the conclusion that this game pretty much is a single player game. (perhaps a very good one)

What do you mean it’s a “single player game”? The only single player content is open world PvE, just like every other MMO in the past 7+ years. The last MMO I played that actually required multiple people to handle open world PvE was Shadowbane back in 2002/2003. And that was only at launch — after a couple months, everyone had gear (or leveling bots) that allowed them to plow through open world PvE solo.

WvWvW, Dungeons, and all forms of sPvP are very much multiplayer. What your allies bring to the table matters. You can play WvWvW and sPvP as if it were single player, but your chances of victory are greatly lower against those that play it as a multi-player game.

And I don’t know how you could possibly succeed in dungeons if everyone in the group was playing with a single player mindset. You might be able to squeak by playing that way, but I’m confident that at least one person in your group was not playing that way. I remember the first AC Story Mode I did — we wiped on nearly every encounter, sometimes multiple times. Now when I do them, we rarely wipe at all, and that’s because people are using their skills to aid each other, instead of just slotting their bar with DPS skills and hoping the occasional Dodge will see them through.

Velkyn.9285:

Grakor.3450:

I’ve just reached the conclusion that this game pretty much is a single player game. (perhaps a very good one)

What do you mean it’s a “single player game”? The only single player content is open world PvE

The quote you used was actually from my post not Grakor’s so I’ll address it. I am not into PVP, I have done it before, and I’ve done some WvW. I was mainly talking about the PVE.

I did say dungeons were the exception. In truth, I find them pretty useless anyway because the rewards can be found else where. You can help your party somewhat with skills. It is kind of limited. Of course people who play their characters effectively will do better grouped. there’s very limited synergy though.

Back to my original point. This game (IMO) plays like a single player game. Damage, dodge run,, heal, rinse and repeat. Your class or grouping is not really essential in the equation. The best way to do well in the game is by massively zerging. This is my observation having played the game from beginning to end.

Feel free to disagree.

I’m in full clerics gear spec’d 0/0/30/30/10 with healing meditations and healing symbols. I essentially have FIVE healz at my disposal (heal skill, 3 utility meditations, and dodge heal). I also have three HoTs (VoR passive, staff symbol, GS symbol).

I’m enjoying the build quite a bit — but mostly because of the instant cast Smite Condition, Judges Interventions, and Contemplation of Purity. Those are quite fun as instant-cast skills and the healing is purely a bonus.

Kill mobs is not as fast as I’d prefer tho, especially with the recent GS changes. The staff is not good for single-mob fights either (but incredible for DE mob tagging). So that’s the only complaint I have with this build.

For most regular mobs, yes – damage will end the battle quicker. If you use the full dps/blind build for guardian, you can often get through a battle against multiple normal mobs just by facetanking. As long as you actively switch your weaponsets and time your blinds, almost no movement is required.

Healing power comes in against tougher opponents that you can’t kill fast like champions, veterans, or some locations in Orr where spawn rates are very fast. With enough toughness and healing power, coupled with the healing skills at the guardian’s disposal, you can get close to the “damage equilibrium” where you can heal at the same rate at you take damage. The effect of healing power may not seem like very much, but all those 100 heal per second really adds up – particularly due to the lower health pool of the guardian.

I play WvW most of the time now, and this kind of thing is very helpful since guardians have a lot of ground control type abilities that are very strong. Being able to stay alive longer in the heat of the battle tends to be much more helpful to your team than doing some more damage.

With 25 stacks of Superior Sigil of Life I get 1,500+heal, which makes the passive all-allies regen combined with “Hold The Line” ridiculous. The self-heal signet probably heals for more than 80% total health (basically, coming back from the dead in such dire situations.) I play PvE all the time, and max healing is what I go for all the time. Have little trouble surviving even at the mot ridiculous odds, and my offense is still OK (I use longsword/shield). In fact, I use no trait points in toughness, oddly enough, although full Cleric’s armor (though Rare, not exotic, ATM.) Build is mostly support, passive heals, with high precision to keep providing myself and party with constant small Might buffs. Looks horrible in paper, but it works, kills things moderately fast, and keeps myself and others alive most of the time.

Mace would be better for my healing cleric concept (my character is a descendant from a healing Monk from GW1), but kills then become rather slow, and I then become pure tank, with little offense, which is a fine option, of course. Still, even though my toughness/armor bonuses only come from my weapons, armor, and accessories. and not from traits, I keep myself alive due to a ridiculously high amount of healing power, passive regen, and constantly applying blind through Renewing Justice and my teleporting sword’s No. 2 blinding skill. The mace would heal better, but I kills things faster which kinds of balances things out, even for a full party situation.

I don’t agree Healing Power is useless, I just think it requries a specific playstyle that may not be suited for everybody. I love the XII passive all-allies regen on the healing trait line, and use it on all builds I devise, offensive or defensive, but of course, I have been loving healing since many, many years ago and it’s part of my character’s RPG concept (all-offense Guardians are viable, but not what I prefer.) It makes me happy knowing that my party/allies is/are being passively supported and healed while I survive and do decent damage.

The thing people mistake with healing is they want to compair to healer. We are not healers. We are support. While we do regen people’s hp its not major healing. The main point is if someone is actually doing there job our support will help them out while there own heals are on cool down by helping regen there hp to safe levels so if they make a mistake they are not dead. We wont save them from big mistakes or a ton of minor ones but a mistake here or there we will negate. Which is the point. We dont cure stup1d. We just help off set those moments when you get caught with your pants down so to say.

Look at the ratios of healing on the wiki, and then compare them to the ratios of Toughness and damage mitigation. Healing power is far too weak of stat to even consider stacking.

And you help your group… how? By standing there all tough? Tougness if laughable. Go take a hit from a boss with all toughness you can get. I think you could also lend some toughness to your ally in an AOE right?

teemoor.4397:

And you help your group… how? By standing there all tough? Tougness if laughable. Go take a hit from a boss with all toughness you can get. I think you could also lend some toughness to your ally in an AOE right?

I really think what you said cuts to the crux of the issue. Obviously, you can’t tank champions and big bosses. Doing that with toughness would be suicide.

That said, 99.9% of the PVE game is ungrouped zerging or soloing mobs. In that regard, toughness and good damage is key. This is especially true when using melee weapons. You really won’t need the healing skill (stat) to get through most of these battles. If I am careful, I won’t have to even use my healing skill.

You’re point is well taken though. I think everyone contributed nicely on this thread. I don’t look at this as being a “black or White” thing. I think everyone can run their build in a way that works for them and that they find enjoyable. I don’t think anyone was "wrong’ per se.

Honor is less about the +healing than it is about the Traits (both active and passive), Vitality (larger health pool) and setup for an Altruistic Healing build (w/ Empowering Might).

There is no “main healer” in GW2 and attempts to create one will just be frustrating (imo). However the Guardian can pour out a lot of healing to both himself and his group … think small and many.