Q:
Surrender is not an option!
Is Healing power worth going for or not?
Guardian has a lot of healing skills with the right weapons, traits and skill selection. You also have to take into account that while these scaling factors sound low, they count for each tick. I do feel it’s worth it if you’re going for a healing focused build.
(edited by Morelia.6835)
Sounds like most people who play support builds tend to go for survivability (vitality and toughness) over healing power.
The tests that I have seen on healing power indicate that the coefficient is not consistent for all spells. It ranges from 0.1 to ~1, with most spells getting coefficients closer to 0.1 than to 1. I’ve seen one report of a healing spell with a coefficient as high as 1.28, but I haven’t sat down for myself to find out.
Part of the problem will also be that it’s hard to tell whether your heals are helpful or not in many group play situations, whereas you get more immediate results from other stats. WvW, for example, doesn’t lend itself well to an easy analysis of how effective your healing contribution was. In sPVP, you might get a chance to ask your fellow team mates whether they notice a difference or not.
I suggest you try out different sets of (relatively cheap!) gear and get a feel for how it impacts your play style. I myself was grateful for every iota of healing I had on a couple of tough boss fights, but didn’t really like how it felt in WvW.
I actually started out with healing power as my main attribute through out my gear and traits. At one point I decided to switch to power and precision. It made a big difference towards my survivability. I didn’t like it so I switched back to what I originally started with, healing power. I especially notice a big difference on my heal dodge. I know it’s an ability acquired through traits but the heal on dodge has saved me and my teammates time and time again. Without the healing power, the heal is just not enough to make a difference……
“Is it worth going for healing power or should it be avoided like the plague?”
Both. If you aren’t abundantly using weapon, utility, and profession skills that take advantage of the healing stat, avoid it. You just need to look at it in the sense that killing a target before it gets off an additional attack prevents more damage than would be healed by healing power.
If you are, then you need to weigh the pros and cons of the situations you’re in. Specifically: “Are lots of smaller heals over time helpful?” and “How many people benefit?” Since the majority of guardian abilities that benefit from the healing stat affect the group, having a group of 5 always makes the stat more favorable (most abilities cap at 5 players affected). The question of whether the smaller heals are helpful is subjective. In an situation with moderate area damage, one could argue yes, but that is countered by the fact that individual players could self-heal anyway after some damage has added up. Similarly, if players take little damage other than an avoidable “instant death” ability, then small heals over time aren’t that useful.
Kirrena Rosenkreutz
Its +1 healing for +1 healing power on active healing skills like signet of resolve. So +300 healing power makes it heald 8.8k instead of 8.5k not very much difference.
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I have tried out every aspect of guardian and I found healing power to be my primary stat. I focus on healing, vitality and precision in PVE and WvW. However, in PVP I focus on Power, Vit, Toughness.
The reason healing works so well in WvW and PVE is because you have static targets that can recieve a ton of healing. While this may be the case, you still need the correct spec/utilities. No healing guardian should be without symbols that heal or the ability that teleports to the allie with the lowest health to heal them. I am also very fond of using the support ability that creates a healing bubble that enemies cannot enter. My build is 0, 0, 20, 30, 20. I am fairly certain that is it (I am at work ><). use a hammer and a mace/shield. get THREE 2 piece sets for gear. 1 for 20% protection duration ,1 for 15% protection duration and 1 for boon duration (water). With this setup, you will stack protection to 15 seconds on long fights and on doors/bosses in WvW. constant healing and book for good measure to top everyone with a full heal.
Its all depends what you want to do. I run 0/0/30/30/10 with full cleric gear +mace/shield and staff (1250 healing power) in WvW and dungeons, its amazing helpful in group fight, siege and defence, helping allies and stuff. The only downside is I dont get reward for assisting ally, sometimes i get bronze medal or nothing at all for dynamic event. Also this build is not really good at soloing because of the lack of damage, but it provides tons of utilities with shouts + virtues. So when i am soloing I switch to valkyrie gear with a greatsword.
Its all depends what you want to do. I run 0/0/30/30/10 with full cleric gear +mace/shield and staff (1250 healing power) in WvW and dungeons, its amazing helpful in group fight, siege and defence, helping allies and stuff. The only downside is I dont get reward for assisting ally, sometimes i get bronze medal or nothing at all for dynamic event.
This type of thing really ought to be fixed. Players should be rewarded for supporting their group, not discouraged.
+Healing adds very little to the actual heal itself. There are plenty of encounters in which preventive measures are far more practical than healing. At this point, I think gearing for more balanced dps/survive would be a better route simply because blinds, blocks, absorbs, KDs, roots, and prot boons are far, far more effective in actually saving lives.
You can really compare the usefulness of +healing with our Area Denial abilities. They are useful sometimes…others……it just doesn’t work at all.