Guild Wars 2

Healing Breeze is a very under used skill guardians have, we’ve so far to my knowledge have had two patches that have attempted to make healing breeze a skill to considered taking. Imo, both patches have failed. Increasing the cone radius did nothing and the boost to ally healing while great has not made the skill more attractive.

Why? I have a theory. Which is the skill being a cone doesn’t fit guardian’s playstyle. Think about it. In most cases guardian is either in the front or allies are surrounding them. Its very rare for a guardian to actually be in the back lines. Healing breeze only works when we are behind allies.

My suggestion to anet would be to change it into a circle field, maybe as a consecration or a symbol. The healing could stay the exact same, so could the cooldown. I’m sure it would see a lot more use if it was this way.

Again, this is just my opinion. Others could differ in their perspective. So does anyone use healing breeze as their main heal? Are any of you comfortable with the way healing breeze works now?

Cone heal/condi removal (torch)/protection (shield) are completely nuts on a class that is supposed to be standing in front of the people it is healing/removing condis from or protecting.

Making it a symbol would be nice. It gives all weapons access to a symbol.

If they really want people to use it, I’d recommend they consider changing it into a pulsing aura with an on-cast self-heal. Something along the lines of…

Recharge: 40
Cast time: 1½

Healing: 6,525 (0.8)
Healing: 1,725 (0.8)
Duration: 2 seconds
Radius: 600

Reduce cast time to 1.5 seconds with the removal of the channel. Maintain the 5 ticks over 2 seconds, but make it a PBAoE with a 600 unit radius. Reduce Healing power scaling to compensate for the lack of needing to channel the skill.

The pulse shouldn’t heal the Guardian, only allies.

I like the symbol idea. I also like the aura type idea. If it were a symbol that moved with you, it would have some good trait synergy.

Svarty.8019:

Cone heal/condi removal (torch)/protection (shield) are completely nuts on a class that is supposed to be standing in front of the people it is healing/removing condis from or protecting.

I don’t know any effective guardian builds that stay behind their allies. To my knowledge, there is no such thing. Even Anet stated in a sotg stream that guardian is meant to be in the middle of a fight and expected to stay there. So how do cone skills fit that description?

Are guardians expected to double back to cast healing breeze ( cleansing flame and shield of judgement) on allies? It really doesn’t make sense. It should be very clear why healing breeze is unpopular. Its a ok skill but for the wrong class.

This is the split personality from the mechanics of the game and the core of this profession at play here.

There are no “healers”. The group oriented healing will be weak, and you are better off with self oriented healing, stated so in their own interviews and game descriptions.

That said, we are supposed to be support/defensive, and since a lot of our abilities become group oriented, they are reduced in effect in order to not create the “healer” role.

So fine, we can support a little bit in the healing aspect, but for the most part everyone should worry about their own health….but then things like healing breeze never see use.

So how do they try to fix it? They make it heal allies more……….but we shouldn’t be healers?

So beyond the fact that the mechanics are backwards, and we should be upfront fighting and not behind our allies healing, it is also fulfilling a role that no one is supposed to take, and that is to pretend to be a dedicated healer.

Devil’s advocate here….we “could” use this ability while everyone in melee range is on one side of the fight, and we are on the other side of the target, thus healing through the target being hit….ok PvE maybe this works, PvP of course it ends up being pointless due to mobile fighting…among other things.

Doesn’t everyone stack in PvE? Seems to me that would make it easy to hit everyone with the cone. Situationally useful, nothing wrong with that.

CMF.5461:

This is the split personality from the mechanics of the game and the core of this profession at play here.

There are no “healers”. The group oriented healing will be weak, and you are better off with self oriented healing, stated so in their own interviews and game descriptions.

That said, we are supposed to be support/defensive, and since a lot of our abilities become group oriented, they are reduced in effect in order to not create the “healer” role.

So fine, we can support a little bit in the healing aspect, but for the most part everyone should worry about their own health….but then things like healing breeze never see use.

So how do they try to fix it? They make it heal allies more……….but we shouldn’t be healers?

So beyond the fact that the mechanics are backwards, and we should be upfront fighting and not behind our allies healing, it is also fulfilling a role that no one is supposed to take, and that is to pretend to be a dedicated healer.

Devil’s advocate here….we “could” use this ability while everyone in melee range is on one side of the fight, and we are on the other side of the target, thus healing through the target being hit….ok PvE maybe this works, PvP of course it ends up being pointless due to mobile fighting…among other things.

Clearly Guardian is a healer or can be. Orb of light (detonate), Empower, Healing Breeze, Virtue of Resolve, Battle Presence (for heals over time), Writ of the Merciful, Tome of Courage and Shield of Absorption (detonate). All of those heal allies substantially. How isn’t that considered being a healer? Support would be skills that reinforce allies like aoe stability, wall of reflection, shield of absorption etc.

Anet even said recently that they didn’t want a dedicated healer. But what do we have here? A dedicated healer, the only difference is the game mechanics do not require them.

Yaki.9563:

Doesn’t everyone stack in PvE? Seems to me that would make it easy to hit everyone with the cone. Situationally useful, nothing wrong with that.

Well the problem is not being able to tag allies with it. The problem with healing breeze is its by nature averse to guardian’s design.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

If they really want people to use it, I’d recommend they consider changing it into a pulsing aura with an on-cast self-heal. Something along the lines of…

Recharge: 40
Cast time: 1½

Healing: 6,525 (0.8)
Healing: 1,725 (0.8)
Duration: 2 seconds
Radius: 600

Reduce cast time to 1.5 seconds with the removal of the channel. Maintain the 5 ticks over 2 seconds, but make it a PBAoE with a 600 unit radius. Reduce Healing power scaling to compensate for the lack of needing to channel the skill.

The pulse shouldn’t heal the Guardian, only allies.

This is a great suggestion… I would further it by saying…

Make it like a Rangers Troll Unguent but pulses in a 250 radius around you.

Making it a consecration would be awesome

^ Wow, imagine a ground targeted Healing Breeze. That certainly would be interesting.

I love the idea of it being a consecration over a symbol. Consecrations are much more valuable and are fairly standardly traited for in most builds; perhaps there may be exceptions in PvP but I don’t thinl the same could be said about symbols?

In addition, there are also already two tier-one Virtue traits that give two completely different styles of utilizing it as a consecration (even if one is wildly inferior in most cases, the alternative still exists for niche situations). The mechanics are there, FUND IT!

I haven’t really had many issues with Healing Breeze personally. Of course, I use a somewhat more mid-long-ranged supportive guardian build I suppose, so maybe that has something to do with it.
I find that the cone is easy to target people with when they’re dodging around and the healing amount is pretty neat if I do say so myself, although I wouldn’t mind it being a targeted AoE providing it had enough size that people won’t just move out of it by dodging like once.

make the cone to come out from our butt… “butt healing breeze” I’d use that

jokes aside, I like the idea of making it a symbol It would also add damage to a healing skill, which sounds kinda interesting… I’ve tried using it but it feels clunky it should be our strongest heal going by the numbers, but somehow it feels really weak and the team healing works only on very specific situations

Christos de Soufre.3802:

If they really want people to use it, I’d recommend they consider changing it into a pulsing aura with an on-cast self-heal. Something along the lines of…

Recharge: 40
Cast time: 1½

Healing: 6,525 (0.8)
Healing: 1,725 (0.8)
Duration: 2 seconds
Radius: 600

Reduce cast time to 1.5 seconds with the removal of the channel. Maintain the 5 ticks over 2 seconds, but make it a PBAoE with a 600 unit radius. Reduce Healing power scaling to compensate for the lack of needing to channel the skill.

The pulse shouldn’t heal the Guardian, only allies.

Nice Idea! IMO they should make it like the Paladin’s (WoW) Holy Radiance (Pre 4.3 Patch for those who may remember).

Direct heals are pretty weak in general unless they are personal direct healing, the real strength of a “healer” roll is maintaining mitigation through well places aiges’s and maintaining as much up time on protection as possible.

that being said the need for a healer would vanish all together if people would stop standing in the AoE and dodge out of the way when the big power attack start to wind up.

Actually, I do use this build, and it is effective. I play a healing (not a tanking) guardian with full support shouts and symbols. I use Magi/Cleric Gear so I don’t overwhelm the tank with my toughness from pure cleric. This allows for Vigor on crit and lots of healing dodge rolls.

It’s not standard, and maybe it isn’t “optimal” but I don’t really care. I like it and it’s fun. I like Healing Breeze the way it is. Not every heal has to be viable for every build, though I do think that some of the ideas posted here are really cool and could perhaps be implemented as more heal options.

Aza.2105:

CMF.5461:

This is the split personality from the mechanics of the game and the core of this profession at play here.

There are no “healers”. The group oriented healing will be weak, and you are better off with self oriented healing, stated so in their own interviews and game descriptions.

That said, we are supposed to be support/defensive, and since a lot of our abilities become group oriented, they are reduced in effect in order to not create the “healer” role.

So fine, we can support a little bit in the healing aspect, but for the most part everyone should worry about their own health….but then things like healing breeze never see use.

So how do they try to fix it? They make it heal allies more……….but we shouldn’t be healers?

So beyond the fact that the mechanics are backwards, and we should be upfront fighting and not behind our allies healing, it is also fulfilling a role that no one is supposed to take, and that is to pretend to be a dedicated healer.

Devil’s advocate here….we “could” use this ability while everyone in melee range is on one side of the fight, and we are on the other side of the target, thus healing through the target being hit….ok PvE maybe this works, PvP of course it ends up being pointless due to mobile fighting…among other things.

Clearly Guardian is a healer or can be. Orb of light (detonate), Empower, Healing Breeze, Virtue of Resolve, Battle Presence (for heals over time), Writ of the Merciful, Tome of Courage and Shield of Absorption (detonate). All of those heal allies substantially. How isn’t that considered being a healer? Support would be skills that reinforce allies like aoe stability, wall of reflection, shield of absorption etc.

Anet even said recently that they didn’t want a dedicated healer. But what do we have here? A dedicated healer, the only difference is the game mechanics do not require them.

I have a different view on this. Yeah, we can take skills that make us more healy, but I don’t think it can ever be enough to heal through damage output of bosses or other players. In this sense, I don’t consider it a true healing spec at all.

The way that I roll with my Guardian is usually with my Warrior boyfriend, who really isn’t spec’d for tanking much at all. But even in fractals (up to a point) we can do just fine with him “tanking” and me “healing”. I love the idea that a Warrior tank can work with my build that is more focused on healing.

Breeze could be used in WvW in the same points in the fight where you would use staff#4, or where the commander calls for water fields + blasting.
The question is would you use it and what do you gain/lose.
Signet for big heal + condition removal.
Shelter for block.
May try it to see how it feels.

Holy Radiance was actually the inspiration for the aura idea, heh. I think it’d make sense mechanically and descriptively, as well. I’m sure there are already existing animations which could work for the changed functionality.

I actually use this on my full cleric’s guardian, although I don’t have a ton of guardian experience. It can be a very potent self and group heal.

I think it might be a bit harder to run as a frontliner in a zerg fight, which is generally what guardians are used for (never done serious ZvZ with my guardian), but I’ve made good use of it in dungeons and smaller scale fighting. I’ve even used it in sPvP in a supporty build, but never in a tournament context.

Consecrations and symbols would probably result in it having a combo field, which would just be another combo field that gets in the way of a fire field.

Personally, I’d rather just see the cooldown reduced and/or have it as an AoE that hits around the Guardian, rather than just in front of them.

Its good for Staff healer build. I use it, and stand in the mid range with AoE to prevent downed heals, and ward for preventing running, and HB for healing zerg forces when they smacking enemy zerg.

Off hand weapons would be mace and shield for circle and shields.

Healing tome for zerg stacking.

And shouts for utilitys and maybe 1 random.