Guild Wars 2

So, Litany of Wrath base function is:

- 1640 initial heal
- 25% of outgoing damage converted to healing.

This all on its own is really, really bad and there would be no reason to ever take this skill.

But with Monk’s Focus the function is:

- 1640 initial heal
- 1960 trait heal
- 4 seconds of fury
- 25% of outgoing damage converted to healing.

This is a little better, but still not enough to use it,

And finally with Monk’s Focus plus Smiter’s Boon the function is:

- 5560 total heal (1640 + 1960 + 1960)
- 8 seconds of fury (4 + 4 from Smite Condition)
- 2 conditions removed
- roughly 1200 aoe damage
- 25% outgoing damage converted to healing

All this on a 24 second cooldown and a 25ms cast time.

I read everywhere how bad this skill is, but this does not sound so bad to me, more like one of the best healing skills in the game, so am I missing anything?

If you think it’s the best healing skill in the game, you should try it. I did exactly that when they buffed meditations and added the heal, it’s not as good as it seems. If you run meditations, the majority of what you listed is already applied to other heals as well. Basically just gaining 25% outgoing damage heal and 4 seconds of fury. I instantly felt how hard it hurt to lose shelter and would still use the trap heal over wrath if I had to choose.

if it was 75% outgoing dmg than I might take it, but 25%…shame shame shame.

Sylpheed.8163:

If you think it’s the best healing skill in the game, you should try it. I did exactly that when they buffed meditations and added the heal, it’s not as good as it seems. If you run meditations, the majority of what you listed is already applied to other heals as well. Basically just gaining 25% outgoing damage heal and 4 seconds of fury. I instantly felt how hard it hurt to lose shelter and would still use the trap heal over wrath if I had to choose.

That doesn’t make sense though, the heal does what it does, why does it matter if other skills have similar effects. What matters is the value you get from using that heal, and to me what you get seems quite nice. I didn’t say I thought it was the best heal in the game, I said it was one of the best. I might be wrong of course, it’s how it seems to me.

For an added layer, when burn guard was a popular build, litany also healed off the burn ticks. So it was was easy to go from low health to full health in a single casting of purging flames into even a pair of targets. But the caveat was appkying the burning after litany was cast.

It may work in PvE land but it is a failure in PvP.

In PvE, shelter can block more damage than your hp bar while healing you at the same time. The heal trap has a vastly superior reliable heal that can also be traited to bring CC. Outside the meditation synergy this is an unreliable heal. It would see more play if it boosted your damage by x% for its duration and its duration was slightly extended but the heal itself reduced to 10% or so.

In PvP it is absolute garbage. In no circumstance is a proactive conditional heal good in pvp. Proactive heals are easily punishable by good players. If they see you pop this skill then they will kite away from you or CC you for its duration (just as you would vs an endure pain warrior). You may try to rationalize this being an ok trade-off since you got positional advantage while they run away but unlike endure pain which is a utility skill, this is your main heal being burned for garbage returns.

Good on paper but dont work in practice when ANET keep buffing other classes to avoid them to leave the game, while guardian concept keeps balanced on paper/theory.

Zsymon.8457:

Sylpheed.8163:

If you think it’s the best healing skill in the game, you should try it. I did exactly that when they buffed meditations and added the heal, it’s not as good as it seems. If you run meditations, the majority of what you listed is already applied to other heals as well. Basically just gaining 25% outgoing damage heal and 4 seconds of fury. I instantly felt how hard it hurt to lose shelter and would still use the trap heal over wrath if I had to choose.

That doesn’t make sense though, the heal does what it does, why does it matter if other skills have similar effects. What matters is the value you get from using that heal, and to me what you get seems quite nice. I didn’t say I thought it was the best heal in the game, I said it was one of the best. I might be wrong of course, it’s how it seems to me.

Like I said, if you think it’s so good you should use it then. On paper it’s nice, but it’s not what it seems. Everyone else is stating why it’s not that good too, even if you get “value” from having smite trait. The value you speak of is literally 4 extra seconds of fury and a heal, which finally puts it on par with shelter’s heal. The damage converted to heal is Wrath specific, and most people prefer shelter’s block since it’s way more likely to negate more damage than the 25% heal from wrath would do, or trap heal for the daze and near double heal amount. If you’re a PvEr then there’s not much to discuss as it’s all preference, but I’m speaking from a PvP point of view.

Ragnarox.9601:

if it was 75% outgoing dmg than I might take it, but 25%…shame shame shame.

agreed,
traits aside to get any decent heal out of Litany you’d need to deal something like 30,000 damage in 6 seconds. (5000 dps)