Guild Wars 2

I was spending time thinking of a healing build for the guardian. I came up with this build that has tons of consistent AOE healing (about 1484 healing a second in an AOE). Along with other supporting skills, I think that guardian can be a very good raid healer. Let me know thoughts and opinions!

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVUQNApdWl8AhmhYxQweIQTEH1D1NAShXAXDJxUk3iTsJA-TByGABk/EAWS5Xb6DA4EAgnSwh2fQR1f6/QAEA4A49u393D8+7v/+7v37v/+7v/epA8bvF-e

Don’t think raw healing will ever be the problem if a guard wants to be raid healer. Stuff like GotL will be, however.

They can still provide boons that can increase damage. People will take a tempest for the damage reduction, but guard has that too. He gives toughness in an AOE, along with Aegis ( can spec to give more ).

Don’t think anyone will take such a healer guardian for “boons that can increase damage”, since they’re pretty pathetic. Defensive stuff (hammer prot and aegis) can equally be brought by a dps guard.

Boons, damage mitigation, and very strong heals. Among many other things (such as stability)

I’m not saying such a build cannot be useful somewhere. It’s just the game’s combat system that makes me pretty confident it will never be competitive to a druid in raids. Unfortunately, offensive buffs are king in GW2.

It’s true, they are nice. I am just saying that I think it can be useful in the cases where people would take a tempest healer (druid will be the best for a while)

Ive played a raid heal Guardian before. It can work extremely well in certain places but the big problem is that all of the Guardians heals, minus some of the staff and utilities have a very short range and require heavy team coordination or a boss where the group will be stacking most of the time.
Healing Guardian really shines in fights like Sabetha where the group is constantly stacked on each other but suffers heavily in boss fights where the team is often split up.

Low sustained healing means more downs. Low burst healing means that the 90% damage hits found in raids are more lethal.

Where is the low sustained and burst healing you are talking about?

Cleric guard. Best guard.

I agree! (except I use magi mostly :P)

made a video for it!

A few things:

• You mention not wanting toughness, but you still take Strength in Numbers. If you aren’t the Tank (and it sounds like you don’t intend to be) then you’re still making it likely that someone will pull aggro. Communal Defenses is suually going to be the better choice. Even if you are the tank, I’d take Stalwart Defender over SiN for the cd reduction.
• It usually isn’t worthwhile to increase Staff boons. In organized pve might will be covered by someone else, and swiftness isn’t particularly relevant. Especially considering how important you view Aegis, Pure of Heart is going to be the best choice
• Force of Will is actually more healing than Writ of Persistence. You could ultimately choose any of those three Grandmasters depending on your chose utilities. Pure of Voice will increase your Healing Breeze hps by a good amount, and shouts are still nice. Maybe if you’re running Meditations (MI and CoP with SY!) then run Writ. Otherwise, the +18% healing modifier will increase total healing more than WoP will.

With that, you could be a tank/healer for the melee group since Guardian’s heals are mainly centered around themselves (not unlike dagger Tempest). A druid or staff tempest could backline heal if necessary, but you’d have those spots covered.

Here’s a build link with the differences I mentioned:
Reworked Tank/Heal Guardian

My video talks about your first 2 issues. I said those specializations were up to preference. And Absolutely not for that 3rd thing you said! You lose out on so much healing from not taking Writ of persistence, I dont know how you could think otherwise.

Also with the first thing you said: Are you saying that the tank will not have 150 more toughness then the dps/healer? Because if the tank does, then SIN will not have people grab aggro.

Its only the case if the tank has much more toughness than another party member. However, if the tank is running at bare minimum toughness (~1401) and the tank doesn’t receive SiN bonus, you can easily start running into problems where 4-5 people are running higher than the tank. Since you have clerics, you can be the tank yourself and the healer as opposed to just the healer. Taking up two roles is what would make this guardian build worthwhile over another comp. It allows for flexibility that isn’t had elsewhere. I only mention them because they aren’t quite so equivalent choices as the video explains.

And for the Force of Will point, the additional 18% healing to all of your sources will outheal the healing you get from symbols. Just by using your AA, Symbol of Faith, passive Virtue of Resolve, Healing Breeze, and Signet of Courage, you’ve about equaled your hps between using FoW and WoP. This hasn’t included any of the other sources of healing (Sigil of Water, Sanctuary, Shield of Absorption, Aegis from Pure of Heart, etc). All of those unused sources mean the 18% additional ally healing will provide more total healing capability than the additional 317 hps that you grant allies from WoP. Your personal healing from AH, aegis, and your 48% lower personal (compared to allies) heals from all other sources is easily enough to keep you alive, so you also won’t need the 244 personal WoP ticks yourself. The more healing modifiers you start adding, the more important they each become. If you had +0 healing, then maybe WoP grants higher hps, but with 30% already, the extra 18% just does that much more.

How is it possible for the tank to not get it? it lasts 6 seconds and procs every 3.

The 18 percent just doesnt seem as good as the constant bonus you get from WoP, you not only get the heal from it, but it makes it so your symbol of faith only is on cd for .5 seconds which means you will also have perma regen with this. My other heals already heal for an insane amount.

If you aren’t in the tank group and everyone is stacked, then there’s no guarantee the tank will benefit. However, if you’re the tank, then there’s never a need to worry. Again, in that case, I wouldn’t need or want to grant other allies extra toughness, so I’d take Stalwart Defender for more personal toughness and shield cooldowns (more healing and breakbar) or Communal Defenses for more Aegis from Protector’s Strike or Shield of Judgement. Either of those will probably benefit my allies more than an additional 150 toughness.

The 18% is mathematically more for your total healing output than WoP. You also get +300 vit which is icing as the tank. WoP would be better if you want more damage, but FoW is better at healing using those build numbers.

I just dont see how it could be better, you get better healing on a few things but you lose out on symbol healing (which you have 2) and the regen on the symbol is not that good anymore, because it hits less targets and lasts less time