Guild Wars 2

This is half a question and half a challenge. I KNOW Guardians and Elementalists make excellent healers, but one of the biggest draws of this game was the philosophy: “Any class can fill any roll.” Yet it seems Mesmers are left out of this too-good-to-be-true motto.
I know Mesmer can do good damage, there are plenty of shatter builds and a few good condition damage builds but I’m curious about those people who’re trying to think outside the illusory box.
Can you make a Mesmer that can support an entire team through heals and/or buffs? Can you be just as good as an Ele, Necro, Guardian, or Warrior at supporting your team through more than just damage? Will speccing a healer make you so abysmal DPS-wise that it’s actually less helpful to your team?
Prove that Mesmers are more than just weird damage dealers!

We can’t heal well, sure, but when it comes to support options, we’re actually either the strongest class, or among the strongest.

Timewarp alone is a gamebreaker. Hasted resurrection, double damage from everyone more or less, and all kinds of other fun things.

Blink is far more useful than people think in a support role. You can instantly appear atop a downed ally and start to resurrect them.

Illusion of life isn’t as good as a few other resurrects, but it comes out fast, and is AoE.

Null field…. where do I even begin. It strips buffs. It strips debuffs. It can be used to generate chaos armor and confusion. It lingers. And it tends to proc faster than condition damage. All on a decent cooldown.

Veil is great for getting people out of enemy aggro.

Diversion peels boss CC immunity off very quickly.

We naturally divert boss aggro.

We’re unmatched in our ability to tank instant kill attacks.

Portals for jumping puzzles/position manipulation.

And I could go on and on and on. We may not heal others well, but when it comes to supporting others, we really have everyone beat.

Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Pain. 2.6k group heal every 5 seconds. Is that healer enough for you?

And yeah, to do that you completely shut down your own DPS, since you can’t do very much else while channelling a Mantra.

I heard Restorative Mantras are now limited to 5 targets, so probably less viable in WvW (whereas Guardians have fields) but still great for anything else.

Don’t forget Null Field and Inspiration Signet. =)

Embolism.8106:

Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Pain. 2.6k group heal every 5 seconds. Is that healer enough for you?

And yeah, to do that you completely shut down your own DPS, since you can’t do very much else while channelling a Mantra.

Well thats the thing. Are the heals worth the DPS shut down? Wouldn’t the group be better served if you helped kill whatever was damaging them with ridiculous precision/power?

Whatever the case a Mantra healer is boring to play since all you’re doing is spamming Mantra of Pain. It might not really affect your DPS too much since a lot of Mesmer damage comes from Illusions and Shatters, which you can conjure quickly between Mantra channelling (and Shatters are instant so can be used while channelling).

Marius Verius.2530:

I heard Restorative Mantras are now limited to 5 targets, so probably less viable in WvW (whereas Guardians have fields) but still great for anything else.

Don’t forget Null Field and Inspiration Signet. =)

it’s funny how they limit anything supportive from Mesmers to 5 targets (with 3 clones means you + 1 ally) but other classes get lasting aoe skills with unlimited amount.

Mesmers are not meant to play in a group and are not meant to play against groups ? Forever Alone Mesmer ?

@OP
as said, MoP + Restorative Mantras (+ Healing Mantra for yourself) is basically the best healing support a mesmer can have. Unfortunately there’s no way to boost casting speed (except quickness). And unfortunately you can’t attack or even dodge while casting mantras. You can only attack once between the 2 charges.

“heal” is not a role in GW2, but a part of but not all of “support” so yes we dont have a lot of heal, but we got tons of support (Null field, feedback etc)

the 3 roles in gw2 is control, damage and support

Embolism.8106:

Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Pain. 2.6k group heal every 5 seconds. Is that healer enough for you?

And yeah, to do that you completely shut down your own DPS, since you can’t do very much else while channelling a Mantra.

This not only shuts down DPS, but it also requires you to cast all the time (that is no clones and other stuff). Even though 2.6k group heal sounds a lot, I think heal eles and various classes with aoe spam or strong regen provide much more in terms of support (boons, cond removal, some damage) even if they heal slightly less.

ManCaptain.3154:

Embolism.8106:

Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Pain. 2.6k group heal every 5 seconds. Is that healer enough for you?

And yeah, to do that you completely shut down your own DPS, since you can’t do very much else while channelling a Mantra.

This not only shuts down DPS, but it also requires you to cast all the time (that is no clones and other stuff). Even though 2.6k group heal sounds a lot, I think heal eles and various classes with aoe spam or strong regen provide much more in terms of support (boons, cond removal, some damage) even if they heal slightly less.

You can easily get Clones and Phantasms out during the time you’re discharging the Mantra. As the actual Mantra is instant it can be done while doing other stuff.

kudos to anyone doing a mantra heal build, the heals are big compared to my shout warrior but the whole way mantras works is so clunky an unenjoyable to me, throw in a broken phantasmal healing trait and it’s a whole lot of not fun

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

GummiBear.2756:

“heal” is not a role in GW2, but a part of but not all of “support” so yes we dont have a lot of heal, but we got tons of support (Null field, feedback etc)

the 3 roles in gw2 is control, damage and support

From what I understand, you forge your own role in GW2 depending on how you spec your character. I thought it was optional to make a healer if you wanted to.

RapidSausage.4620:

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

The thing is, for all our support options, can one actually make a support build? And would the support build be just as useful as a cookie-cutter shatter build?

I find that traiting 20 in inspiration, which gives you both “phantasms give regeneration”, and a cooldown reduction for casting iWarden is better for overall support than a mantra heal build. You of course do not heal as much as with the mantra build – but, you do give a little regeneration to your group and you can still do significant amounts of dps.

Also, inspiration minor trait III (give vigor to allies when shattering illusions) is a nice choice with 20 in inspiration as well. Toss in some runes of dwayna to give regen when you cast heal, and you have a pretty nice “support” set up that still packs a punch.

This game isnt about “Healer Role” or “Tank Role” or “DPS role”.
The combat system relies on “Damage/Control/Support” which means…

Every class has to deal “Damage” while staying in “Control” and being able to “Support” themselves in combat to be self effeciant.

Every class has their own playstyle preferences when it comes do Damage/Control/Support.

If you only focus on “Support” then ur kitteny.
if you only focus on “Damage” then ur also kitteny.

You need to focus more on balancing out the 3 to kick the other player’s kitten
Or. PvE/dugnoens lol

Mesmer have really powerful “Control” mechanics. Usually using Clones to confuse players in PvP and enemies in PvE. I rarely take damage when I fight cause of Cloning and other factors. =)

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

This game isnt about “Healer Role” or “Tank Role” or “DPS role”.
The combat system relies on “Damage/Control/Support” which means…

Every class has to deal “Damage” while staying in “Control” and being able to “Support” themselves in combat to be self effeciant.

Every class has their own playstyle preferences when it comes do Damage/Control/Support.

If you only focus on “Support” then ur kitteny.
if you only focus on “Damage” then ur also kitteny.

You need to focus more on balancing out the 3 to kick the other player’s kitten
Or. PvE/dugnoens lol

Mesmer have really powerful “Control” mechanics. Usually using Clones to confuse players in PvP and enemies in PvE. I rarely take damage when I fight cause of Cloning and other factors. =)

I agree that it’s good to have a balance, but why add traits like “blahBlah heals others” or give boons to others if everything is for yourself? and I see plenty of people speccing DPS and speccing Tanks, but few speccing support.

I was under the impression that each class isn’t SHOEHORNED into being just one role (I.E. Warriors are tanks. Casters are DPS. Priests are healers.) and that if you WANTED you could still make a pretty viable support character the way you could make a glass cannon or a beefcake.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

This game isnt about “Healer Role” or “Tank Role” or “DPS role”.
The combat system relies on “Damage/Control/Support” which means…

Every class has to deal “Damage” while staying in “Control” and being able to “Support” themselves in combat to be self effeciant.

Every class has their own playstyle preferences when it comes do Damage/Control/Support.

If you only focus on “Support” then ur kitteny.
if you only focus on “Damage” then ur also kitteny.

You need to focus more on balancing out the 3 to kick the other player’s kitten
Or. PvE/dugnoens lol

Mesmer have really powerful “Control” mechanics. Usually using Clones to confuse players in PvP and enemies in PvE. I rarely take damage when I fight cause of Cloning and other factors. =)

I agree that it’s good to have a balance, but why add traits like “blahBlah heals others” or give boons to others if everything is for yourself? and I see plenty of people speccing DPS and speccing Tanks, but few speccing support.

I was under the impression that each class isn’t SHOEHORNED into being just one role (I.E. Warriors are tanks. Casters are DPS. Priests are healers.) and that if you WANTED you could still make a pretty viable support character the way you could make a glass cannon or a beefcake.

Because its nice to be able to customize for combat with tweakings and stuff.
However, Most players that I have seen play this like World-of-warcraft. They assume that that they can Tank and Heal when really, these traits help but shouldnt be relied on entirely…

Staying in “Control” is key. It helps you in Survival.
Supporting yourself helps you in survival.
Being able to survive in combat will help you deal most damage possible to win the outcome of combat.

I can pretty much win an sPvP match against anyone with any class I play if my opponent only focuses on “Tanking” or “Healing” or worst of all, focus entirly on “DPS”

But fighting an Opponent who knows what their weapon skills do, knows how and when to use their utility skills, Tries to fight “Control” and tries to “Support” itself while trying to deal “Damage” to me, will be more of a challenging opponent and a pain in my Puppy to defeat.

I find myself being strong support without really trying, just by the nature of the mesmer and my build. With triple bounce, a staff, 2 clones and a phantasm, regen and boons fly all over the place. Until recently I had superior runes of the centaur, which really went over well in groups for the AoE 14s swiftness buff (w/ +20 chaos – upgraded to runes of air for the lightning strike, but I do miss that group effect and always-on swiftness). Null field, chaos storm, and time warp are major staples for me, and stack the boons for friendlies, and in harsher environments I run with illusion of life ready to go, which can work wonders in some rough spots.

I tend to see playing a mesmer as the art of keeping a small army going anyway, so a few more friendlies in the mix is easy enough to support and keep the damage/debuffs high, especially if you get a nice +250 power stack and flame strike AoEs (which clones can trigger too!)

GamerToukotsu.4219:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

This game isnt about “Healer Role” or “Tank Role” or “DPS role”.
The combat system relies on “Damage/Control/Support” which means…

Every class has to deal “Damage” while staying in “Control” and being able to “Support” themselves in combat to be self effeciant.

Every class has their own playstyle preferences when it comes do Damage/Control/Support.

If you only focus on “Support” then ur kitteny.
if you only focus on “Damage” then ur also kitteny.

You need to focus more on balancing out the 3 to kick the other player’s kitten
Or. PvE/dugnoens lol

Mesmer have really powerful “Control” mechanics. Usually using Clones to confuse players in PvP and enemies in PvE. I rarely take damage when I fight cause of Cloning and other factors. =)

I agree that it’s good to have a balance, but why add traits like “blahBlah heals others” or give boons to others if everything is for yourself? and I see plenty of people speccing DPS and speccing Tanks, but few speccing support.

I was under the impression that each class isn’t SHOEHORNED into being just one role (I.E. Warriors are tanks. Casters are DPS. Priests are healers.) and that if you WANTED you could still make a pretty viable support character the way you could make a glass cannon or a beefcake.

Honestly, Mesmer’s are the most versatile class I’ve seen in the game going from support to outright owning someone with a simple swap of utility skills. I know this because I’ve done it on many occasions where I was playing support and my group started falling apart because we were out manned in WvW, I swapped a few skills around and we over took the enemy.

This of course varies based on what role you need to play in the situation but, it really comes down to knowing how to play your character. Knowing if you need Feedback or Decoy, knowing if you need Portal or Mirror Image, knowing if you need Null Field or Feedback. It’s all based on situations and a competent Mesmer can really outshine any class in the game.

Every class I have played to it’s full capabilities do Damage/Control/Support excellently. Its not about switching roles. Its about being active in all 3 durring combat.

If your group is falling apart, its their fualt and not yours. It’s nobody’s job to babysit others because Like I said, Every class is capable and effeciant in dealing Damage, staying in Control, and being able to Support themselves.

Keep this in mind though: I’m not saying “Dont help your team”, But what im trying to say is “If someone in your team is dying a lot, its because he/she is not Supporting themself and not staying in Control in combat and that’s their fualt”.

It’s good to help your team out when they need too… But its better to work together and know how to coordinate Control/Support together while dealing Damage on the enemy. This requires strategy and team work with all players.

I love Mesmer because I enjoy it’s playstyle. But I also love the other 4 main classes I play as well, which are Warrior, Ranger, Engineer, and Elementalist.

This why I love this game.
The game’s combat system itself is “versatile”,
It’s not something you would see within an mmorpg game.

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

RapidSausage.4620:

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

The thing is, for all our support options, can one actually make a support build? And would the support build be just as useful as a cookie-cutter shatter build?

you have to understand, shattering is not a one trick pony, it is only a mechanic, of which you can choose to enhance certain aspects.

it just so happens that most people tend to focus on the pure damage or condition applying aspect of it, with traits you can choose to apply mass daze, mass vigor, mass condition removal, mass boon removal, mass damage, mass confusion, or enhance your own offense/defense.

the things is, once you focus on one of these aspects, you have to specialize for it to be effective, but once you spec for it, you’ll be above average in that field.

For a mesmer however, i prefer that you enhance your reflection abilities, since you have tons of it.

Max either Chaos and Inspiration and leave the other at 20, primarily to enhance your stealth and Glamour skills, you will also need to use a focus and a staff, with maybe a sword to add a little extra utility.

There is a trait that makes focus skills reflect projectiles, so that’s 2 skill with reflect, with feedback that’s 3, with the illusions traits “Distortion grants reflection” that’s 4, add in the heal Mirror that’s 5, if you choose the Inspiration trait that creates a feedback bubble when you revive someone that makes it 6, you can take the skill that adds +1 second to stealth and choose mass invisibility for an elite, and pick Veil since you will have reduced glamour CD anyway.

You will be sacrificing your pure damage to do this, but you can choose gear with condition damage since you will have a staff, and one of your other major stats that you invested in (vitality for inspiration or toughness for chaos).

this is all just hypothetical but i hope you get the idea.

RapidSausage.4620:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

RapidSausage.4620:

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

The thing is, for all our support options, can one actually make a support build? And would the support build be just as useful as a cookie-cutter shatter build?

you have to understand, shattering is not a one trick pony, it is only a mechanic, of which you can choose to enhance certain aspects.

it just so happens that most people tend to focus on the pure damage or condition applying aspect of it, with traits you can choose to apply mass daze, mass vigor, mass condition removal, mass boon removal, mass damage, mass confusion, or enhance your own offense/defense.

the things is, once you focus on one of these aspects, you have to specialize for it to be effective, but once you spec for it, you’ll be above average in that field.

For a mesmer however, i prefer that you enhance your reflection abilities, since you have tons of it.

Max either Chaos and Inspiration and leave the other at 20, primarily to enhance your stealth and Glamour skills, you will also need to use a focus and a staff, with maybe a sword to add a little extra utility.

There is a trait that makes focus skills reflect projectiles, so that’s 2 skill with reflect, with feedback that’s 3, with the illusions traits “Distortion grants reflection” that’s 4, add in the heal Mirror that’s 5, if you choose the Inspiration trait that creates a feedback bubble when you revive someone that makes it 6, you can take the skill that adds +1 second to stealth and choose mass invisibility for an elite, and pick Veil since you will have reduced glamour CD anyway.

You will be sacrificing your pure damage to do this, but you can choose gear with condition damage since you will have a staff, and one of your other major stats that you invested in (vitality for inspiration or toughness for chaos).

this is all just hypothetical but i hope you get the idea.

Wow that… That is really creative.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

RapidSausage.4620:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

RapidSausage.4620:

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

The thing is, for all our support options, can one actually make a support build? And would the support build be just as useful as a cookie-cutter shatter build?

you have to understand, shattering is not a one trick pony, it is only a mechanic, of which you can choose to enhance certain aspects.

it just so happens that most people tend to focus on the pure damage or condition applying aspect of it, with traits you can choose to apply mass daze, mass vigor, mass condition removal, mass boon removal, mass damage, mass confusion, or enhance your own offense/defense.

the things is, once you focus on one of these aspects, you have to specialize for it to be effective, but once you spec for it, you’ll be above average in that field.

For a mesmer however, i prefer that you enhance your reflection abilities, since you have tons of it.

Max either Chaos and Inspiration and leave the other at 20, primarily to enhance your stealth and Glamour skills, you will also need to use a focus and a staff, with maybe a sword to add a little extra utility.

There is a trait that makes focus skills reflect projectiles, so that’s 2 skill with reflect, with feedback that’s 3, with the illusions traits “Distortion grants reflection” that’s 4, add in the heal Mirror that’s 5, if you choose the Inspiration trait that creates a feedback bubble when you revive someone that makes it 6, you can take the skill that adds +1 second to stealth and choose mass invisibility for an elite, and pick Veil since you will have reduced glamour CD anyway.

You will be sacrificing your pure damage to do this, but you can choose gear with condition damage since you will have a staff, and one of your other major stats that you invested in (vitality for inspiration or toughness for chaos).

this is all just hypothetical but i hope you get the idea.

Wow that… That is really creative.

oh stop it you

We have Tons of support without trying. If you try, you can make a huge difference.

Ethereal fields are amazing. It’s easy to bring 4 or more. Make sure people know to use blast in the field, and you can have almost constant chaos armor on your team.

If you want to build for support there’s a lot you can do. Reflects, blinding glamour fields, regen from phantasms (ooops still don’t work right), spreading conditions on clone death or shatters, boon stripping …

As to straight up healing, I’m not a fan of spamming mantras for heals. I do sometimes take that trait, but look at it as an added bonus, not my purpose in life. Used as part of a build that grants a lot of boons and hinders enemies, it does make you very useful to everyone in your team.

The thing to keep in mind about healing is that the “healer” role has been diffused among all classes. Even the party-oriented healing skills like Healing Breeze (Guardian) and Well of Blood (Necromancer) are predominantly for the benefit of the caster— Well of Blood, for instance, heals allies… for 152 HP per second across 10 seconds. That’s 1520 HP, compared to the 5240 that it provides to the Necromancer on-cast. That’s the trend with basically every ally-focused healing in this game: you put out very small amounts of healing to your allies, because every single character in the game is totally capable of maintaining its own HP through its designated healing skill. The responsibility of keeping a character’s HP high lies with that character’s player. There are no “healers”.

So, as other people have been saying, there are plenty of ways to make an effect support build, but it’s not going to look like the traditional Cleric or Priest— for Mesmers, it mostly involves stacking random Boons on allies, reflecting projectiles, and knocking the Boons off of enemies.

They can be a reliable heal in the same way a banner warrior can be a reliable heal: AoE regeneration on illusions (although it’s not even close to as good, since it has a far longer time between regeneration).

As stated in this thread, like the Thief, Mesmer doesn’t support through heals like the healers in most games. Instead, they focus on protecting or buffing their team (boons through Chaos Storm, Ethereal Field, etc.) while debuffing the enemy.

Though they are not the conventional support (and anyone looking for this should play Elementalist or Guardian), they can still support through very useful means. Time Warp itself is a great support skill, since it’s an AoE 10 second Quickness and Ethereal field which can be used to burst down bosses with your team. There’s also Portal which, in sPvP/tPvP or WvW, can be an invaluable tool in terms of utility that no other class has anything even remotely close to. The even greater thing about Portal is that you don’t even need to be built a certain way for it to be effective.

My mesmer can’t stand up to the amount of 850hp+ aoe healing that my engineer can do, but i’d say it’s somewhat even support wise with all the boons my mesmer can cast on my team.

The real answer is no. We don’t really have very much in the way of healing or boons for allies.

Illusionary elasticity doesn’t apply to clones, so staff doesn’t actually give as much support power as you think it would.

The entire Inspiration trait tree is just bad.

The Phantasmal regen is bad. It’s amazing how kittened it is compared with warriors. Warriors get 4 seconds of regen reapplied every 3 seconds (so 100% uptime) in the huge AoE of their banner. Mesmers get 5s of regen every 10 seconds (so 50% uptime) in a tiny ~240 range of their phantasms (less than twice of melee range). Oh, also it takes 10 seconds to kick in, whereas banner regen is instant. Basically the entire Tactics line is so much better than the Inspiration line it’s not even funny (like why do all the minor traits in our support line buff Phantasms while providing no support options?).

If you run mantras with Restorative Mantras then you’re just kittening yourself to provide less healing than an Ele with less utility (buffs, condition removal).

All we have is Feedback, which doesn’t even work on a lot of bosses because they’re too tall, and Null Field, which is subpar.

Limnage.9581:

The Phantasmal regen is bad. It’s amazing how kittened it is compared with warriors. Warriors get 4 seconds of regen reapplied every 3 seconds (so 100% uptime) in the huge AoE of their banner. Mesmers get 5s of regen every 10 seconds (so 50% uptime) in a tiny ~240 range of their phantasms (less than twice of melee range). Oh, also it takes 10 seconds to kick in, whereas banner regen is instant. Basically the entire Tactics line is so much better than the Inspiration line it’s not even funny (like why do all the minor traits in our support line buff Phantasms while providing no support options?).

You’re comparing a 15 point minor trait and a 30 point major trait, and you expect them to be on par? One that you’re given for free for a measly 15 points in (not even having to choose between other traits and sacrifice something over another) compared to another that requires full 30 points in and a major trait?

They SHOULDN’T be on par. Banner regeneration should be better, and it’s a great thing that it is.

I hope you’re not saying that you think they should be on par, because you’re basically asking for an already OP class to be even more OP simply because you want to be able to do everything at the very least on par with another class.

Krathalos.3461:

Limnage.9581:

The Phantasmal regen is bad. It’s amazing how kittened it is compared with warriors. Warriors get 4 seconds of regen reapplied every 3 seconds (so 100% uptime) in the huge AoE of their banner. Mesmers get 5s of regen every 10 seconds (so 50% uptime) in a tiny ~240 range of their phantasms (less than twice of melee range). Oh, also it takes 10 seconds to kick in, whereas banner regen is instant. Basically the entire Tactics line is so much better than the Inspiration line it’s not even funny (like why do all the minor traits in our support line buff Phantasms while providing no support options?).

You’re comparing a 15 point minor trait and a 30 point major trait, and you expect them to be on par? One that you’re given for free for a measly 15 points in (not even having to choose between other traits and sacrifice something over another) compared to another that requires full 30 points in and a major trait?

They SHOULDN’T be on par. Banner regeneration should be better, and it’s a great thing that it is.

I hope you’re not saying that you think they should be on par, because you’re basically asking for an already OP class to be even more OP simply because you want to be able to do everything at the very least on par with another class.

Mesmers OP? Don’t be ridiculous. Mesmers are strong in PvP, but they are by far the least useful profession in dungeons.

Yes, Phantasmal healing should be changed to be a 30 point major trait and made on par with the banner trait. The Inspiration trait line doesn’t make any sense at the moment. It’s horrible for support, horrible for damage, horrible for everything. It’s not ridiculous to ask that Mesmers have support options AT LEAST on par with Warriors, who are more survivable AND provide more damage.

Servanin.5021:

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Are you serious? Just look at this list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing
This is not even considering traits that give more healing for Guardians.

Guardians can put out way more healing than restorative mantras, and they don’t have to sit there spamming Mantra of Pain channel and doing nothing else.

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Are you serious? Just look at this list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing
This is not even considering traits that give more healing for Guardians.

Guardians can put out way more healing than restorative mantras, and they don’t have to sit there spamming Mantra of Pain channel and doing nothing else.

But did you look at the values and uptime of those heals? They either have an incredibly small value, or a very long cooldown.

Symbol of Faith, Ray of Judgement, Hold the Line: Regeneration, not unique.
Orb of Light: 980, 15 second CD
Empower: 1500 after 3.5 seconds, 20 second CD
Faithful Strike: 463, 3rd auto-attack for mace
Merciful Intervention: 2152, 80 second CD
Sanctuary: 2660, 120 second CD

Not sure about Tome of Courage. I’ve never seen anyone use it, and i haven’t used it. Renewed Focus seems to be the definitive guardian elite.

Uber guardian self healing is self only. Altruistic healing is actually quite selfish.

Servanin.5021:

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Are you serious? Just look at this list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing
This is not even considering traits that give more healing for Guardians.

Guardians can put out way more healing than restorative mantras, and they don’t have to sit there spamming Mantra of Pain channel and doing nothing else.

But did you look at the values and uptime of those heals? They either have an incredibly small value, or a very long cooldown.

Symbol of Faith, Ray of Judgement, Hold the Line: Regeneration, not unique.
Orb of Light: 980, 15 second CD
Empower: 1500 after 3.5 seconds, 20 second CD
Faithful Strike: 463, 3rd auto-attack for mace
Merciful Intervention: 2152, 80 second CD
Sanctuary: 2660, 120 second CD

Not sure about Tome of Courage. I’ve never seen anyone use it, and i haven’t used it. Renewed Focus seems to be the definitive guardian elite.

Uber guardian self healing is self only. Altruistic healing is actually quite selfish.

Orb of Light is 12 seconds, not 15. Also, so what if regeneration is not unique? It’s still amazing, and Guardians can keep it on their group with basically 100% uptime. Only regen Mesmers can provide their group is Phantasmal Regeneration, with it’s horrible 10second startup time and miniscule 240 AoE range.

Yes, Altruistic Healing is selfish. That’s why it’s in the Valor line. Did you even look at Honor, the support line for Guardians? It has loads of party healing, and it blows Inspiration out of the water. Seriously, it’s so much better it’s ridiculous.

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Are you serious? Just look at this list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing
This is not even considering traits that give more healing for Guardians.

Guardians can put out way more healing than restorative mantras, and they don’t have to sit there spamming Mantra of Pain channel and doing nothing else.

But did you look at the values and uptime of those heals? They either have an incredibly small value, or a very long cooldown.

Symbol of Faith, Ray of Judgement, Hold the Line: Regeneration, not unique.
Orb of Light: 980, 15 second CD
Empower: 1500 after 3.5 seconds, 20 second CD
Faithful Strike: 463, 3rd auto-attack for mace
Merciful Intervention: 2152, 80 second CD
Sanctuary: 2660, 120 second CD

Not sure about Tome of Courage. I’ve never seen anyone use it, and i haven’t used it. Renewed Focus seems to be the definitive guardian elite.

Uber guardian self healing is self only. Altruistic healing is actually quite selfish.

Orb of Light is 12 seconds, not 15. Also, so what if regeneration is not unique? It’s still amazing, and Guardians can keep it on their group with basically 100% uptime. Only regen Mesmers can provide their group is Phantasmal Regeneration, with it’s horrible 10second startup time and miniscule 240 AoE range.

Yes, Altruistic Healing is selfish. That’s why it’s in the Valor line. Did you even look at Honor, the support line for Guardians? It has loads of party healing, and it blows Inspiration out of the water. Seriously, it’s so much better it’s ridiculous.

Not really related to Mesmer vs Guardian healing. But if you’re going to build a regen mesmer why don’t you use Phantasmal Duelist whose regen kick in at 3 second and have 100% up time and can be pretty much position anywhere you like?

Also I don’t know why a lot of people seem to forget about Phantasmal Defender when discussing about support mesmer. Making allies take 50% less damage and increase their AoE healing should be count as support right?

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Are you serious? Just look at this list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing
This is not even considering traits that give more healing for Guardians.

Guardians can put out way more healing than restorative mantras, and they don’t have to sit there spamming Mantra of Pain channel and doing nothing else.

But did you look at the values and uptime of those heals? They either have an incredibly small value, or a very long cooldown.

Symbol of Faith, Ray of Judgement, Hold the Line: Regeneration, not unique.
Orb of Light: 980, 15 second CD
Empower: 1500 after 3.5 seconds, 20 second CD
Faithful Strike: 463, 3rd auto-attack for mace
Merciful Intervention: 2152, 80 second CD
Sanctuary: 2660, 120 second CD

Not sure about Tome of Courage. I’ve never seen anyone use it, and i haven’t used it. Renewed Focus seems to be the definitive guardian elite.

Uber guardian self healing is self only. Altruistic healing is actually quite selfish.

Orb of Light is 12 seconds, not 15. Also, so what if regeneration is not unique? It’s still amazing, and Guardians can keep it on their group with basically 100% uptime. Only regen Mesmers can provide their group is Phantasmal Regeneration, with it’s horrible 10second startup time and miniscule 240 AoE range.

Yes, Altruistic Healing is selfish. That’s why it’s in the Valor line. Did you even look at Honor, the support line for Guardians? It has loads of party healing, and it blows Inspiration out of the water. Seriously, it’s so much better it’s ridiculous.

Pure of Heart – Don’t know, never used it before

Writ of the Merciful – 107 + 7.5% of healing power per second. Just as ranged restricted as banners or phantasmal dualist.

Battle presence – 84 per second, and competes with the amazing Pure of Voice.

Where are you getting 100% regen uptime for guardians?

Hold the line is 6 seconds, 35(28) second cooldown.
Save yourself is 10 seconds, 60(48) second cooldown and self only
Symbol of Faith is 4 seconds, 8 second cooldown
Ray of Judgment is 3 seconds, 25 second cooldown. It’ll bounce and hit twice for 6 seconds if you are alone.

So to regen someone else, you could do symbol of faith, ray of judgment, hold the line, then symbol of faith again for 17 seconds, with an 8 second gap before the next symbol of faith or ray of judgment.

By the way, if you think 240 is small, symbols have a 120 yard radius in melee range, 180 if you take Writ of Exaltation which competes with Superior Aria, 20% shout cooldown reduction.

Cleru.8609:

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Are you serious? Just look at this list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing
This is not even considering traits that give more healing for Guardians.

Guardians can put out way more healing than restorative mantras, and they don’t have to sit there spamming Mantra of Pain channel and doing nothing else.

But did you look at the values and uptime of those heals? They either have an incredibly small value, or a very long cooldown.

Symbol of Faith, Ray of Judgement, Hold the Line: Regeneration, not unique.
Orb of Light: 980, 15 second CD
Empower: 1500 after 3.5 seconds, 20 second CD
Faithful Strike: 463, 3rd auto-attack for mace
Merciful Intervention: 2152, 80 second CD
Sanctuary: 2660, 120 second CD

Not sure about Tome of Courage. I’ve never seen anyone use it, and i haven’t used it. Renewed Focus seems to be the definitive guardian elite.

Uber guardian self healing is self only. Altruistic healing is actually quite selfish.

Orb of Light is 12 seconds, not 15. Also, so what if regeneration is not unique? It’s still amazing, and Guardians can keep it on their group with basically 100% uptime. Only regen Mesmers can provide their group is Phantasmal Regeneration, with it’s horrible 10second startup time and miniscule 240 AoE range.

Yes, Altruistic Healing is selfish. That’s why it’s in the Valor line. Did you even look at Honor, the support line for Guardians? It has loads of party healing, and it blows Inspiration out of the water. Seriously, it’s so much better it’s ridiculous.

Not really related to Mesmer vs Guardian healing. But if you’re going to build a regen mesmer why don’t you use Phantasmal Duelist whose regen kick in at 3 second and have 100% up time and can be pretty much position anywhere you like?

Also I don’t know why a lot of people seem to forget about Phantasmal Defender when discussing about support mesmer. Making allies take 50% less damage and increase their AoE healing should be count as support right?

Offhand pistol isn’t very good in a support build, even if Phantasmal Duelist is bugged to kick in regen faster.

A better way of looking at Phantasmal Defender is that it can absorb up to 5300 damage total for allies in the area. This seems OK, but then you consider that 1) it also absorbs damage from other illusions, which is a complete waste and 2) any damage it takes won’t be absorbed from allies, and since it’s going to be in melee range of enemies, it’s probably going to take a lot of damage that it won’t be absorbing.

How does Phantasmal Defender increase allied healing?

Servanin.5021:

Battle presence – 84 per second, and competes with the amazing Pure of Voice.

First world Guardian problems: both Grandmaster support traits are so good it’s hard to choose between them. Imagine if the Grandmaster traits in your support line didn’t even help allies at all. That would suck, huh? Imagine a world where your traits have little to no synergy with other traits in the line, where each trait line seemed to be a random mish-mash of effects with no organization.

For regen, you forgot regen on resolve from inspired virtue, random regen from Pure of Voice, and increased boon duration from the Virtues line. It may not always be 100%, depending on Pure of Voice activations, but in practice I’ve noticed that with a Guardian in my party I almost always have regeneration up. Of course if you go Battle presence instead of Pure of Voice then you actually do have a 100% mini-regeneration on your whole team.

Limnage.9581:

The entire Inspiration trait tree is just bad. .

No, it’s really not.

5 – Grants relatiation to phantasms I ’ll grant you is buggy and not so good.

For the Minors though we have:

• I. Create feedback bubble when reviving an ally. This is good.
• II. Glamour skills recharge 20% faster. This is really good. More Feedback, more Null Field (and more Veil but I never use Veil)
• III. Shatters give vigor. This is good support.
• IV. Remove conditions when you heal. This can be good in that it gives you more flexibility in your utility choices.
• V Phanstasms have 20% more health. This is pretty worthless I agree
• VI. Move faster for each illusion. More of a pvp trait arguably.

15. Next trait – phantasms give regen. It’s not awesome, and it’s a little buggy – but I’ve seen it help. If you’re going to inspiration 20 anyway, it’s not terrible.

Next, major traits:

• VII More malice when wielding a scepter. Scepter in PVE? Yeah, ok, this is not so great for a dungeon.
• VIII. Wardens Feedback – More wardens? How is this bad?
• XI. Glamour skills last longer – this is good.
• X. Heal allies when you cast a mantra. Some people here swear by mantra builds. I personally don’t like them, but I won’t call this trait trash when I see others having great success with it.

25. Phantasms do 15% more damage. This is definitely NOT trash.

Ok now for grandmaster

• XI. Shattering removes a condition. Never tried this one personally, so I can’t speak to it’s usefulness.

• XII. Heal a small amount when shattering. In theory, this combined with giving vigor on shatter sounds interesting with a healing armor setup – but I have not personally tried it so can’t vouch for it.

The inspiration line is a mix of traits that are good in pve, some that are great in pvp, and some that are sub par. The entire tree is certainly not bad.

Restorative Mantras + Healing Mantra + Full Dwayna Set is pretty good. Obviously along with some other traits/skills.

Enjoy it until ascended gear basically removes runes from PvE.

Limnage.9581:

Offhand pistol isn’t very good in a support build, even if Phantasmal Duelist is bugged to kick in regen faster.

A better way of looking at Phantasmal Defender is that it can absorb up to 5300 damage total for allies in the area. This seems OK, but then you consider that 1) it also absorbs damage from other illusions, which is a complete waste and 2) any damage it takes won’t be absorbed from allies, and since it’s going to be in melee range of enemies, it’s probably going to take a lot of damage that it won’t be absorbing.

How does Phantasmal Defender increase allied healing?

Wait.. Phantasmal Defender defends EVERYONE!? Do they defend eachother if I have two out? Does the effect stack and mitigate damage 25/25?

Wait.. Phantasmal Defender defends EVERYONE!? Do they defend eachother if I have two out? Does the effect stack and mitigate damage 25/25?… And wouldn’t they get wiped out in like 3 seconds in sPvP?

Phantasmal Defender works like this.

When iDefender attacks, it applies a buff called “Illusion of Defence” to nearby allies (I think the range is 600). This buff causes any damage taken to be split with the iDefender.

Apparently using two or more iDefenders bugs out the effect and causes no damage splitting to take place at all.

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

Battle presence – 84 per second, and competes with the amazing Pure of Voice.

First world Guardian problems: both Grandmaster support traits are so good it’s hard to choose between them. Imagine if the Grandmaster traits in your support line didn’t even help allies at all. That would suck, huh? Imagine a world where your traits have little to no synergy with other traits in the line, where each trait line seemed to be a random mish-mash of effects with no organization.

For regen, you forgot regen on resolve from inspired virtue, random regen from Pure of Voice, and increased boon duration from the Virtues line. It may not always be 100%, depending on Pure of Voice activations, but in practice I’ve noticed that with a Guardian in my party I almost always have regeneration up. Of course if you go Battle presence instead of Pure of Voice then you actually do have a 100% mini-regeneration on your whole team.

Inspired virtue’s regen is 5 seconds out of every 57, didn’t seem relevant. Battle presence isn’t that good for the same reason that most small heals aren’t very useful; If a player is capable of surviving 20 seconds for their heal to come back up, they probably didn’t need 84 HP/second from you.

Best way for a cleric guardian to support it to try and get the mobs to attack you instead, so you can use your own massive healing and mitigation to soak up all non-circle damage.

Limnage.9581:

Mesmers OP? Don’t be ridiculous. Mesmers are strong in PvP, but they are by far the least useful profession in dungeons.

Yes, Phantasmal healing should be changed to be a 30 point major trait and made on par with the banner trait. The Inspiration trait line doesn’t make any sense at the moment. It’s horrible for support, horrible for damage, horrible for everything. It’s not ridiculous to ask that Mesmers have support options AT LEAST on par with Warriors, who are more survivable AND provide more damage.

It’s people like you that make me doubt the Mesmer population.

Mesmers are absolutely insane at just about any stage of the game. They’re FAR from bad in PvE, especially since they can have one of the highest DPS. They also have a ton of invulnerability. You guys are seriously underestimating how good Mesmer is. Constant boons through Staff, constant debuffs through pretty much anything, CC on any weapon build, huge AoE damage on any weapon build, AoE Confusion on any weapon build, the only class with consistent Ethereal fields, 10 second AoE Quickness (this alone keeps Mesmer from being “worst” in PvE), Portal to make traps, etc. far, far easier, and so on. I seriously could go on.

Mesmer is insane. It doesn’t even matter if they can or can’t heal (which they can, btw). Thief is easily worse off than a Mesmer in PvE. Whenever I start a dungeon group, I pretty much never want a thief in my group. All they really bring is stealth and DPS.

Mesmer has the most utility in the game. Thinking that they’re bad in PvE is simply an excuse for why you’re not good in PvE. The ONLY thing Mesmer lacks is consistent Condition removal, and that’s irrelevant in dungeons whenever you have Null Field or others in your party that are focused around supporting.

Limnage.9581:

Cleru.8609:

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

Limnage.9581:

Servanin.5021:

What kind of healing do you think Guardians are bringing?

Altruistic healing only heals the guardian. Empower is 1500 + 80%(?) of Healing power, Restorative Mantras is 2600 + 20% of healing power. Mantra of pain has a shorter cooldown.

I guess theres the might stacks from Empower, but its 600 yard range. You are unlikely to hit more than two people with it.

Are you serious? Just look at this list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing
This is not even considering traits that give more healing for Guardians.

Guardians can put out way more healing than restorative mantras, and they don’t have to sit there spamming Mantra of Pain channel and doing nothing else.

But did you look at the values and uptime of those heals? They either have an incredibly small value, or a very long cooldown.

Symbol of Faith, Ray of Judgement, Hold the Line: Regeneration, not unique.
Orb of Light: 980, 15 second CD
Empower: 1500 after 3.5 seconds, 20 second CD
Faithful Strike: 463, 3rd auto-attack for mace
Merciful Intervention: 2152, 80 second CD
Sanctuary: 2660, 120 second CD

Not sure about Tome of Courage. I’ve never seen anyone use it, and i haven’t used it. Renewed Focus seems to be the definitive guardian elite.

Uber guardian self healing is self only. Altruistic healing is actually quite selfish.

Orb of Light is 12 seconds, not 15. Also, so what if regeneration is not unique? It’s still amazing, and Guardians can keep it on their group with basically 100% uptime. Only regen Mesmers can provide their group is Phantasmal Regeneration, with it’s horrible 10second startup time and miniscule 240 AoE range.

Yes, Altruistic Healing is selfish. That’s why it’s in the Valor line. Did you even look at Honor, the support line for Guardians? It has loads of party healing, and it blows Inspiration out of the water. Seriously, it’s so much better it’s ridiculous.

Not really related to Mesmer vs Guardian healing. But if you’re going to build a regen mesmer why don’t you use Phantasmal Duelist whose regen kick in at 3 second and have 100% up time and can be pretty much position anywhere you like?

Also I don’t know why a lot of people seem to forget about Phantasmal Defender when discussing about support mesmer. Making allies take 50% less damage and increase their AoE healing should be count as support right?

Offhand pistol isn’t very good in a support build, even if Phantasmal Duelist is bugged to kick in regen faster.

A better way of looking at Phantasmal Defender is that it can absorb up to 5300 damage total for allies in the area. This seems OK, but then you consider that 1) it also absorbs damage from other illusions, which is a complete waste and 2) any damage it takes won’t be absorbed from allies, and since it’s going to be in melee range of enemies, it’s probably going to take a lot of damage that it won’t be absorbing.

How does Phantasmal Defender increase allied healing?

More target to heal = more heal.
If you’re healing for 100 per target.
With Defender you’re now healing for 100×2. (Which also mean the defender can take even more damage than the initial 5300 hp)
That is unless all 5 party member are hurt and in need of healing which is very unlikely.

I hope it’s the other way around. That duelist is the only Phantasmal that not bugged, since Duelist also the only one the have multiple phantasmal buff working at the same time (Phantasmal Fury, Phantasmal Healing and Vengeful Image break each other effect on others phantasmal) at the same tame.

I’m really surprised that so many people are focusing entirely on healing as the metric for being a good support. Other ways to support other players include applying boons and condition removal to allies. Signet of Inspiration (Which also makes applying boons to yourself / receiving them from party members potentially altruistic) and Null Field seem to apply.

Apparently you can take Domination IX to make torch skills remove conditions, but I’m not sure if that applies to The Prestige. (If it only applies to Phantasmal Mage, then I can’t imagine it as worthwhile. Granted, whether Torch can ever be worthwhile is up for debate, apparently.)

And of course, Staff is all about the random boons for your friends.