Guild Wars 2

First off: I know the Ranger is not the god of support, and will likely never be thought of as the ‘Healer’ class. However, we do have some nifty tricks/fields/traits that I think can give at least a decent role. Who knows, maybe Druid will make the build ‘viable’ in the elitist sense of the word. So here we go!

The build

Gear: I mixed Vit and Tough pieces to give additional survival (dead healers don’t heal). The weapons are Zealot just because of the damage, but you can swap into additional Magi for a slightly higher Healing power should you find the damage still isn’t up to par. The Jewels are a little more power oriented, just so you’re not eating a slot and contributing nothing to damage (besides massive crit chance).

For weapons, the Longbow gives excellent range, vulnerability stacks when Quickdrawn, and passable utility should you need to move around a little more. In reality, the only weapon the build ‘needs’ is Warhorn for the extra blast and fury.

For Runes, you can swap Trooper/Soldier for Water if you need additional condition cleansing.

Side note: All of the Armor and Trinkets can be bought via Karma, so this is a REALLY cheap build to assemble, which makes it great for a second set

The Skills: Warhorn will keep Regen up on allies 24/7 by itself, and Protect Me gives you a solid stunbreak/survival skill, and Sic ‘em will provide additonal Regen/Fury while boosting pet damage. That only leaves the last utility for choice; while I’m not a huge fan of spirits this is probably a decent place for Frost but Spike Trap also gives you a solid control option.
Healing Spring actually shines here: The water field it leaves behind can be blasted for AoE Healing, Leaped for personal healing, and it’s additional Regen (in case you manage to ever need that!) You’ve got 2 sources of blast finishers (pet/warhorn) so manage them well and you’ve got roughly 3.5k burst heal on demand. More, if you plan it well.

The Traits: These should be pretty cut and dry. Boosted healing from you AND pet, perma regen/swiftness, lowered cooldowns, and a few extra benefits for your allies.

The Pets: Wolf’s Howl is multiple seconds of great control, pulling the enemy in on a taunt and then sending them away in fear. Immediately followed by a swap into a drake, who will Swipe(Blast Finisher!) as an opener, this can lead to a noticeable AoE spike heal.

Thoughts, feedback, and suggestions are more than welcome! Maybe, as a community, we can shape this up well enough to be on the current builds list!
Original

fyi, if you swap out of fern hound once you use the heal, the regen will be stuck at 5hp/s until it runs out.

Also, what is the point of the build? PvE support or WvW?

That’s excellent advice on the fern hound. I’ll toy with it to see what I can figure out.

As for the point, while I know both modes require certain changes I’d ideally like it to be able to do both. It is, however, intended primarily for contributing to groups in WvW.

I just had a quick play around and changed quite a bit, but kept the flavour of a support build. This one will maintain decent amounts of might on allies, perma swiftness/fury/regen (270hp/s) less health and crit chance, but an extra 1000 power. Just another idea.

The apothecary weapons to not belong in your power build. 2 benevolence sigils are not needed unless you plan on swapping out 1 at some point. Multiple sources of regeneration is likely overkill (guard, h. spring, dwayna runes plus you have rejuvenation trait for yourself).

For small group fights I’d go with a condition build.

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I’ve made some updates:
-Moved the build to GW2 skills (Mists wasn’t calculating a few things correctly)
-Swapped Weapons for Zealots
-Swapped Sigils for Crit Chance/Healing/Vulnerability
-Changed extra weapon to Longbow (I like GS, but felt the ability to step out of melee as needed is something I really want for the build atm)
-Replaced Fernhound with Wolf for better control
-Dropped Guard for Sick ‘em (wasn’t getting right calculations on recharges, had EXCESSIVE regen)
-Moved Spike Trap in place of Reflexes (More control, already have a good stun break in Protect me)

Even for just the first update I think this is a MASSIVE improvement to the capabilities of this build. I might have enough gold and mats to build/but the gear in storage, so this might be worth giving a go this next week.

@Samis, I have a condition build I usually run. Also working on a Melee GS build. This is just me wanting to add a bit of variety and try to actually enjoy WvW group play. Have to stop being such a loaner :-p