Guild Wars 2

See this for a possible solution: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Simple-Idea-Mark-of-Salvation-while-in-CAF/first#post5675775

Are you guys finding the use of a commander tag to be a useful addition to your role as a full healer/support Druid, whether this be PvE or WvW?

The reason I ask is because I don’t currently have one (God I wish I’d got one back when they were 100g…) and I’ve been finding it difficult trying to coordinate people around my healing in large map events or WvW. I feel this would be helped a lot by calling “heals on purple tag!” or something, which I’ve not seen anyone in WvW do yet, which surprises me. Gold burns kitten in my pocket in this game but I’ve managed to save up 348g so I now have more than enough to buy one, but I don’t want to spend that if it’s not really going to help my role as a dedicated healer in these scenarios.

Not sure the commander tag would be the solution. Being able to put some form of marker on you could be good though. But really, for big events I would love to have some sort of easy way to tell who are in need of healing other than mousing over players (even though that works decently when you get used to it).

Toggable health bars that’s been a suggestion could be a nice addition, and even better if you were allowed to set a health treshold for when they should pop up above someone.

Use the free mentor apple tag: an apple a day keeps the healer away…

:p

cafard.8953:

Use the free mentor apple tag: an apple a day keeps the healer away…

:p

I’m not 100% familiar with mentor tags but I’ve read that they can’t be used outside of maguuma or PvE in that sense. So I don’t think we could pop them in WvW

@OG – I agree, I’d love to have some kind of marker built-in to the Druid profession, even if it was just something subtle to say “hey guys over here, look! phree healz!” But I think Anet are reluctant to give us more visible health bars because they’ve previously said they don’t want us looking at the UI all the time and would rather us focus on enjoying the gameplay. I am less bothered about visible health bars though, just due to the fact that if someone needs healing they should take the initiative to rally towards the Druid themselves rather than have the Druid doing the chasing 100% of the time.

Bryzy.2719:

I think Anet are reluctant to give us more visible health bars because they’ve previously said they don’t want us looking at the UI all the time and would rather us focus on enjoying the gameplay.

If the health bars were located @ the actual character, I wouldn’t think of it as “looking at the ui”.
On the other hand, I can see the issue with providing healthbars, next step show condition markers, next show how much vigor someone has, and so on…
It could quickly turn into something we don’t want. However, if things are able to be turned on/off, it would be a personal preference. Best thing of course would be if the actual game provides hints without the need for said bars. Currently, it doesn’t really.

Get mentor tag from mastery. Its cheap and easier to get.

I been playing on my druid, and yes easier when you explain to others what you are and why allies should come near your tag for heals.

keep in mind that the community is still very much conservative towards the new healing role, so they take some time to understand the importance of the healer at first.

In a 5 man I make it clear that I’m taking over the target function when I need it. If someone is going down I click their name, mark them as target and then find the target marker. Then staff 3 to them or swap to avatar and start hitting them with “the blue death ray”.

The hardest part is getting people to understand that they need to not move around so much once they’re targeted. They are so conditioned to strafe and roll all the time that it’s making it impossible to hit them, considering that there’s a second or so lag between your hitting 1 and the ray coming down.

Finding people who need healed is the biggest issue. Having them evade those heals so that 80% of them are wasted is second.

In groups it not much of an issue (except for the moving around part, lol! skill #1 and #2 probably needs some work because of that).
It’s more in wvw and open world events, or if you play solo but hang around with others, and you want to help others with healing, it’s a bit clunky atm. It’s doable, but not obvious who might need your help.

If your team mates can take the initiative to group to you when they need healing this would help alleviate the issue of trying to play healing whack-a-mole with them. Hence the need to tag-up and shout “to me for heals!”.

But as others have said, the whole idea that healing is now near enough a necessity in some content is a new concept for GW2, so it’s going to take people time to adjust to the fact that they can actually rely more heavily on other players for their healing.