Guild Wars 2

Bored on my break at work and “bin thinkgen bowt gild worz too”, so decided to make my own build for the first time.

I’ve played since early access but never actually bothered to theorycraft builds and always relied on metas and other people’s advice.

Anyway, in the spirit of druidism – pun intended – here’s a build fully focused on healing/support for team encounters. Gameplay is using skills available to you to keep your friends alive in scenarios such as boss fights, attacking keeps and coming under fire (so allied zerg is static), general zerging,. This is my first own-made build so I won’t be surprised if you guys find lots of holes/flaws in it. Not had chance to test if it’s even worth playing as I’m not at home. So essentially, it might be pure crap.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNMQNBHhF6kRF6F0eVwfFIaxAVCVrA4dPkD7s7LYDy4Le7JJ-TBiEABJ8IAES5Xuq/QqSQm2foO9BCfGAAw8HpAQWvF-e

Sources of healing:

- Healing spring
- Warhorn skill 5 for blast finisher in healing spring
- Pet F2 skill activation (invigorating bond trait)
- Permanent regen for you, pet and allies with “guard” and Nature’s Voice trait
- Regen from Sylvari hound F2
- Circle of Life trait – creates healing spring around you when you are downed (may be better to swap out for concentration training?)
- Spirit of Nature
- Greatsword “swoop” leap finisher through water fields
- Superior sigil of water: 30% chance on hit to heal allies in a radius around your target
- Superior sigil of renewal: heals allies on weapon swap

As I say this is an entirely selfless build so there is no focus on your own attacking power.

Could this be a useful basis for a support build at all or is it just entirely worthless?

It’s not like being “worthless”
… But you practically block a space for meaningful player.

This build does not grant your team immortality, it doesn’t give any straightforward advantage… And your damage is very close to pet alone – which is … Weak. Since the pet is not even a feline.

All in all – there is only one place where I needed a healing spec. And that’s Mai Trin in fractals. Because you don’t need damage there. You need to survive there. And since the only change-providing ability does not scale with healing power at all (elite)… There’s no point in investing into Healing Power.

In my humble opinion – you’d be more useful with an Off-hand Axe than a Warhorn. You’d be able to interrupt an enemy – also pulling him to melee range – where your group is. You’d also apply 12% vulnerability and provide AoE reflection bubble.

Which is thousandfold superior to overcapped regeneration, overcapped swiftness and 1 blast finisher. That is what I can tell you.

If you want to support your team up – Bring Longbow to your bag, open with 15 vulnerability stacks, swap to sword+axe pull the enemy to you – apply another 12 stacks from axe – and your party would be more thankful than giving them permanent Regeneration that hardly ever made a difference.

If we are talking about PvP – You have no stability to play a role of point-holder. You’d also be killed sooner or later.

If you really want to be a life-saver – just having your elite spirit is enough. Ressing your teammates is more than enough support. Regeneration is worthless.

I had a ton of fun playing these types of builds in GW1, but they really just don’t work in GW2. Here is a video where a GW2 player Wooden Potatoes makes one of, or the highest possible healing builds in the game, way out-healing yours, and still thinks it sucks:

If you want to do team support, try to modify your build to work in PvP. There are several different professions that focus on healing/condi removal in the meta at the moment. See if you can come up with a self-reliant build that does some damage and can also keep teammates up.

Beat me to it with that video Fluff. Playing as a “Healer” is not the way to go if you want to be support.

Thanks for the feedback guys. If I’m honest, I was indeed expecting it to be along the lines of “that much healing power would be better off replaced by something else to be more useful”, since healing is much more individual in this non-trinity game.

The main reason I posted it was because I’m pretty sick of playing my apothecary RRR bunker 100% of the time, and zerker longbow ranger has just become so incredibly pleb that I just wanted to have a taste of something different. Oh well, I’ll wait till Druid spec now. Either that or it’s a case of me just being sick of playing a non-trinity game :P

Many of the individual pieces of your build are incredibly useful in PvP. Adjust and give it a whirl, you might like it. Or if you’re not dead set on ranger, maybe try a shout-heal warrior or any of the other popular “healing” builds in PvP. I also enjoy playing an altruistic healing guardian in the WvW zerg sometimes (usually when I’m drunk.)

Fluffball.8307:

Many of the individual pieces of your build are incredibly useful in PvP. Adjust and give it a whirl, you might like it. Or if you’re not dead set on ranger, maybe try a shout-heal warrior or any of the other popular “healing” builds in PvP. I also enjoy playing an altruistic healing guardian in the WvW zerg sometimes (usually when I’m drunk.)

Cheers that’s some pretty constructive advice right there.

Also, drunk WvW is the best WvW. Nothing like a bit of alcohol to help ease the monotony of those un-updated environments :P

Bryzy.2719:

Also, drunk WvW is the best WvW. Nothing like a bit of alcohol to help ease the monotony of those un-updated environments :P

Truer words were never spoken.

Healing can be fun in WvW when you need to soak up constant siege damage. Had a guildie recently rolling as a healbot elementalist (an Asura cosplaying as the final fantasy white mage). His staff alone was keeping the party fully topped up at a tower gate under multiple AC fire. No idea how much that would be true of ranger healing though.

Let’s say that with high healing power you’ll heal around 350 per second through the regeneration boon, 320 through your elite and you’ll have even the Water Spirit for some bonus healing (which is not that high).

Your Sylvari hound can heal for 4K every 20 seconds, and your Moa can heal up for 4K every 40 seconds if I’m correct.

That’s somewhere around 700 per second with 4K active heals. Water Spirit might heal around 600 every 10 seconds, and the active component might heal for 1500 with healing power?
I’m not sure. Too lazy to check it atm.

I’m still positive that the only thing that makes Ranger a good support is the Stone Spirit, Elite Spirit for ressurection, Water Field and it’s cleanse component (6 condis in 10 seconds is actually pretty fine considering it’s AoE)

And SoR! One of the best skills in the game.

I’ve used an EXTREMELY similar build to this before, however i had sigil of benevolence instead of renewal, mercy runes, zephyr speed as my GM in BM, i took vigorous training over Shout Master, took vigorous spirits over Concentration Training, and took LB over Axe/Horn, I also had a brown bear/redmoa as my alternate pet + fernhound.

I gotta say, the build doesn’tlook like much, but much to one of my friends dismay (he really wanted the build to be useless so i’d switch), I was able to carry any idiot we ever had as a PuG. Stands in fire? So what, the regen was ticking for more than a heal signet, no condi removal? I got that. Dodges too much? I’ve got a lot of vigor. Doesn’t Dodge? Protection and/or super fast mercy rune rez will fix that.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNMQNBHhF6kSF6F0eVwfFIaxAUCVrA49q2qds7qdC24Le7JJ-TBiEABJ8IAES5Xuq/QqSw60HI8ZAAAzfyt/ApAQWvF-e

try this on pet swap and rotations your pet will deal a lot of bleeds while (swap moa to cat for some quick very fast bleeds)
with split blade and chill it’ll be more than enough if you use the pet swap quickness + mighty swap with the runes adding additional might on heal with fury for team mates.
you will slowly build up might stacks that last a long duration maxing pet at 25 stacks + increasing its bleeds by 750 condi damage + 350 from trait = 1100 condi damage for those bleeds the pet causes.

natures protection so if they focus you again it triggers it toughens up your pet with protection.
i beleive that heals on swap and Shout is enough to sustain any team , i used a shout spirit build a a few days ago with 2.8k regen healing it was enough to walk through a fire field and only began to stuggle when it became a 3vs1.

this set up boosts damage and it goes well with that main hand axe support.