Guild Wars 2

I saw some folks give this topic a passing conversation in another thread, and wanted to chat more on it without pulling a hijack.

Basically; building for consistently strong healing output is the most straightforward way to keep people standing, but given our healing is so burst it also means they end up capped at full health alot. Leaning on Regen for AF gain means you need people at less than full health in order to get to CA.

It seems so natively conflicting; but finding a sweet spot between using Regen and Raw Healing is just so tempting, because being able to access CA more often can help you make the most of it’s utility – but without some raw healing to back you up you don’t often get to use it for that sake.

I’ve done alot of playing around with Regen builds trying to wrap my head around it all:

• I went Windborne Notes + Warhorn for a while, but I struggled with the weapon swapping. If we were in trouble, I’d reflexively camp Staff and ended up hampering my AF generation right when I really needed it.
• I tried Windborne Notes + Clarion Bond to get around the weapon swap, and it was alright but ultimately it just didn’t feel like enough. I added Sigil of Transcendence and Spirit of Nature got swapped in here alot, just because I felt like I couldn’t keep up.
• I added Healing Spring into the mix and tried to manage Outside of CA healing using WaterFields + Blast Finishers for a while. But it handled awkwardly during high movement phases, and I often found myself doing self-defeating things like a waterblast topping off the people I’d just applied regen to.

Where I’m at now is trying to lean harder on the ‘Regen’ side of things. Which has so far been comfy but a bit overly dependant on my heal skill.

Im mostly trying to pre-emptively drop regen on higher risk individuals, hoping not to accidentally nullify AF gain via attached big heal. So I shaved Glyph of Rejuvenation + Support Pets + Spirit of Nature and went “We Heal as One!” + Resounding Timbre + Runes of Dwayna. The struggle to pop my healing skill in the vicinity of high risk squad mates is real, but so far this level of focus on AF-generation is pretty comfy when paired with 10%-20% equipped outgoing healing plus 1k-ish Healing Power.

I’ve been giving this balancing act alot of thought lately, and I’m wondering where other people are at in their build explorations so far. Do you guys wonder much about this sort of thing? If you have, what things have you tried? Knowing what works is great, but knowing what hasn’t worked out is also pretty useful information.

I have done a lot of tests and brainstorming.

And as far as it goes, I found out I constantly cap my Astral Bar in raids with staff and glyphs only. And that’s it.
If I’m going for dedicated healer, I’m camping staff and I watch my positioning.
(edit: I’m using Glyph for burst heal for critical situations)

If I’m in an organized group, I take berserkers everything and trait up Healing Spring for AoE regen. And that alone keeps my Astral Bar full on cooldown.

Honestly, I kind of just wing it and hope for the best when it comes to regen and astral force. Windborne notes is a little bit awkward to fit into the rotation when you are on a role that forces you to staff camp (green circles, fire kiting). I have Fern Hound as back up but I try not to use the wolf unless for emergencies because it does really low DPS if I have to pet swap into it instead of casting the F2 and swapping. Sometimes i have to purposefully take damage so that I have something to heal. Maybe I’m just bad or spend too much time in CA, but there are plenty of times where I don’t regen enough Astral Force in 10s which is where the balancing act comes in.

The theory is that if you can keep the entire raid above 90% health, and generate enough astral force in that 10s CD after exitting to immediately reenter then DPS-ing with S/WH doesn’t hurt your GotL uptime. I don’t attempt this with a max healing power magi’s build, but I do with zealot/berserker builds. I kinda feel like it just doesn’t happen if people aren’t taking damage or I cast my regen spells at a bad time, but I usually hover around 1200-1400 healing power and seem to be fine with it. I usually rely on glyphs to give me the last push to fill my astral force and dropping a Seed of Life right before exiting CA can help sometimes. The times I swap in Fern Hound are usually after I exit CA to give me a little boost if I dont have Warhorn available or can’t put myself in a position to Sword DPS.

As far as PvE is concerned, I don’t consider any builds without Skirmishing to be viable as Spotter/Quick Draw are pretty big bonuses. This does limit build potential when it comes to the regen experimenting. but I think Skirmishing/BM/Druid could work. I personally really like Cultivated Synergy + Glyph of Rejuvenation, it’s a nice heal combo that I probably couldn’t play without for now.

@ Tragic
That’s interesting.
With that set-up do you feel like you have freedom to do what you want once you get into CA, or you feel that once you’re in CA you’re playing healing catch-up?

Like, hypothetically; would you feel perfectly fine Lunar Impacting Vale Guardian’s Red Circles to freeze them in their tracks, or would you regret not being able to use the Healing portion of it on your allies?

@ Turtle
Well, I guess we’re both bad, then :p

I’ve only recently started to bump into the cooldown semi-sorta’-frequently, when I was more into Raw Healing it was a ‘when the stars align’ sort of thing. Even now it’s hard to imagine AF gain playing out in a clockwork fashion. There’s a part of it that just isn’t up to me, and I can’t figure how to compensate for people being people beyond what I’m already trying.

Yeah, it’s hard to argue against Cultivated Synergy.
The number of possible targets makes it quite nice from an AF generation standpoint, and the heal really isn’t all that bursty (or so I like to say to justify it to myself). I almost always seem to get 7 or 8 healing actions from it, and a single Vigorous Recovery proc is usually along for the ride too. Om nom nom.

Oh, dropping a Seed of Life before exiting CA.
…You know, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t think of that. Thanks for the tip.

Well when in doubt, I just use the staff as Tragic said, glyphs + staff is usually fine.

Vox Hollow.2736:

@ Tragic
That’s interesting.
With that set-up do you feel like you have freedom to do what you want once you get into CA, or you feel that once you’re in CA you’re playing healing catch-up?

Like, hypothetically; would you feel perfectly fine Lunar Impacting Vale Guardian’s Red Circles to freeze them in their tracks, or would you regret not being able to use the Healing portion of it on your allies?

I’m currently playing with 3 groups, so it’s hard to answer directly.
With our dedicated Raiding Group most of people already know the mechanics almost by heart so they constantly try to avoid most of them – naturally reducing the potential healing you are usually forced to do.

So in the berserker healing setup – I basically go #4 > #3 > #4 (From QuickDraw) and back to Zerker Weapons again. I don’t really think about using Lunar Impact for slowing down Seekers. I actually never did. I didn’t need to. If I felt like no one else can handle them (we had 2-3 Viper Engies with Chill granades), I used #5 or Glyph of Tides if outside of CAF.

When I’m in my other 2 groups (one group of friends, one guildies) I usually do nothing but heal people all day long. I don’t really think about anything else but keeping us alive.
Yes, I would regret using #3 on seekers and not on healing in these groups.

Thank you for answering that.
For the record I’ve only done that occasionally myself. But it’s just such a good example of abundance, using your burstiest heal for something else, its a nice quick and dirty mental check for what I’m hoping to find in a build.

I want to be in a position where I not only get AF quickly, but also feel like I’ve got the healing situation mostly under control without it – so I can choose to use CA skills for their utility over their healing.

I’m trying to force it by trying to treat 90% as the new 100% and tapering off things that might top people off accidentally while keeping regen on. There is no equivalent concept in this game, but in ye old MMO parlance this was “leaving breathing room for the paladin to heal himself for threat”, except I’m trying to use the tactic to leave my regens breathing room for AF. I have had some success, but not across as many fights and groups as I’d like.

I get from your experiences CA freedom is less about build and more about who you’re with. Is that right? If you were like me and wanted to force the issue what would you try?

Vox Hollow.2736:

…

I get from your experiences CA freedom is less about build and more about who you’re with. Is that right? If you were like me and wanted to force the issue what would you try?

Completely correct.
Even though I always try to use the form as fast and as much as possible for GotL procs – I don’t really find any use or promotion of staying in the form.

A complete fix for the matter could be this suggestion but I suppose it’s not really going to happen. Well, it’s a nice suggestion, though.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Change-Suggestion-Celestial-Avatar-Mechanic/

Vox Hollow.2736:

I get from your experiences CA freedom is less about build and more about who you’re with. Is that right? If you were like me and wanted to force the issue what would you try?

It also depends on the encounter (assuming you’re talking a bout raids). An encounter like VG require more of a dedicated healing role due to unavoidable damage: green circles, “pie” pulsing damage, etc. Gorsy and Sabetha have little to no unavoidable damage so in those encounters you can afford being more offensive and take a break from healing.

Oh, shoot,
Now that you mention that, I realize I should probably try and phrase things to be more encounter-sensitive. Let me re-state this so I don’t sound like a screwball: I want to get AF quickly even in low pressure situations, but also feel like I’ve got a good amount of high pressure situations under control without using it.

But yeah, I get what you two are trying to get across.
Other people and the situations they find themselves in will do more to determine what my CA experience is like than anything I do personally.

Though, I admit, that conclusion kind of makes me feel a bit…helpless?

I really want to believe I can do something get more solid control over how things play out. I mean, I was expecting to “que sera sera” AF generation/CA freedom choice to some extent, but I find it difficult to accept that outlook for the whole thing.

Disclaimer: other people definitely have more raid experience than me.

Personally, on the typical Druid/Skirmishing/x builds though, regardless of gearing, I’d be inclined to agree that staff and glyphs provide enough generation.

Trait healing spring if more is needed and take that as the heal.l instead is probably the next best thing.

I’ve also seen scarce usage of water spirit… But I wouldn’t ever recommend even slotting it, so unless there is something I’m missing on that front, then yeah, but I suppose it would be worth the test for science.

Sidenote: I have been really curious about whether or not We Heal as One and the Beastmastery line would be a better traitline for builds seeking damage output than the typical Marksmanship or Nature Magic selections. Higher pet base stats and damage modifiers, copying boon received with the heal to the pet, more swapping and effects for doing so, Natural Regeneration for another possible Astral source should it be needed, etc. I mean, it might not necessarily beat out the modifiers on a Marksmanship damage build, but it definitely seems better to me logically on builds than running Nature Magic other than the minor traits that carry the selection of Nature Magic in the first place and that could be semi-replicated if not fully replaced by using Heal as One instead. I could be crazy/wrong though, but I’ve never seen the spreadsheet to show me.

@jcbroe
You are actually doing it right. Just like the Quote that no one really knows whole says:
“Dubito, ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum.”
I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am."

Lots of people use beast-mastery for DPS increase or whatever. They even used it for ZerkMeta ranger even though Nature Magic always provided better DPS.
The thing is that NM provides roughly 8% damage increase to both you and your pet (from boons) and it caps your pet at 25 might constantly. Something that Beast Mastery does not.
It all might change if you are reaaaaaaally good at We Heal as One management of Might Stacks for the pet. If you are not – The pet swapping Quickness will always be a damage loss for you. And if I’m to compare whole NM against BM minors – I wouldn’t think twice.

It is an option, yes, but if you break down what does it offer, it’s not much. Beast Mastery is an amazing line for personal DPS, but not when you are druiding. Quickness goes to waste.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@jcbroe
You are actually doing it right. Just like the Quote that no one really knows whole says:
“Dubito, ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum.”
I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am."

Lots of people use beast-mastery for DPS increase or whatever. They even used it for ZerkMeta ranger even though Nature Magic always provided better DPS.
The thing is that NM provides roughly 8% damage increase to both you and your pet (from boons) and it caps your pet at 25 might constantly. Something that Beast Mastery does not.
It all might change if you are reaaaaaaally good at We Heal as One management of Might Stacks for the pet. If you are not – The pet swapping Quickness will always be a damage loss for you. And if I’m to compare whole NM against BM minors – I wouldn’t think twice.

It is an option, yes, but if you break down what does it offer, it’s not much. Beast Mastery is an amazing line for personal DPS, but not when you are druiding. Quickness goes to waste.

I don’t know that I’d call the quickness a waste, but I definitely understand what you’re getting at.

I was thinking more that outside of the loss of the NM minors, you can use WHaO for boonsharing to the pet (and yourself) and provide the boons that may or may not be up on party members that it benefits trait wise, similar to what the NM line does, but give the pet “scholar runes” with the BM line. You’d really only want to use the quickness for fast casting druid skills like dropping 1 or channeling 4, so that is definitely a bit mote wasteful than the NM GMs, and the DPS difference is probably negligible regardless of which setup it would favor, though I have no doubt it favors NM.

I just like spreadsheets really lol.

The whole thought only occurred in regards to traiting shouts to give regen for Astral Force. I find that in smaller scale environments that glyphs, staff, and traited shouts are already overkill at generation, and that glyphs and staff are probably enough but that regen is nice to be apply to apply as a healer since Druid bursts more than sustains heals.

Still, Healing Spring, so yeah lol. Was just thinking out loud, so to speak

So I tried traited water spirit + longbow camping on Sabetha since I was doing the fire kiting anyways. Didn’t work as well as I thought it would, but I assume that’s because there was nothing for regen to heal lol. I ended up having to use staff to top off Astral Force multiple times.

TurtleDragon.3108:

So I tried traited water spirit + longbow camping on Sabetha since I was doing the fire kiting anyways. Didn’t work as well as I thought it would, but I assume that’s because there was nothing for regen to heal lol. I ended up having to use staff to top off Astral Force multiple times.

On Sebetha I had the same difficulties as you did.
However, we eventually decided it’s best if druid is inside the stack. So my former problems disappeared.

But for Sebetha I didn’t use healing spring or spirit at all. You only need healing when you cross 50% and there you need the staff as much as you need drugs for your life (you don’t have to take them but you’ll die eventually if you don’t). At 25% you even need Spirit of Nature I suppose. And I’d suggest Spirit of Stone, as well.

Oh, also, for Sebetha, if you bring in a DragonHunter – the fight will get like 20% easier. A lot of the explosions will go into Aegis. It’s a fair trade-off for the DPS loss.

Yep, I definitely agree that Druid is better inside the stack group, especially if you have a condi necro with a ton of minions out. I do run with a variety of groups and often help out friends outside of my normal static so I don’t always do that job. But yeah, I was just bored of running the standard “meta” set up and brought 5 traited spirits to see if I could regen enough AF without staff.

I’m glad you gave that a go, Turtle

Believe it or not, Water Spirit’s actually the direction Dulfy’s guide went.
I’d been curious about how well Nature’s Vengeance handled a low pressure drought of things needing to be healed. Sad to hear it didn’t go so well.

Tragic Positive.9356:

If I’m in an organized group, I take berserkers everything and trait up Healing Spring for AoE regen. And that alone keeps my Astral Bar full on cooldown.

+1 for this. Tried it out tonight and it worked out much better than I thought it would.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Tragic Positive.9356:

If I’m in an organized group, I take berserkers everything and trait up Healing Spring for AoE regen. And that alone keeps my Astral Bar full on cooldown.

+1 for this. Tried it out tonight and it worked out much better than I thought it would.

I’m glad I could be of help
o7