Guild Wars 2

Druid is supposed to be major burst healing.

Ventari is supposed to be more sustain oriented.

However, some are already saying that they feel the opposite is true.

REVENANT
Salvation has a ton of outgoing healing modifiers and big, chunky, aoe heals from Ventari. Of course they have energy restrictions. This means they can get off MAHOOSIVE heals, but only every so often if they’re spamming to try to get people healed up from nothing to full. Ventari feels more urgent to me anyways. Like he wants to get in there and save rumps like a pro, and heal up fast like a centaur.

Potential for massive individual heals + restrictions on availability + my own opinion of how Ventari feels = suited for burst healing.

DRUID
Druid has, like, a million different heals. The staff auto attack provides a constant HoT. Astral Wisp is a HoT. Regeneration (a very common Ranger boon) is a HoT. Natural Mender encourages many instances of healing. Ca 1 and 2 are spammable heals to the point of being HoTs, and 4 is just a very strong HoT. That and Druid seems to match a bit more with the idea of steady regrowth.

Tree trunk load of healing instances + HoTs out the wazoo + minors that encourage continuous healing + regrowth theme = suited for sustain healing.

What do you think? Do you prefer it the other way around?

I think I like Druid the way it is. I haven’t played a Ventari healer spec, but from what I’m looking at in the build maker, it seems like something revolves mainly around positioning the tablet and scattering healing fragments/orbs that people actually have to walk across to be healed. Seems very cumbersome (especially with pugs) compared to Druid’s on demand AoE healing.

On top of that, sustain (damage) is already the main theme for the core Ranger. I don’t think we need our first elite spec to also be designed with that in mind.

No.

With the current spell effects and even the lore behind the skills, Ventari should be the sustain healer. You can move the tablet every 2s according to CD, realistically it is more like every 3 once you factor in cast/aftercast — and the main heal “natural harmony” is also on a 2s cd. While you cannot maintain energy by spamming skill 8 “natural harmony” you CAN do so while spamming #6. As to the ‘lore’ reason: ventari’s tablet teaches a philosophy of acceptance and compassion that would engender a drive to persevere through hardship (aka sustain healing) rather than instantly right it (aka burst healing).

Secondly, while we don’t know the specifics of raids beyond the first encounter, it is likely that burst healing will be useful in some of the harder fights. In this vein, I would much prefer rangers (who up till now have been excluded by those afflicted by a ‘meta-centric mindset’) to be the ones to fill that role. I am not saying no other class should be capable of healing on par with the druid, nor am I saying that I am 100% satisfied with the healing capabilities or lore of the druid. I’m saying that in light of how useful Revenants/Heralds already have shown themselves to be, perhaps throwing a bone to a class that has been (arguably) underdeveloped for 3+ years might be in order.

Who said Druid is supposed to be burst and Ventari is supposed to be sustained?

Pretty sure both are supposed to provide team support. How they play out is how they’ll play out. Let’s wait and see how they do in raids.

Lome.8239:

Who said Druid is supposed to be burst and Ventari is supposed to be sustained?

Roy did. You can find his red post somewhere in the revenant section. Against the background of BWE3 it’s an odd comment, though, since druid had massive sustain through burst healing – there wasn’t a division for the druid. Staff recharged CA almost instantly and every 8 seconds you could channel 4, your massive mobile burst heal, while also spamming 1k -3k heals via 1 and 3 in your down time.

Roy’s division of roles, burst and sustain, might be intended design, but the druid very obviously filled both in BWE3.