Guild Wars 2

I would love to try out a healing build for a warrior using shouts and banners but I’m worried that the only practical use would be in dungeons and WvW. I don’t like the thought of it taking me longer to kill mobs in Cursed Shore, but I haven’t tested anything…

Is your farming ability drastically dropped if your spect to heal/tank?

I’ve messed around with pure healing (and support) warrior and this is the best I can come up with for a pure heal spec:

0/0/30/30/10

Trait shout heals. Trait full defense for healing power bonuses and survivability (self regen). Trait 10 pts into discipline for signet fast recharge.

Equip 6 runes of dwayna and all healing power gear. Dwayna runes will make your now 16 second recharge signet of health give an AoE regen. Water may also be a good option for straight AoE heal.

Now, perma summon a banner of tactics and forget that you even have weapons (maybe throw runes of water on them just in case you have to use them). Pick up the banner.

Run around using the banner #2 ability for an AoE heal + regen. Use your self heal signet for additional AoE regen or AoE heal whenever it is up. Shout whenever you can for additional condition removal and AoE heals. When nothing is available, use banner swiftness ability for AoE swiftness. REVIVE people whenever you can

Now the bad news:

Good as this is, it lacks a lot just in the way the game is put together right now. sPvP relies a lot on 1v1s and really small fights since it’s only 5v5. With such small teams, your heals will almost never be as effective as just a more passive amount of support combined with damage.

In dungeons, pure heals are also less effective than I’d like. Many bosses do some seriously massive one-shot type abilities and players frequently go from full health to dead before you can heal them properly. In many ways, a good dungeon healer might just be some version of this combined with mercy runes with an emphasis on reviving.

lol. Looking back at your post, I may have gone on here for nothing, as whta I have described may be a bit more ‘pure’ than you want. You will DEFINITELY take longer to kill things with the build I have described. On the bright side though, you can be near invincible.

Thanks for the info, it sounds tempting to do in WvW.

I’ve been playing a sort of Warrior-medic role in WvW and it is very exciting! Running into an enemy AoE ring to start rez’ing a downed teammate, pulling mad aggro, and both of you dodge-rolling for your lives, surviving by the skin of your teeth!