Guild Wars 2

I have been trying to build up to maximum passive regeneration as of late. I figured others are interested in the passive regeneration as well, so I figured we could pool some resources. I am leaving healing banners out of the mix since the generic regeneration boon can be provided from other sources.

Sources of Passive Regeneration:

Skills:
Healing Signet

Traits:
Adrenal Health (15 point Defense trait)

Consumables:
Mango Pie
Boon of Regeneration (Tier 3)

Runes:
Rune of the Dolyak

Curious if anyone has found a vendor that gives a Boon of Regeneration higher than Tier 3? They supposedly exist, or have existed, so would love to know. For those who want the Boon of Regeneration (Tier 3) you can find it in Gendarran Fields near the Almuten Waypoint in the east of the map in the basement of Almuten Mansion by talking to Miss Mipp and convincing her how awesome you are.

Am I missing any sources of passive regeneration here? Doesn’t really matter how effective they are (looking at you, Dolyak signet).

It has been stated that Rune of Dolyak isn’t effective. The regeneration it provides is only 30hp/s. Worthless.
Same for Healing Signet. If you consider brute healing, Healing Signet will heal for 200hp/s (passive), 166hp/s (active), or 199.02hp/s (active + faster recharge).
Mending is already more effective, at 224hp/s
Healing Cure is the best in terms of pure healing, because most of times it will be used at max rate : 200/230/288hp/s.

Adrenal Health is good, and you should consider (if you’re building on max crit), the sigil of blood.

Not sure if Dolyak is worthless. You gotta look at it differently. Over the course of a 30 second fight (a reasonable amount against common PvP builds, I’d say), it basically increases your HP by 900. Still not that much, but it it’s greater than any single piece of gear you can get.

Healing Signet, as mentioned before, is just worse. It does trigger immediately as you take damage, can’t be interrupted, doesn’t reduce your DPS by having a cast time, but… it’s still worse. I’ve no idea what A-net has been thinking.

Sigil of Blood is great, but remember that proc Sigils don’t stack, so pair it with Sigil of Leeching.

I think Healing Signet is designed strictly to be more “casual friendly” for new players and such. Not having to manage another cooldown is worthwhile for some players, even if it isn’t the most beneficial way to go.

Depends on how well one uses the cooldowns.

Healing signet will still be healing at 200hps with no player interaction.
Mending will be healing for 201.6hps at 90%, or 179.2hps at 80% efficient use.
Healing Cure takes dropping to 70% efficiency to drop to 201.6hps.

Efficient use requiring good player timing, and enough damage being taken to get all the potential healing out of each skill use. If not getting full use every time the skills come off cooldown, one may be better off with the always on slower healing of Healing Signet.

This ignores the other effects of the various healing skills and the value of lump sum heals over healing over time.

Also, a traited banner grants AoE regen.

I’d advise against any regen-based builds. Healing in general is very weak across the game (aside from Guardians. jeez.), and especially so on Warriors. Regen is even less effective, and would make more sense on a class that is actively mitigating damage for long stretches (like a Thief or Mesmer might).

In PvE, healing signet is more than enough, as you can avoid damage for the most part. You won’t need an armor set for it. Most of the time, a solid basic defense combined with a focus on offense is all you need. Killing your target is the best form of mitigation.

Considering you don’t have to pass up on much to get some really decent passive regeneration, I feel it is a great thing to aim for for general survivability. A fairly constant 500hp/s ticking away is pretty amazing when using line of sight and for straight up fights.

I usually use healing shouts for my burst healing, so I am not terribly concerned with that since even generic healing shouts are amazing (imo) with passive regen.

Mostly just looking for any sources of passive regen that I might have skipped over in the game, so that others who are looking to max it out can as well :-)

I like the passive affects of healing signet and adrenal in WvW. Passive allows me to go toe to toe with any range class and out damage them. I will always be healing and can stay engaged longer in large fights. A lot of damage in WvW is splash AOE damage, passive will take care of that. If you are getting tag-teamed by 2-3 people, you don’t have time to use a heal and most likely will never get it off. It is easier for me to focus on kiting and breaking immobilize than picking exact right time to use my healing to maximize my heal per second. Also, if I am at 90% health, in combat but not being focused, do I just heal and risk being caught without my timer up or do I wait till I am at 70% and being focused on again to heal? By then, healing from 70% to 100%, then taking more damage is not as good at being at 100% health and having passive healing per second.

I tried with just adrenal, but didn’t like it is really not enough. You also don’t always have it since you aren’t always at full adrenal. There are times you want to burst.

@Edelweiss : 900hp ? That’s 90 vitality. Most runes bonus set will make you more than this low advantage.

@Plague : I agree on most points.

@Thrishmal : The healing shouts are a very poor healing. To them to be useful, you need at least some healing power. To this to be worth it, you need a group and a decent use of shouts, else, another stats would be more useful (in dps, or whatever). This has to be considered. For your build to be viable, do you give up too much in something else ?

@Lijona : The healing signet is simply worst. The only case it’s better is when you don’t use efficiently the other heals. As said, it’s casual friendly, but no point in it. Even if it’s entirely heal focused (no adren nor condition removal), it heals less.
AoE damage ? Mending or Healing Surge will take care of it.
Even tag teamed, you have time to use heal. Dodge, use it, it’s ok. Or block, or whatever. Even without it, it’s possible, you can move using it, etc.
You will use heal as soon as it matches your the health you lack. Then, you’ll always be at full potential for a healing spell.

And as adrenal, adrenal is part of some traits (Heightened Focus, and one in Strength I don’t remember the name). These traits rely on adrenaline level. And apart from axe, you can always run a build which you don’t need burst, except in very rare case.
Sword ? Flurry just to finish the enemy.
Mace ? Exceptional cc.
Greatsword ? You can have 100%crit without it, so not really useful.
Rifle ? More a finisher
I’m not saying you have to play without bursts, but it’s possible, and as efficient as a build that use bursts. So please stop including adrenaline level in other topics (not only you and not only this one).

You would be correct if Runes of Dolyak gave nothing but this passive regen, but they have a bunch of stats on them, much like the other runes. You can say that Dolyak is the set that gives the most HP if a fight is at least somewhat prolonged.

Yeah…Dolyak does have Vit+tough. You’d prob be better off with Soldier’s though in most circumstances for the free condition removal.

@Edelweiss : All runes have other stats on them. It’s irrelevant. The fact is that most (6) bonus are better than this regen.

Those criticising regen builds, have you actually played them?
My build is very similar to what is being asked about, with all the same regen except consumables.
Further, my armour and trinkets are all Knight’s, so the only vitality bonuses I get are from the Dolyak runes.
I find my durability has sky-rocketed since adopting this build. I’m using a Knight’s axe and warhorn as my main weapons, with a rifle for range.
There’s no Healing specced in my build at all by the way, yet the heals from shouts are enough to get me and my allies out of trouble on a regular basis. The regen is just the icing on the cake. Healing signet may look a bit poo on paper, but I find the cumulative effect works well.

You are missing at least 2 more sources;

The actual Regeneration boon (this is only available to a warrior (self-created) through Warhorn’s convert condition to boons trait).

And in PvE/WvW use, there is a ANet purchased boost item (random from BLTC Chests) that gives health over so many seconds as well.

I’ll take my kitteny Healing Signet any day of the week. A heal that baits enemies into overextending to kill me because it doesn’t fill my health up completely? Yes please.

Yup, I’ve found that too Samuels. I was doing the puzzle in Eternal Battlegrounds this morning when some guardian thought they’d get the drop on me and attack me from behind. I didn’t use the heal function of Healing Signet once, just let it and my other regens tick away while using my shouts for heals and buffs/debuffs. She started running when she realised what a mistake she’d made after blowing all her long cooldowns, while I was still blasting out axe chops and cyclones at full power.
That kill felt good.

Of course, it helps that I’m wearing fairly innocuous looking full exotic transmuted to look like one of the lower tier sets
The only tell-tale sign that there’s more going on than would first appear is my Pearl Warhorn…

(@Artaz – You can also trait into having your banners give you regeneration.)

In general, heals effectively scale with toughness excepting conditions (each HP is essentially worth more). Regeneration help survive short duration conditions that stack in duration and are often reapplied (e.g. Burns). Condition removal is strongest against conditions that stack in intensity (e.g. Bleeds). Vitality helps with everything, but you’ll feel like your heals aren’t as strong. Vitality also scales well with abilities that trigger at a certain health percent.

So, when planning your survival loadout, you have to look at more than just raw HPS.

I would argue that Regen + Healing Shouts is one of the easiest ways to never have to disengage, ever. You will have 0 skills that interupt your weapon skills, so you can constantly pressure the enemy. Sword MH and Shield OH strikes me as a great way to take advantage of it as well, since you can shield block and gain the healing while invulnerable, then go back to leaping and hamstringing until something is dead. The scaling IS DEFINITELY disappointing, however.

I also have a regen build with Knights armor but has anyone tried a clerics set though? I’ve heard regens isn’t affected by heal power but doesn’t hurt to test.

My Healing Signet heals for 292 hp/s and my gear is only half-complete (1082 healing), hardly “useless” in any way.

Palinois, healing power clearly has an effect on Healing Signet’s regen, not sure about other abilities though.

Well, in defense of healing signet, I have to say that looking at it as only 200hp/s (passive), 166hp/s (active), or 199.02hp/s (active + faster recharge) tells only half the story.
There usually is some time between you taking your first damage and activating the active, so a few ticks of regen always trickle in before you activate it, meaning it always provides more effective output then either active or passive alone.

That being said, I still value healing surge a bit higher, and I’m admittedly unsure about scaling with healing power invested.