Guild Wars 2

Seemed overpowered for the short amount of time I used it in pvp, to be honest. Of course I don’t really have a very substantiated view on this since I haven’t played it much yet, although neither does anyone else here since the expansion has only been out for like a day.

I tested it on my Mesmer too, and concentration (and expertise) didn’t work either. I thought I saw it working when I first used it on my guardian though, which is strange.

Concentration and expertise don’t seem to working (tested in PvP).

At least not in PvP.

doesn’t seem to work (or from any boon duration amulet I’m assuming)? Has anybody else tested this?

This was a very pleasant surprise to find. % outgoing healing sources are kind of limited. :>

Nexrex.8273:

What I want is superior Rune of Radiance in spvp… Ill pay a lot for that!
Any chance of that happening?! Pretty please

Ditto. I want PvP auramancers. :>

It’s not bad, but the duration or cooldown could definitely use a small buff.

Terra.8571:

I’m not trying to say Guardians can’t heal, I’m trying to say Druids can do it easier/ better.

I mostly agree, but I’m still not convinced that guardians are worse at (practical) burst healing specifically. :p
I suppose whether or not the range restrictions on druid burst healing are a problem or not will only be able to be truly seen once the expansion hits.

Terra.8571:

Verdant etching is instant whilst seed of life is only 10% of a 14k heal. Group healing is definitely not out of the question, watch this Lost Vale kill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thS431kCOcg

He pretty much keeps up his whole party and if you look for reddit threads, they attest to that.

Druid heals are mainly 300 radius which is enough for everyone around the boss. Stacking was originally used when group huddles in a corner to LoS mobs into their territory. Simply grouping around a boss (like in the video) isn’t really stacking. Given the above scenario, druids can definitely group heal. Just keep them in their own party so they can hit members outside their party and you’re set.

With regards to landing moves like healing seed, you’ll need some coordination with the tank who can easily move the boss over the seeds.

That’s true, coordination helps a lot, although I don’t think grouping together that tightly is always going to be a viable strategy. At least I know it isn’t in stuff like PvP and even in some fractals. Perhaps (all? some?) raids are different though.
I don’t recall Verdant Etching’s seeds exploding instantly.

Terra.8571:

You have to count the cast time, same as when calculating dps. The cast is 2.25, then the heal starts which is 3s.

I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed Healing Breeze having a longer cast time (in total) than Signet of Courage. The actual healing effect starts at around 0.3-0.4 seconds. From what I counted, it doesn’t seem like that “3 second” breeze is 3 seconds long either, so I’m assuming the tooltip is incorrect unless the breeze persists after the cast.

Terra.8571:

Overall, like I’ve mentioned, it’s too early to say whether Guardians can or cannot fill the healer spot. However, Druid’s have higher burst and higher sustained healing. Both theoretically and practically. My long posts, sorry for that, wasn’t to disregard your opinions, but I wanted to point out factually that druids can heal more than any other class in terms of raw healing than everything else by some distance.

You are right though, whether that kind of healing is necessary is another question and that’s why you are getting posts like should druids use zerkers, clerics or zealots.

I think it’ll be recommended in raids, at least. I don’t believe guardians have the sustained healing to keep a whole group up indefinitely, but I still do believe that they have the most practical burst healing, so maybe they’ll fit in as zealot DPS/supplemental burst healers or something. Overall I do agree that druids generally outheal guardians pretty hard.

Terra.8571:

My whole rant/ posts was because you said:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I honestly don’t believe druids have better burst healing than guardians

I simply wanted to show some evidence and reading back it’s turned into a long tirade :P. Anyways, as mentioned, if you like guardian healing builds, give them a go.

It’s k. I was wondering on the details of this matter anyway, and your posts helped me realize that I was underestimating/miscalculating how much healing druids can put out, although I never really thought their general healing was weaker in the first place. :>
I plan to use both a guardian and a druid. I don’t see the need to “reroll” to be honest.

Terra.8571:

Fashion Mage.3712:

exact number of seconds is kind of irrelevant really.

It’s actually completely relevant. However, if you are trying to say if it’s 3s or 4s and that the 3 I chose is arbitrary, then I agree with that. With regards to what the number should be, is based on how long an enemy takes to deliver heavy damage. A good example is the archdeviner who attacks roughly every 3s (hence my choice). Regardless of the number, in a raid or PvE setting, you can be downed/ killed 2 or even 3x by hard hitting bosses within a 10s frame which is why I said it was too high. Healing them up at 5k a tick every second for 10s won’t cut it. That was the point I was getting at.

From my experience with that boss, healing someone for 5000 health a second is definitely enough to keep them alive (unless they’re affected by agony’s healing reduction, although that affects all healers of course).
Using your logic, if the burst is really that bad, since most burst healing on the druid is close-ranged, simply chasing allies who just got bursted won’t be feasible, nor will they necessarily stand in one spot to receive healing from stuff like Seed of Life/Verdant Etching. Group healing is also out of the question because most of the radii are small. Of course this is all assuming that raids can’t abuse stacking.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Technically the modifier is 1.33 if I’m pedantic as cleric has 0 vitality but anyways. The biggest heal there, healing breeze aka receive the light is over 5s. Like I said, if archdeviner hits an ally for 8k and the ally has 2k hp left. You start casting healing breeze and they get hit again. The 8k heal would have saved them if it was not over 5s. That is the key to burst healing, big heals over a couple of seconds at most. At least in this game.

If Healing Breeze was over a 5 second duration, I don’t think anybody would ever touch such trash. Healing Breeze is over a 2.25 second duration, so that’s about 3500 healing per second.

Black Box.9312:

1,757 healing power in a PvE build. That’s a good one.

It could very much be a thing in raids, especially when druids have their healing coefficients buffed and their bases nerfed.

Terra.8571:

10s is fairly long to be counted as burst. If you exclude the 3min signet heal, how much can a guardian heal in 3s.

A druid (not going to count sigil proc or anything, just base skill with 40% outgoing healing from traits and food) can heal 4 allies, in a 3s window, 12.8k + 7.8K + 5.2k = 25.8k. I still haven’t counted that the 5.2k heal is on 5s cd, there’s a 4s water field which pulses 5 times for 1.7k a heal to allies on a 8s cd, a separable 1.7k heal auto in CA form or that glyphs can heal 1.8k each. The 2 biggest heals (12.8k and 7.8k) can be repeated every 19s.

The exact number of seconds is kind of irrelevant really. All it means is that for a short duration, guardians are capable of healing around 5000 health a second, which definitely qualifies as burst healing. Also, I’m not arguing that the druid has better sustained healing; I already know they do, although I do still stand by the fact that druid healing is often impractical or impossible to aim (maybe snap ground-targeting will help?).

As far as I’m aware of, no skill on the druid is capable of healing 12.8k in a single ability. I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. I’m assuming the 7.8k is Glyph of Rejuvenation, in which case the value for that should be higher using 40% outgoing healing and full healing power as stats.
Assuming you’re using full cleric’s gear with monk runes for your healing values:
Orb of Light+detonation (1/2 cast time): 2464
Healing Breeze (2.25 cast time): 8280
VoR active (instant): 2943
Merciful Intervention (instant): 3014
All of that multiplied by 1.35 (monk runes, force of will, riceballs) adds up to 22546 healing. I could’ve added in another 6750 from the shield’s detonation, a selfless daring roll, and a signet pulse, but those are somewhat situational so I left them out.

Ragnarox.9601:

I don’t think you know what burst actually means. Healing breeze is the only burst heal that you mentioned, all other heals are just one time.

I know exactly what it means. Burst healing is healing a large amount in a small period of time, typically with a fairly large cooldown. Just because Healing Breeze is an exceptionally large burst heal doesn’t mean the rest aren’t burst heals. If you’re going to be like that, then Signet of Courage is the only burst heal in the game by comparison.

A little bit too mesmer-wannabe-ish in some places, but it has some nice ideas.

Hunter.4783:

Allied burst healing: Druid surpassed the guardian in heal by about 10x, i am not even kidding. A single druid would keep the whole raid up. There is a reason they are changing druid healing coefficients a little bit.

I’m saying this based off of the matches I’ve played as a druid in PvP: I honestly don’t believe druids have better burst healing than guardians (I also think guardians have better burst cleansing too). That is to say, I don’t think druids can heal the amount guardians can in a short period of time, although I do think druids have far superior sustained healing.
Based on the calculations that I’ve made, in a period of about 10 seconds, a guardian can heal over 50000 health on all of his allies within a mostly 600-1200 range/radius, but a lot of those abilities will be on a fair-to-long cooldown afterwards. A druid can do around 35000 in 10 seconds, but most of a druid’s burst healing is in a 240-300 radius centered on the druid, which often makes it impractical, limits the number of allies you’ll be able to heal, and makes those in the healing AoE more susceptible to enemy AoE.
The reason they’re changing the druid’s healing bases and coefficients was because the benefit from healing power was almost non-existent.
Not sure where you got “10x” more healing from. It’d be true if you were comparing a druid to a guardian who wasn’t using a healing build, I guess. Again, based on the calculations that I’ve made, a druid’s sustained healing (in terms of HP/S) is about 3x better than a healing guardian’s sustained healing assuming that the druid always hits their (often extremely difficult to aim) healing.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I don’t recall Guardians ever really being known for their burst healing. Most of what they do is heal over time.

There are two burst heals on the staff, VoR’s active is a burst heal, Merciful Intervention is a burst heal, Healing Breeze is one of the biggest burst heals in the game, and Signet of Courage is the biggest burst heal in the game. As for sustained healing, there’s Selfless Daring, and Bow of Truth’s active, and even then both of those are almost sustained burst. There’s also Sanctuary, but the healing on that is mostly just flavouring. Guardians also have slightly less HP/S compared to a staff water elementalist due to the fact that they have a farming ability where their healing auto-attack should be. So I really don’t see how most of what they do is over time.

Aegis, reflection/barriers, and allied burst healing, off the top of my head. I haven’t actually played a raid yet though, so I can’t comment with surety.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hmmm, new amulets. Aside from zealots, anything else you folks think would be interesting?

Any chance secondary stats like boon duration, % outgoing healing, or condition duration could be placed on amulets?

What sort of guardian are you looking to play, and in what mode?

Exedore.6320:

You take Force of Will for the 300 vitality bonus. The healing increase is just a small bonus.

I use it for the extra healing personally. 14% outgoing healing roughly translates to 280 healing power (going by the values of sigil of life vs benevolence), except outgoing healing is much better than healing power.

Signets seem more like a supplemental thing to me, rather than something you focus your build around.

The shield changes are amazing, and they’re the first changes the devs have done in quite awhile that I actually liked. The addition of aegis to Shield of Judgment was also probably an indicator of the devs paying attention to player feedback and suggestions, so I can definitely applaud them on that. These changes were hardly “misdirected”, quite the opposite really.

A lot of the skills/traits need tuning, but I really like the theme behind it. It suits the core guardian’s supportive nature while allowing you to play/support in a way that’s quite new to guardians (mobility/support). That’s what an elite spec is supposed to be.
I’d still prefer a tome elite spec before something like this happens, but the concept is great imo, and I hope guardians get a “speedy support” spec like this in the future.

Typically getting that much vitality via sentinel’s stats means you’re going to lose out on a lot of healing power, which will essentially worsen the total value of the outgoing healing. Without spending a lot of stats on vitality, you already get 14~% outgoing healing which is already a fair bit, so it’s good on cleric/zealot/apothecary builds.
For the sake of making full use of its vitality scaling, I’d personally only go for it if I were going for a 100% supportive build that uses Magi’s gear or Shaman’s gear.

It’s probably the worst supportive healing ability/weapon in the game by far, even though supportive healing is all it does. The amount the auto-attack heals allies for is pathetic even with boons. It’s basically like a really crappy version of water staff #1 for eles, and it’s totally beyond me how professional designers managed to undertune something so severely.

I have a full set of ascended zealot’s gear with half cleric’s trinkets and half berserker’s trinkets. Ascended zealot’s gear is pretty easy to get now days with the ascended gear swap recipe, although I think the recipe for making exotic zealot’s insignias is fairly pricy now.

I can’t wait to get that Zealot amulet (assuming it happens), it’ll open up so many DPS/Support builds.

Personally I mainly just want Zealot’s Amulet (or something like it with healing power as its primary stat), although perhaps Apothecary’s could be interesting. I’d love gear which offered boon duration or % outgoing healing, but I suppose that may be hoping for too much.

Obtena.7952:

We all must know exactly how we would feel if THIS was the fix that Anet implemented for SW’s. We would hate it. It’s worthless.

I think anybody who has the slightest clue about spirit weapons would realize what an enormous buff this would be for them.

Saiyan.1704:

You’re miss informed. We designated the Guardian as the healer class because there was no other class around to fulfill that role. No one, not the Devs or Lore, said Guardian was the healing class. So yes, Guardian was never meant to be the healer class.

Yes, building a guardian based on damage mitigation is one of the many ways to build them, but not seeing the obvious connection to healing that they have is just simple delusion.
I’d go on and on about all the supportive healing that guardians have, but BlackBox was already courteous enough to list most of it, although you shrugged it off as him being “misinformed*”. Guardians also used to have the best healing ability in the game until it was more or less stolen by druids.
As for the lore, I think the rather large connection that guardians have to monks really says enough.

It’s fine if you really love the kind of guardian that you’re playing right now, but your persistent and delusional insistence that guardians were never meant to be able to be built as healers is extremely obnoxious and you should really stop.

Saiyan.1704:

In all fairness to Karl, there has been a plethora of items asked by the Guardian community. Spirit Weapons were definitely lower priority than:

• Bow and its skillset changes
• Peels via F3 and its mechanic changes
• Burn guard/condi guard,
• Shield (omg shield! <3),
• Trap’s boons/stunbreaker/stability/dmg buffs
• DH self condi cleanse trait (although bugged)
• F3 self blocks for DH survivability
• An awesome F1 pull thingy to synergize trap playstyles – traps may actually be viable in high tier TPvP play.

tl;dr: Crappy DH changes clogged the pipeline so there were less changes (that people have been asking for for years) to the main guardian profession.
When I see it this way, I hate DH even more than I did before.

Nice changes overall. However, if healing isn’t giving as much Astral Energy, then I think the staff deserves some buffs on its scaling healing values like has been done to Celestial Form since the staff’s primary use was building up astral energy.

mistsim.2748:

Missed Opportunities for Later

• the huge problem you missed with the avatar is its #1. in BWE3, there was no point in casting it. i’d channel #4, then cast LI, spam a seed or two and cast NC…followed maybe by another LI. #1 cannot hit a moving ally, period. the cast time is too long, radius too small.*

This so hard. It really needs radius and/or cast time buffs. If they want it to stay as a more single-target heal, they can just change the target limit or have some other special functionality. At the moment there’s little reason to use this over any of the other skills because it’ll only ever hit if your targeted ally is literally rooted by something.

nearlight.3064:

I think you’re being a tad overdramatic buddy.

Maybe, but he’s still right. Guardians have been asking for that change on spirit weapons for a very, very long time.

Random.4691:

Taunting is not the same as taunting in other games.

For example a taunt does not mean you pull agro to yourself, it means the mob or player that has been taunted targets a different target, that target may or may not be the person taunting. So if that Mesmer with 1 hp is about to be obliterated and you use taunt the mob may turn around and smack the Ele instead, it does not mean the tank will pull aggro.

Not sure where you read that, but taunting in this makes the target run towards and attack the taunter.

Anchoku.8142:

Tanking in GW2 does not mean the same thing as in other games. In this game, it means building for more sustain. That is all. In other games, it means using special skills to hold aggro to prevent the mob from targeting others.

Toughness by itself increases aggro, and taunting supposedly forces an enemy to target you, although I’m not sure how that’d function with break bars.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The OP’s suggestion is based on a classic “healing is UP” premise, which is not supported by the game’s numbers and is thus unnecessary.

Maybe you think that’s what I based my suggestion on, but it really isn’t. I don’t think healing is underpowered as a whole, although I do think that healing power can be underpowered in a fair amount of cases.

I haven’t been entirely clear on it, but my main reasoning is merely that healers should be able to itemize properly towards support. Currently, there are gear types which let you focus only on damage or tanking, such as berserker gear and nomad gear respectively. There is no way to do this in a supportive sense, because of the three available supportive stats (healing power, boon duration, outgoing healing) only one is properly available on gear.
As for it being necessary or not, I think support builds being able to itemize properly is a perfectly fine reason for implementing my suggestion. It might not be entirely necessary, but then again, good design isn’t entirely necessary either, I guess.

Sizer.3987:

To add more directly to this thread, givers gear would be perfect to turn into something like the OP wants, either with +healing % or boon duration (id prefer boon duration). Clerics is fine for support builds, but it would be nice to get some more options, especially for the more boon heavy classes.

If I had it my way, I’d use + outgoing healing/+ healing power/+ boon duration gear. :p

Revenants can keep up taunt on non-player characters almost permanently with Forced Engagement, Improved Aggression, and Eye for an Eye. Unsurprisingly this all comes from a legend that’s basically made for tanking.
I wouldn’t be surprised if runes/sigils for enhancing taunt are made either.

RevanCorana.8942:

An aegis field on the other hand would be totally OP as a whole team could stand inside it for a 100% efficiency of applied aegis, for basically team invulnerability where as for blind ones people tend to avoid standing in it obviously.

As far as I’m aware, blind has the advantage of completely negating an attack from someone whereas aegis only prevents an attack to the user. For example, one pulse of Lava Font is completely negated to all targets by a single blind, but if aegis is used instead, then Lava Font will remove all instances of aegis from all targets hit with one pulse. At least I’m fairly certain that’s how it functions.

So if an entire team stands in a field which pulses aegis every second, then the enemy would throw out their own AoEs onto that same spot which would more than negate the pulsing aegis (the aegis field would negate a single pulsing AoE attack in total). When you consider that this kind of ability would likely also have a fairly long cooldown, it’s really not as broken as you think it’d be.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Leveling while in PvE that is; the scepter and torch are perfectly fine as long-ranged weapons in PvE.

elite specs only unlock at 80 so nope.

Good thing the scepter and torch aren’t unlocked at level 80 then. :>

I think I was fairly clear. I think supportive healing should be stronger than self-healing. Outgoing healing is a good way to make this happen, but in addition to that, solves the issue with some heals scaling badly. Upping healing power scaling would have a similar effect, but it could also lead to a scenario with obnoxious amounts of self-healing.

Having a second healing stat also allows one to focus in healing the same way users of berserker stats focus in damage.

It’s not a new stat, and I don’t see what’d be wrong with giving it its own equipment. I don’t think the devs agree with you either considering how much % outgoing healing traits there have been lately.
Lowering the druid’s outgoing healing won’t solve the issue of no one running healing power with it; it’ll just make the spec less supportive. Irenio has already talked about this and is reducing the base healing and upping the scaling healing for the druid.

Personally I don’t mind healers healing allies for large amounts because they can just be focused, but tanky builds who also have a huge amount of self-healing aren’t really fun to deal with. I wouldn’t be surprised if ANet felt the same in this, which is why they made outgoing healing in the first place.

Diovid.9506:

You mean gear like this?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Benevolence
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Monk

Or do you mean it should be a stat like healing power and ferocity?

Like a stat. So for example, a priest stat set which gives + outgoing healing/+ healing power/+ power.

Considering that healers will supposedly be recommended for raids, I think this would be a nice addition. It’d be nice for healers in other game modes too, and it’d solve the issue of some skills scaling badly with healing power.

Thoughts?

Changing Cosmic Ray to Wave of Farming V2? No thank you.

Aomine.5012:

Btw here’s the reference of Roy saying Druid is suppose to be a “burst heal” class.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/How-can-Ventari-compete-with-Druid/first

That’s why I get rid of Cosmic Ray’s healing entirely because it certainly doesn’t match the description of a “burst heal” class.

That’s why I change the effect of Rejuvenating Tide entirely. I do understand why people love this skill the way it is in WvW though :P

What’s ironic in that context is that Ventari is probably better at burst healing than druids are, also, Roy wasn’t in charge of the druid, so that may just be personal opinion. I think it should also be mentioned that the devs thought it fitting to call dragonhunters “backline support”, so I don’t know how much their opinions are worth either.

Leveling while in PvE that is; the scepter and torch are perfectly fine as long-ranged weapons in PvE.

I’d be for this, perhaps through a trait that enhances aegis. Wouldn’t care if it made PvE easier either, since it’s already pathetically easy.

Sanctuary isn’t nearly as bad as anyone here thinks it is. People need to stop trying to see it as a “stand here to be invulnerable” ability, because that’s not what it is at all.
Signet of Courage is trash compared to Tome of Courage, but it can still be effective assuming the user has the foresight and skill to use it properly.
I wouldn’t use these abilities on anything that isn’t purely supportive though.

Rodzynald.5897:

Wait wut ? But isn’t burn guard like about… not trying too hard to win ?

Assuming you’re implying that burn guards are there mainly for a “fun alternative”, that’s certainly not what it’s about anymore. Now it’s about auto-winning unless your opponent has enough cleansing.

Pretty sure it does work.

Scrimschaw.5784:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I think it should just stay as a healing/astral force weapon. The shortbow is already there for the ranged condition damage role.

And CAF is already there for a purely healing role. Staff should perform another role other than healing, ie damage. Adding some condi makes it more flexible for all builds.

Celestial form isn’t a weapon, and adding condition damage means something else is going to be taken away. Either way, the staff isn’t really there for healing; not directly at least. The staff is mainly there for generating astral force and kiting; its healing isn’t very significant.

As mentioned earlier, Celestial Avatar Form IS a weapon—it replaces your weapon skills, and you cannot use your other weapon/s while in CAF. Staff should not have the sole purpose of building up your CAF bar. Quite frankly, it seems counterintuitive that you should need to heal with your weapon in order to …heal more with your other “weapon”? Regardless of the concept, staff needs more synergy with other Ranger trait lines, which will still make up 2/3 of a Druid’s build. Adding conditions/boons is one way of accomplishing this.

Celestial Avatar Form is a form, as the name states. It is part of the mechanic that the specialization provides. I don’t see anyone calling Death Shroud a weapon.
The sole purpose of the staff isn’t just building up your CAF bar, it also provides excellent mobility/kiting via #3 and #4. A 1200 range dash on a 12 second cooldown is ridiculous mobility.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I think it should just stay as a healing/astral force weapon. The shortbow is already there for the ranged condition damage role.

And CAF is already there for a purely healing role. Staff should perform another role other than healing, ie damage. Adding some condi makes it more flexible for all builds.

Celestial form isn’t a weapon, and adding condition damage means something else is going to be taken away. Either way, the staff isn’t really there for healing; not directly at least. The staff is mainly there for generating astral force and kiting; its healing isn’t very significant.

I think the real question is, why does it only reduce cooldowns on the sword? :>