Easy T4 pug carries proof of concept: Heal Scrapper

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Recommended comp for running heal scrapper includes a static bannerslave (someone who can do t4 dailies with you everyday as a might generating bannerslave), and potentially advertise for a quickbrand or chrono. Remaining 2 can be DPS unless you choose to go with 3 DPS instead of a chrono/quickbrand, which tends to be fine.

Pros for running heal scrapper:Ridiculously good heals if done properly. Very good revive capabilities by clicking the downed party member's icon within party and pressing F to gyro-res while continuing to heal other players.~80% protection uptime~80% fury uptimeSome passive might generation with elite skillCondi conversion into boons makes condi-heavy fractals extremely easy2 StunbreaksTechnically 4 blast finishers but you'll only use 3 most of the timeTechnically 3 CCs but you'll only use 1 most of the timeSelf-apply quickness to increase healing output whenever might is over the trait thresholdStealth gyro/rocket boots come in handy for some mechanics

Cons:Not much CC - definitely no entangleNo passive damage buffs like druidOnly source of alacrity/quickness is from condi cleanse

Build:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqensT5mi2tEYZlV6qwmKfXw6lBULGGVYA8X5n4+FC/Hdj/4bOA-j1xDQBQU5H8eAgeiPqEMhnAgns/AAOgAA8ABq/EAABIAf+z8zf+zf+zf2195P/5P/5P/5P/5PLFgfzsA-w

FAQ"You can hard-carry with any healer..."This is only half-true. The problem with "any healer" is that most healers in pug groups barely reach 1.5k to 3k sustained heals per second, whereas scrapper reaches 5k and higher per second and is constantly pumping out boons through condi conversion while doing this. I've seen Teapot hard-carry with a heal scourge, that's about as close as I've seen to it. Firebrand runs out of heals and chokes during pressure and druid is very slow at healing, along with the added problem of most heal druids being half-asleep most of the time for some reason.

"Druid has more offensive buffs"Yes. You can clear your dailies a few minutes faster theoretically and possibly wipe once or twice. I prefer to clear slightly slower but usually end up completing them faster in comparison because we didn't wipe at all. Bannerslave will max out your might, chrono provides additional support, and heal engi provides fury/protection uptime. It does work.

Also I don't know how hard this post is going to be scrutinized so I'm just going to pre-emptively mention that we've been running this for over a month and a half and still haven't failed a single fractal/daily. It should work on every fractal. We usually clear dailies in 30min, give or take some time depending on what the dailies are.

Note that I run ministrel because I don't use this build in raids. Only fractals (and a variant of this in WvW).

What other healers has your group tried? Scourge Medic (Teaport, SC, or other)? "Take two tablets Rev?" (no need to call the doctor) Tom's Tomee FB? How do they compare in terms of ease-of-use, learning curve, acceptance (i.e. do PUGs look at you crosseyed or are they happy or neutral).

You are clearly familiar with the alternatives, so I'm asking about your own experience running them.(It's okay if you haven't; I'm just trying to set my own expectations.)

so basically if you want a build that manages 166 dps, play heal scrapper

@melandru.3876 said:so basically if you want a build that manages 166 dps, play heal scrapper

Since DPS isn't the goal of the build, it hardly matters whether it produces 166 or 5166 DPS.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@melandru.3876 said:so basically if you want a build that manages 166 dps, play heal scrapper

yes, i'm sure it won't affect cleartime at all /s

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:What other healers has your group tried? Scourge Medic (Teaport, SC, or other)? "Take two tablets Rev?" (no need to call the doctor) Tom's Tomee FB? How do they compare in terms of ease-of-use, learning curve, acceptance (i.e. do PUGs look at you crosseyed or are they happy or neutral).

You are clearly familiar with the alternatives, so I'm asking about your own experience running them.(It's okay if you haven't; I'm just trying to set my own expectations.)

Hi there, I've used heal FB and druid, but not heal scourge/rev although I know the basic mechanics behind it. Heal FB is great if you have a highly competent group, so is druid, but both come nowhere near the carrying ability of scrapper since FB heals come & go and druid heals have never been that great overall. Scrapper just continues to pump it out non-stop. I imagine heal scourge is significantly better since Mighty Teapot used to talk big about it's hard-carry capabilities in raids, but I know that it doesn't have the same raw healing output nor the condi cleanse/conversion. Heal scourge is probably much better for passive DPS though. Support rev is good and I believe just recently received a buff for it's healing capabilities so I'll have to look further into that, but again, I don't think anything comes close to the raw heal output a scrapper can produce.

Scrapper is generally pretty well-accepted in-game, perhaps less on the forums which are infamously populated by salty denizens. I actually get people saying things like "woah, heal scrapper in fractals, nice" because they've seen it in WvW and know what it can do, and are curious why not many use it in fractals. Others are silent but I very frequently get people saying we had a great group, and this is probably because we almost never go down, when we do I can usually get everyone up.

As long as we have 3-4 competent DPS players the runs go pretty quick.

In terms of learning curve there definitely is one, but it's not huge. Just takes a good understanding of what skills do what and when to use them. I.E. if I know we're about to receive some condis I'll put down elixir gun 5 field, or the F5 field, both heal aoe and convert condis. Every now and then I spray elixir 3 for cleanse, there is a lot of spamming medkit 1 and using 2/4/f1 for burst heals, 3 for cleanse/waterfield which can be blasted 3 times very quickly. All in all, it's not too complicated.

@melandru.3876 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@melandru.3876 said:so basically if you want a build that manages 166 dps, play heal scrapper

I've already said this but here you go for the 2nd time since you wanted to be snide. The build is intended to be used as a hard-carry for pug groups, meaning that it isn't the optimal choice, nor is it the meta. It's what you CAN use to ensure you don't have difficulty getting easy clears with people who are potentially inexperienced.

I also don't think an average of 25-30 minute clears are particularly bad for an unorganized pug group, although I'm aware that organized static comps can do it in much better time. If you're matched with all competent players, you'd be better off with a different build. Do you see anywhere in this post where I've stated this is 'meta' or optimal for organized groups? Maybe you somehow missed this part?

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

I think I was pretty clear but I guess I should've pasted it a few more times. If you really miss the 3000/s of your druid, by all means miss me with your party join. We never have trouble clearing in 30 mins and for us that's good enough. I main WvW and don't need to be the greatest t4 fractal group of all time, never intended to be, you'd know if you read my post lol

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:What other healers has your group tried? Scourge Medic (Teaport, SC, or other)? "Take two tablets Rev?" (no need to call the doctor) Tom's Tomee FB? How do they compare in terms of ease-of-use, learning curve, acceptance (i.e. do PUGs look at you crosseyed or are they happy or neutral).

You are clearly familiar with the alternatives, so I'm asking about your own experience running them.(It's okay if you haven't; I'm just trying to set my own expectations.)

@melandru.3876 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@melandru.3876 said:so basically if you want a build that manages 166 dps, play heal scrapper

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

implying druid is fractal-material, no it isn't it's designed around 10 man content and it scales only for 10 man contentin 5 man content druid has no place

i'm not dissing your build, nor your gameplay but what you can clearly see in your video is people just willingly soaking up damagethe same damage that could have been complelty prevented by just sidestepping a little bit.

what do these pugs learn, nothing! it's basically the same as heal scourge, doesn't matter if you die 47 times the scourge will bring you backthey learn that there will allways be a support making up their mistakes. then they come to raids, and they get the boot for failing every single mechanic because they never had to pay attention to any.

meanwhile you have supportive classes like rene/fb who achieve the same, with more utility (stabi/reflects/aegis/resistance/pull or cc/lifesteal)you name it) and with way more dps yet achieve the same result, a safe and comfortable clear

in the video you can see the scrapper did 61k total damage in the entire boss fighton the same video with a different healer (rev/fb) you would see damage close to 500-750k.

@"melandru.3876" said:i'm not dissing your build, nor your gameplay but what you can clearly see in your video is people just willingly soaking up damagethe same damage that could have been complelty prevented by just sidestepping a little bit.

what do these pugs learn, nothing! it's basically the same as heal scourge, doesn't matter if you die 47 times the scourge will bring you backthey learn that there will allways be a support making up their mistakes. then they come to raids, and they get the boot for failing every single mechanic because they never had to pay attention to any.

meanwhile you have supportive classes like rene/fb who achieve the same, with more utility (stabi/reflects/aegis/resistance/pull or cc/lifesteal)you name it) and with way more dps yet achieve the same result, a safe and comfortable clear

in the video you can see the scrapper did 61k total damage in the entire boss fighton the same video with a different healer (rev/fb) you would see damage close to 500-750k.

Well said, I respect that. It does have the potential to make people complacent, although I would just make a minor point that it doesn't inherently need to - it can be training wheels for someone who truly isn't ready, but is willing to listen to instructions like "don't just absorb damage, I can heal through it but you shouldn't need me to". Objectively, it's still great heals, which I don't think either of us would consider 'bad'.

For raids and CMs I understand why it would be out of the question. As far as t4 dailies goes I guess I'm just a little selfish - we always have enough CC between the other 4 players, non-scrapper boons can be covered by chrono + anything that gets condi-converted by scrapper, and I can heal through almost anything. It just seems nice, it seems like it works well. I hope I understand the points you've made thoroughly enough - I believe that I do - but in the context of t4 dailies ... If it's working, don't fix it, right ?

What might be better is a variant of this build that uses plaguedoctor stats, since the pistol can generate some reasonable condi damage and medkit shouldn't always be necessary if people aren't standing in aoes.

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:

@"melandru.3876" said:i'm not dissing your build, nor your gameplay but what you can clearly see in your video is people just willingly soaking up damagethe same damage that could have been complelty prevented by just sidestepping a little bit.

what do these pugs learn, nothing! it's basically the same as heal scourge, doesn't matter if you die 47 times the scourge will bring you backthey learn that there will allways be a support making up their mistakes. then they come to raids, and they get the boot for failing every single mechanic because they never had to pay attention to any.

meanwhile you have supportive classes like rene/fb who achieve the same, with more utility (stabi/reflects/aegis/resistance/pull or cc/lifesteal)you name it) and with way more dps yet achieve the same result, a safe and comfortable clear

in the video you can see the scrapper did 61k total damage in the entire boss fighton the same video with a different healer (rev/fb) you would see damage close to 500-750k.

you do have points

my point of view howeever, is that once you reached t4 you should allready know how the fractals work.difference between t1 and t4 is close to non-existant. boss has more health, and there are instabs but the mechanics are still the same

24 t1 nightmare bullethell is slightly different from 99 t4 nightmare bullethell (no knockdown wave, that can be blocked or just jumped over) for example

so what i'm trying to say, if people managed to come to t4, they should know 90% of fractals + mechanics by heart if they did 1-75 allready.such people in my humble opinion, should know how to perform better, without training wheels

also, wouldn't backpack regenerator instead of comeback cure be better?

poison cures into regen, and you have other sources of regen (medkit 2) with alacrity that can be perma kept up

meanwhile backpack regenator heals for +- 220 while in medkit/elixer gun and therefore aoe heals you allies through medical dispersion field. that's another +- 110 heal, ontop of regen and everything else

and yes, plaguedoctor might be better

with plaguedoctor (and backpack regenerator) using pistol 2 and 3 off cooldown, and camp elixer gun when no medkit is needed. bleed from elixer gun will be decent with condi damage, no expertise tho

@melandru.3876 wrotemy point of view howeever, is that once you reached t4 you should allready know how the fractals work.such people in my humble opinion, should know how to perform better, without training wheelsThat's entirely fair. (And I agree: they should know.)

In practice, when one PUGs (as soloQ or adding them to static), we find that many people don't know what they ought to have learned ages ago. Given the choice, I'm okay taking 10-30 minutes longer for an hour-ish activity. And I completely respect those who don't want to carry (hard or soft).

In this case, the build's target audience includes people like me, who like being able to hard carry and therefore not have to worry about our 1-2 PUGs being up to speed. I agree, it would be entirely a waste for top tier groups.

@"SoulSlavocracy.4902" said:I've used heal FB and druid, but not heal scourge/rev although I know the basic mechanics behind it. Heal FB is great if you have a highly competent group, so is druid, but both come nowhere near the carrying ability of scrapper since FB heals come & go and druid heals have never been that great overall. Scrapper just continues to pump it out non-stop. I imagine heal scourge is significantly better since Mighty Teapot used to talk big about it's hard-carry capabilities in raids, but I know that it doesn't have the same raw healing output nor the condi cleanse/conversion. Heal scourge is probably much better for passive DPS though. Support rev is good and I believe just recently received a buff for it's healing capabilities so I'll have to look further into that, but again, I don't think anything comes close to the raw heal output a scrapper can produce.

Scrapper is generally pretty well-accepted in-game, perhaps less on the forums which are infamously populated by salty denizens. I actually get people saying things like "woah, heal scrapper in fractals, nice" because they've seen it in WvW and know what it can do, and are curious why not many use it in fractals. Others are silent but I very frequently get people saying we had a great group, and this is probably because we almost never go down, when we do I can usually get everyone up.

As long as we have 3-4 competent DPS players the runs go pretty quick.

In terms of learning curve there definitely is one, but it's not huge. Just takes a good understanding of what skills do what and when to use them. I.E. if I know we're about to receive some condis I'll put down elixir gun 5 field, or the F5 field, both heal aoe and convert condis. Every now and then I spray elixir 3 for cleanse, there is a lot of spamming medkit 1 and using 2/4/f1 for burst heals, 3 for cleanse/waterfield which can be blasted 3 times very quickly. All in all, it's not too complicated.

Thanks for the detailed break down. I might give it a go actually.

Regarding Teapot's Medic Scourge: the amazing thing about it is that it doesn't have to heal, because it prevents a ton of damage. Just spamming skills, you can get the group to survive all sorts of fractal nonsense. If you're good, you can prevent mechanic fails (like massive spikes from Thauma Ooze or a well-fed Voice). Adjust the stats, you can start to do some ok damage too (not real damage, of course, just contributory), although you have to be more skilled (and pay some attention).

It's also a lot of fun.

@melandru.3876 said:also, wouldn't backpack regenerator instead of comeback cure be better?

poison cures into regen, and you have other sources of regen (medkit 2) with alacrity that can be perma kept up

meanwhile backpack regenator heals for +- 220 while in medkit/elixer gun and therefore aoe heals you allies through medical dispersion field. that's another +- 110 heal, ontop of regen and everything else

and yes, plaguedoctor might be better

with plaguedoctor (and backpack regenerator) using pistol 2 and 3 off cooldown, and camp elixer gun when no medkit is needed. bleed from elixer gun will be decent with condi damage, no expertise tho

Oof I can't believe I overlooked that, thanks - that will help in both WvW and fractals. For some reason, I thought medkit wasn't an engineering kit. I guess thats a hazard of not playing anything other than heal scrapper as an engi.

Gonna start with just plaguedoctor trinkets and go from there, it does lower healing power a bit but at least I gained an extra 100-110 heals/s off using the proper trait ...

no 25x might ?

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

Heal scrapper+bannerslave comp is intended for PUG groups only, I am not suggesting this is meta, I am not suggesting that 5-man static groups begin running heal scrapper, crow_of_judgement.jpg

I had to.I do like the idea of heal scrapper for sure, though I'm curious how you handle sustain healing during phases/situations where your group may have to spread out. It seems most of the healing effectiveness will require stacking vs the more radial effects of Tempest healing or the Ranged potential of Ventari's tablet. It definitely looks like fun to play, though.

Scrapper lol. Everything u mentioned, tempest just do better. Scrapper has only high constant healing but don't have any outheal, which is mainly important when ppl get hit by possibly everything.I can agree on only 1 thing, it's good vs condi so it will be few of fractals only. Outside of that u don't rly offer anything outside of decent hps

@"melandru.3876" said:also, wouldn't backpack regenerator instead of comeback cure be better?

meanwhile backpack regenator heals for +- 220 while in medkit/elixer gun and therefore aoe heals you allies through medical dispersion field. that's another +- 110 heal, ontop of regen and everything else

Medical Dispersion Field doesn't share the Backpack Regenerator's healing. ( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Medical_Dispersion_Field bugs section)

Am I the only one bothered by the fact that the Scrapper trait line does little to nothing for this build? I mean you could run core Engy with Tools for better uptime on toolbelt skills, and I doubt you would see much of a drop in healing throughput (unless there is something I'm missing).

@wasss.1208 said:

@"melandru.3876" said:also, wouldn't backpack regenerator instead of comeback cure be better?

meanwhile backpack regenator heals for +- 220 while in medkit/elixer gun and therefore aoe heals you allies through medical dispersion field. that's another +- 110 heal, ontop of regen and everything else

that's lame

intended? or just a bug no one ever cared enough about?

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:Am I the only one bothered by the fact that the Scrapper trait line does little to nothing for this build? I mean you could run core Engy with Tools for better uptime on toolbelt skills, and I doubt you would see much of a drop in healing throughput (unless there is something I'm missing).

yes you are missing several things

1) function gyro. if you select your downed ally manually (instead of just pressing f) then press f, it will command the gyro to rez your target, then you press f again and you begin reviving. it beats scourges in reviving speed since you are basically 2 for the price of 1

2) shocking speed is indeed pretty worthless, as the scrapper itself has no access to a lightning field without hammer or shredder gyro. nor does this particular build use any gyro(well) for the 5 secsuperspeed

3) decisive renown pretty much improves point 1. barrier + superspeed on successful revive, never bad

4) rapid regeneration. is heavily affected by point 3 (and thus also point 1) the superspeed is a nice heal personnal heal that is shared through medical dispersion field.this trait would benefit alot from point 2 (shocking speed) but sadly its unable to in a gyro(well)-less build

5) impact savant is useless to this build. incomming barriers are useless, since if you want to carry pugs you shouldn't need heals/barriers yourself and the +10% dmg is totally worthless as this build has close to zero dps (166 dps, as can be seen in vid)

6) applied force is useless in my eyes, kinetic stabilizers would be alot better. for the following simple reasons

• quickness is provided by other characters (quickbrand, healbrand, support chrono)
• kinetic stabilizer gives 3 sec superspeed on using function gyro (see point 4, super speed = heal)
• disabling an enemy = 3 sec superspeed (shield 4, shield 5, thump overcharge, supply crate)

i would swap out rifle turret for shredder gyro

shredder gyro will offer the following:

• lightning field on toolbelt skill = synergy with shocking speed (plenty of blast finnishers to use in the lightning field)
• superspeed with shredder toolbelt (daze) skill through kinetic stabilizer
• shredder gyro offers whirl finnisher in your light/water field for more aoe party support through condi cleansing/healing