Are you wanting to make a support character?

[Oogabooga.3812]

Having played firebrand, druid, scourge, tempest, scrapper, and renegade healers, here are some comparisons between them, as they all have various strengths and weaknesses.

FirebrandAdvantages:

• Highest amount of blocks, and aegis heals upon block
• Moderate spike heals
• Good regeneration and/or pulsing heals upkeep
• High condition clear ability
• Excellent party buffs
• High access to stability
• Average mobility
• Good survivability

Disadvantages:

• Low self heal
• Careful management of mantras required
• Normal revive speed
• Low CC contribution
• Long cooldown of tomes

The healbrand is best as a preemptive healer; needs to know fight mechanics to know when to apply blocks or stability.Difficulty: moderate

DruidAdvantages:

• High spike healing
• Easy continuous party buffs
• Good regeneration upkeep
• Good self mobility
• Good CC contribution
• Moderate DPS contribution

Disadvantages:

• Long recharge of celestial avatar
• Spirits are not easy to move around quickly
• Low survivability
• Normal revival speed
• Average condition clear

The druid is a reactionary healer i.e. heals after damage, and managing the spirit location on a mobile boss can be problematic.Difficulty: moderate high

ScourgeAdvantages:

• Spammable barrier
• Moderate condition clear, but barrier will also soak condition damage
• The best revival skills
• Moderately high CC contribution
• High regeneration upkeep
• Can diversify into boon stripper and trash mob pulls
• Some condition DPS contribution

Disadvantages:

• Low spike heal, as barrier is the trade off
• Low party buffs
• Average mobility
• No stability
• Very low projectile block access

The scourge relies on mitigating damage through the barrier preemptively, and the teleport revival covers up many mistakes by either the scourge or the downed player.Difficulty: easy

TempestAdvantages:

• Excellent party buffs
• The best pure healer
• High condition clear ability
• High survivability
• Moderate CC contribution
• Moderate spike healing
• Moderate projectile reflects

Disadvantages:

• Low DPS contribution
• Average mobility
• Normal revive speed, unless using Arcane
• Low or no party stability
• Being caught off rotation can take a while to get to the needed attunement
• Many skills take a long time to finish to get to the benefits
• Small area of effect for skills

The tempest is usually busy rotating skills to keep buffs up, and can be messed up due to mechanics or the need to revive someone.Difficulty: moderate easy unless facing a battle against many CC skills.

ScrapperAdvantages:

• High condition conversion or removal
• Constant channeled healing ability
• High damage mitigation
• Moderate CC contribution if using a hammer
• High survivability
• Some DPS contribution

Disadvantages:

• Low spike healing
• Low reflect access
• Low stability access
• Low party boons
• Average mobility

The scrapper is more useful against high condition damage situations than physical damage, making this far more useful in WvW than PvE.Difficulty: high

RenegadeAdvantages:

• Moderate spike heal
• High protection access
• High CC contribution
• Excellent area block access
• Permanent alacrity contribution
• Moderate DPS contribution, but high party DPS buff

Disadvantages:

• Moderately low condition clear ability
• Energy management is a constant issue
• Normal revive speed
• Managing Ventari’s tablet can be cumbersome
• On demand healing is slow

The renegade contributes greatly to the offense part of the fight with alacrity and the area of effect CCs (can single-handedly break Blasting Black Peter’s defiance bar).Difficulty: moderate high

Feel free to agree or disagree! I have not toyed with warrior, thief or mesmer healers.

[Nephalem.8921]

you forgot to mention quickness, fury and might. also missed 10target might for druid and tempest and 10target alacrity for ren.Also moderate spike heal and low on demand heal for ren? tablet heals for 11k, healskill for like 4k and renegade healskill heals for ~30k. thats super high spike heal.It has also the highest heal with fast attacking players.

[Oogabooga.3812]

@Nephalem.8921 said:you forgot to mention quickness, fury and might. also missed 10target might for druid and tempest and 10target alacrity for ren.Also moderate spike heal and low on demand heal for ren? tablet heals for 11k, healskill for like 4k and renegade healskill heals for ~30k. thats super high spike heal.It has also the highest heal with fast attacking players.

I did shorten a lot of details; otherwise this would be an extremely long overview. I summarized them as “party boons.”I said slow on demand heal. There is the cast time and then a 1 second delay.Where are you getting the 11k and 30k numbers? Sounds like a sum total for the entire team instead of an individual party member. The renegade elite channel is great if the energy management is going well.

[lare.5129]

where boonsupport theif? and healboon support thief ?and well spammer heal/boon chrno

chrnoAdvantages:continues healalac + quickness boons

Disadvantages:is ppl not understand what it is 3th well tick - not luck for yousometimes you should properly predict that 2 tick if is depend from boss mechanic

thiefAdvantages:it is cool

Disadvantages:it is cool only on few boses.

[Nephalem.8921]

@Oogabooga.3812 said:I did shorten a lot of details; otherwise this would be an extremely long overview. I summarized them as “party boons.”I said slow on demand heal. There is the cast time and then a 1 second delay.Where are you getting the 11k and 30k numbers? Sounds like a sum total for the entire team instead of an individual party member. The renegade elite channel is great if the energy management is going well.

10 target reason is important. same for kind of boon since all can give might but only fb quickness and only ren alac. fury is also a problem with offmeta.11k is the number on ventari skill with healing orbs added. 30k is indeed per target. it ticks for ~3k lasting 10seconds.

[Aeolus.3615]

Try cleric(or zealots this way one wont be a wet noodle) Herald/Ventari

staff, sword shield, heals and cleanses, ventari f2 is also a heal and cleanse, passsive regen to party and other boons as well prot if needed.infuse light passive u should be healing 1k+ regen ticks your allies (could reach 1.3k regen ticks before patch).

[LadyKitty.6120]

There's quite a bit of misinformation. Kitty's adding her fixes. (as someone who's literally played all healbuilds and spent years theorizing and testing them)

@"Oogabooga.3812" said:Having played firebrand, druid, scourge, tempest, scrapper, and renegade healers, here are some comparisons between them, as they all have various strengths and weaknesses.FirebrandDisadvantages:

• Rather short range compared to other healers

DruidAdvantages:

• High spike healingWeak spike healing if trying to provide boons while healing.
• Easy continuous party buffs
• Moderate DPS contributionWeak compared to heal scourge, rene, herald, X+Wh tempest and healbrand.
• Can provide extra conditions for classes that provide from condicount on boss

Disadvantages:

• Normal revival speedDruid is 3rd best, Kitty would say as they have 5-target insta-ress at 32s cooldown as long as you can keep up the Nature Spirit and properly timed their self-ress is instant.
• Average condition clearDruid sucks in this regard, to be honest.
• Needs to choose between decent heals with Lingering Light or boonbotting with GotL while providing weak heals
• Weak on sustained healsThe druid is a reactionary healer i.e. heals after damage, and managing the spirit location on a mobile boss can be problematic.Difficulty: easy to start, moderate high to master

ScourgeAdvantages:

• Moderate condition clear, but barrier will also soak condition damageOne of the best condition clearers, among with heal engi and tempest.
• The best revival skills
• Moderately high CC contribution
• High regeneration upkeep
• You simply cannot die as a heal scourge if you actually know how to properly play it
• Can diversify into boon stripper and trash mob pulls
• Some condition DPS contribution (if you use scepter to deal condidamage instead of using dagger and wasting 1500 stats to be able to epi at a couple bosses)Or decent power dps contribution 'cause Kitty's new secret Zealot's build. (which actually makes proper use of dagger's power damage. Video on Kitty's youtube.)
• Extremely versatile build-wise as you can make it into boonbot, insane barrierbot, barriering epibot or backstabbing carrier. If you only need resses, though, play Blood Magic condi scourge to ress while doing good condidamage.

Disadvantages:

• Low party buffsOne of the best mightbots if you go for boon duration. Though then again, nobody cares about might so Kitty's given up on even trying to make people see it as viable.
• Very low projectile block accessCorrosive Poison Cloud is a very good projectile block, though still loses to rev's tablet. Lacks reflects, however.
• No blocks for tanking purposes and needs to rely on Unholy Sanctuary against blockable 1-shot mechanics.The scourge relies on mitigating damage through the barrier preemptively, and the teleport revival covers up many mistakes by either the scourge or the downed player.Difficulty: easy to start, moderate to master

TempestAdvantages:

• The best pure healerLoses to heal renegade and heal scrapper. Heal tempest is about 4500 heals per sec for 5 + some extra for other 5 thru aurashare while heal-rene is 6500ish and heal scrapper is about 7000. Unlike some people seem to misunderstand, Soothing Mist heals the tooltip number over the duration, not per sec (seen people think that a lot).
• Moderate CC contributionKitty would say low. Unless you specifically take extra CC skills as utilities, heal tempest is among the lowest when it comes to breakbar contribution.
• Moderate projectile reflectsIs one of the few classes capable of quite reliably reflecting Matt's shards.
• Has Rebound! to prevent whole squad from going down if well-timed. (That skill's ridiculously broken if used correctly)

Disadvantages:

• Average mobilityGood mobility with Eye of the Storm which you want at any boss with CCs.
• Low or no party stabilityCovers for it with automatic party stunbreak and Eye of the Storm's manual stunbreak.
• Being caught off rotation can take a while to get to the needed attunement if playing auramancer-version

The tempest is usually busy rotating skills to keep buffs up, and can be messed up due to mechanics or the need to revive someone.Difficulty: moderate easy with staff, moderately complicated with X+warhorn.

ScrapperAdvantages:

• Strongest pure healer in the game if focusing on heals instead of trying to deal the little dps it can do even if you camped hammer
• 2nd best ressbot in general and best ranged resses, thanks to Function Gyro and Toss Elixir R. If mastered, stronger support than heal scourge in almost every regard.
• Moderate damage mitigation
• Moderate CC contribution (both with hammer and shield), very high CC contribution if slotting in Personal Battering Ram and such.
• Lots of channeled blocks if needed for blocking boss mechanics while tanking
• Full healing power to 600 range and 60% to 900 range.

Disadvantages:

• Low spike healingRidiculously strong spike healing if you use Mortar 5, Elixir Gun 5 and Med Kit auto at same time.
• Low stability accessBulwark Gyro's toolbelt skill, just saying. Toss Elixirs as well if you need lots of stab.
• Can only provide reflects thru extremely inconvenient and unreliable meansDifficulty: high (condi engi-tier)

RenegadeAdvantages:

• Can heal at 95% power from long range while providing strong sustained heals
• Can provide slow for dps chronos

The renegade contributes greatly to the offense part of the fight with alacrity and the area of effect CCs (can single-handedly break Blasting Black Peter’s defiance bar).Difficulty: moderate high

Feel free to agree or disagree! I have not toyed with warrior, thief or mesmer healers.

HeraldAdvantages:

• Strong spike heal
• Good party boons (regen, protection, fury, swiftness and might for 10, Assassin's Presence and some alacrity for 5 though might stacking takes time to ramp up)
• Excellent survivability
• 2 Channeled blocks to deal with dangerous mechanics
• Capable of healing and providing boons from decent range (within 600) and good choice for kiting duties
• Strong regen
• Excellent projectile block
• Decent CCs and knockbacks

Disadvantages:

• Essentially locked out of healing others when in Dragon Stance
• No access to stab unless sacrificing boon output by taking Dwarf Stance instead of Dragon.
• No reflects
• Too slow might ramp-up to seriously compete with warhorn tempest, heal/boonbot scourge and druid but works if none of those are present
• Requires some focus on energy management and correct facet usage

Difficulty: moderate high

Heal DeadeyeAdvantages:

• Can easily provide full might and fury for 10 as well as tons of vigor and swiftness for 5
• Extremely good mobility
• Capable of stealthing allies (but who needs it?)
• Extremely fun and good meme-value
• Decent amount of CC now that they boosted pistol 4
• Easily convertable into Heal Thief on bosses where you can use Detonate Plasma for booning

Disadvantages:

• Squishy
• Can only heal in boss's melee range
• No blocks to deal with 1-shot mechs
• Weak Druid-tier heals
• People can't see it as a healer so good luck trying to get into a squad. Even if your name is Lady Kitty.Difficulty: High 'cause you gotta move extremely well while managing initiative.

Heal BerserkerAdvantages:

• Decent condi cleanses (shouts "Shake It Off!" every 10 seconds)
• Can provide fury, swiftness and resistance for 10 as well as barrier
• Also capable of bringing might for 5
• Can bring that famous warrior CC power with mace
• Average mobility
• Good survivability
• Has reliable stun-breaks
• Can also be specced as Spellbreaker for boonstrip
• Has a reliable channeled block if needed
• Shouts a lot so good fun factor

Disadvantages:

• Heals are mostly triggered by cleansing conditions and thus heal berserker is mostly applicable at bosses where squad gets lots of condis.
• At bosses with lots of incoming condis, rivals druid in heal output
• Serious meme. Don't ever try it at any boss that doesn't spit conditions at you and even then ask yourself wtf you're doing with your life.

Difficulty: moderate as it requires timing the few heals well.

Heal chronomancerAdvantages:

• Really strong burst heals
• Provides solid stream of heals around it though on relatively weaker side (through Illusionary Inspiration-trait spamming clones with scepter, though even then 2-4x what you'd usually need)
• Can provide quickness for 10 semi-reliably
• Can also provide some alacrity
• Capable of tanking like a chrono
• Full chrono's CC capability
• Decent mobility
• Has Feedback and all the usual mesmer utilities
• Has access to squad stabs and blocks
• Decent condi cleanse

Disadvantages:

• Mainly capable of providing alacrity and quickness but nothing else.
• Rather weak Druid-tier total heals
• Unknown to most players and you get easily mistaken as normal chrono
• Lots of things going on at the same time and can be confusing

Difficulty: Easier than good boon chrono

[Wasabi Kitty.8247]

One thing that I think tends to get overrated is the total healing when comparing classes/builds.

If Class A is able to go into a raid and keep a squad above 90% health for the entire encounter provided people don't majorly fail big mechanics (like constantly standing in poison at Sloth) , then Class B healing for 25% more really isn't relevant. So when it comes to healing in encounters the mindset shouldn't be "lets bring as much healing as possible" it should be, "let's make sure we have enough healing and then we can focus on other things."

[Euclid.2517]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:There's quite a bit of misinformation. Kitty's adding her fixes. (as someone who's literally played all healbuilds and spent years theorizing and testing them)

@"Oogabooga.3812" said:Having played firebrand, druid, scourge, tempest, scrapper, and renegade healers, here are some comparisons between them, as they all have various strengths and weaknesses.

Firebrand

Disadvantages:

• Rather short range compared to other healers

Druid

Advantages:

• High spike healingWeak spike healing if trying to provide boons while healing.
• Easy continuous party buffs
• Moderate DPS contributionWeak compared to heal scourge, rene, herald, X+Wh tempest and healbrand.
• Can provide extra conditions for classes that provide from condicount on boss

Disadvantages:

• Normal revival speedDruid is 3rd best, Kitty would say as they have 5-target insta-ress at 32s cooldown as long as you can keep up the Nature Spirit and properly timed their self-ress is instant.
• Average condition clearDruid sucks in this regard, to be honest.
• Needs to choose between decent heals with Lingering Light or boonbotting with GotL while providing weak heals
• Weak on sustained healsThe druid is a reactionary healer i.e. heals after damage, and managing the spirit location on a mobile boss can be problematic.Difficulty: easy to start, moderate high to master

Scourge

Advantages:

• Moderate condition clear, but barrier will also soak condition damageOne of the best condition clearers, among with heal engi and tempest.
• The best revival skills
• Moderately high CC contribution
• High regeneration upkeep
• You simply cannot die as a heal scourge if you actually know how to properly play it
• Can diversify into boon stripper and trash mob pulls
• Some condition DPS contribution (if you use scepter to deal condidamage instead of using dagger and wasting 1500 stats to be able to epi at a couple bosses)Or decent power dps contribution 'cause Kitty's new secret Zealot's build. (which actually makes proper use of dagger's power damage. Video on Kitty's youtube.)
• Extremely versatile build-wise as you can make it into boonbot, insane barrierbot, barriering epibot or backstabbing carrier. If you only need resses, though, play Blood Magic condi scourge to ress while doing good condidamage.

Disadvantages:

• Low party buffsOne of the best mightbots if you go for boon duration. Though then again, nobody cares about might so Kitty's given up on even trying to make people see it as viable.
• Very low projectile block accessCorrosive Poison Cloud is a very good projectile block, though still loses to rev's tablet. Lacks reflects, however.
• No blocks for tanking purposes and needs to rely on Unholy Sanctuary against blockable 1-shot mechanics.The scourge relies on mitigating damage through the barrier preemptively, and the teleport revival covers up many mistakes by either the scourge or the downed player.Difficulty: easy to start, moderate to master

Tempest

Advantages:

• The best pure healerLoses to heal renegade and heal scrapper. Heal tempest is about 4500 heals per sec for 5 + some extra for other 5 thru aurashare while heal-rene is 6500ish and heal scrapper is about 7000. Unlike some people seem to misunderstand, Soothing Mist heals the tooltip number over the duration, not per sec (seen people think that a lot).
• Moderate CC contributionKitty would say low. Unless you specifically take extra CC skills as utilities, heal tempest is among the lowest when it comes to breakbar contribution.
• Moderate projectile reflectsIs one of the few classes capable of quite reliably reflecting Matt's shards.
• Has Rebound! to prevent whole squad from going down if well-timed. (That skill's ridiculously broken if used correctly)

Disadvantages:

• Average mobilityGood mobility with Eye of the Storm which you want at any boss with CCs.
• Low or no party stabilityCovers for it with automatic party stunbreak and Eye of the Storm's manual stunbreak.
• Being caught off rotation can take a while to get to the needed attunement if playing auramancer-version

The tempest is usually busy rotating skills to keep buffs up, and can be messed up due to mechanics or the need to revive someone.Difficulty: moderate easy with staff, moderately complicated with X+warhorn.

Scrapper

Advantages:

• Strongest pure healer in the game if focusing on heals instead of trying to deal the little dps it can do even if you camped hammer
• 2nd best ressbot in general and best ranged resses, thanks to Function Gyro and Toss Elixir R. If mastered, stronger support than heal scourge in almost every regard.
• Moderate damage mitigation
• Moderate CC contribution (both with hammer and shield), very high CC contribution if slotting in Personal Battering Ram and such.
• Lots of channeled blocks if needed for blocking boss mechanics while tanking
• Full healing power to 600 range and 60% to 900 range.

Disadvantages:

• Low spike healingRidiculously strong spike healing if you use Mortar 5, Elixir Gun 5 and Med Kit auto at same time.
• Low stability accessBulwark Gyro's toolbelt skill, just saying. Toss Elixirs as well if you need lots of stab.
• Can only provide reflects thru extremely inconvenient and unreliable meansDifficulty: high (condi engi-tier)

Renegade

Advantages:

• Can heal at 95% power from long range while providing strong sustained heals
• Can provide slow for dps chronos

The renegade contributes greatly to the offense part of the fight with alacrity and the area of effect CCs (can single-handedly break Blasting Black Peter’s defiance bar).Difficulty: moderate high

Feel free to agree or disagree! I have not toyed with warrior, thief or mesmer healers.

Herald

Advantages:

• Strong spike heal
• Good party boons (regen, protection, fury, swiftness and might for 10, Assassin's Presence and some alacrity for 5 though might stacking takes time to ramp up)
• Excellent survivability
• 2 Channeled blocks to deal with dangerous mechanics
• Capable of healing and providing boons from decent range (within 600) and good choice for kiting duties
• Strong regen
• Excellent projectile block
• Decent CCs and knockbacks

Disadvantages:

• Essentially locked out of healing others when in Dragon Stance
• No access to stab unless sacrificing boon output by taking Dwarf Stance instead of Dragon.
• No reflects
• Too slow might ramp-up to seriously compete with warhorn tempest, heal/boonbot scourge and druid but works if none of those are present
• Requires some focus on energy management and correct facet usage

Difficulty: moderate high

Heal Deadeye

Advantages:

• Can easily provide full might and fury for 10 as well as tons of vigor and swiftness for 5
• Extremely good mobility
• Capable of stealthing allies (but who needs it?)
• Extremely fun and good meme-value
• Decent amount of CC now that they boosted pistol 4
• Easily convertable into Heal Thief on bosses where you can use Detonate Plasma for booning

Disadvantages:

• Squishy
• Can only heal in boss's melee range
• No blocks to deal with 1-shot mechs
• Weak Druid-tier heals
• People can't see it as a healer so good luck trying to get into a squad. Even if your name is Lady Kitty.Difficulty: High 'cause you gotta move extremely well while managing initiative.

Heal Berserker

Advantages:

• Decent condi cleanses (shouts "Shake It Off!" every 10 seconds)
• Can provide fury, swiftness and resistance for 10 as well as barrier
• Also capable of bringing might for 5
• Can bring that famous warrior CC power with mace
• Average mobility
• Good survivability
• Has reliable stun-breaks
• Can also be specced as Spellbreaker for boonstrip
• Has a reliable channeled block if needed
• Shouts a lot so good fun factor

Disadvantages:

• Heals are mostly triggered by cleansing conditions and thus heal berserker is mostly applicable at bosses where squad gets lots of condis.
• At bosses with lots of incoming condis, rivals druid in heal output
• Serious meme. Don't ever try it at any boss that doesn't spit conditions at you and even then ask yourself kitten you're doing with your life.

Difficulty: moderate as it requires timing the few heals well.

Heal chronomancerAdvantages:

• Really strong burst heals
• Provides solid stream of heals around it though on relatively weaker side (through Illusionary Inspiration-trait spamming clones with scepter, though even then 2-4x what you'd usually need)
• Can provide quickness for 10 semi-reliably
• Can also provide some alacrity
• Capable of tanking like a chrono
• Full chrono's CC capability
• Decent mobility
• Has Feedback and all the usual mesmer utilities
• Has access to squad stabs and blocks
• Decent condi cleanse

Disadvantages:

• Mainly capable of providing alacrity and quickness but nothing else.
• Rather weak Druid-tier total heals
• Unknown to most players and you get easily mistaken as normal chrono
• Lots of things going on at the same time and can be confusing

Difficulty: Easier than good boon chrono

Wow kitty you are the second person I know in game who is active in forum.

Thanks for the helpful information.