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Best Support for PUG Strike Missions


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Hey All-What do you think the best support classes are for healing/support in PUG strike missions?Clearly Barrier Scourge has awesome capabilities in PUGS. My other thought is Healing Tempests because they have so much raw healing and range, but I have never played one so dont have any real world experience with them in PUGS.

What have you found did well in PUG strike missions?

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In order:

1) Healbrand - Boons.Hard to give up on this one :sunglasses:.

2) Renegade - Good utility support, alacrity, anti projectile and stability.Rare to see one in pugs but valuable.

3) Druid - Aoe heals, spirits and basic might + fury.Second best choice; literally :tongue:.

4) Scourge - To pull downed players off from Grasp to ress during Boneskinner.

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The three I play are:

  1. Heal Scourge: It's easy to underestimate the importance of Stability. In fights like Construct and Fraenir, Stability can represent a significant improvement in your team's performance. With the Stab from Trail of Anguish and Well of Power as well as some Might generation, the insane rez power and the barrier, Scourge shines when you know the fights well and can proactively protect the team from the hits you know are coming. Epidemic is also huge value on Voice&Claw. I play this in full Plaguedoctor's gear. It's a hard carry for PUG groups that refuse to dodge and brings more to the table than many think.[&DQgTNTIZPB0SAKIAmQFAAXQBcwFvAXYBkgCSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

  2. Healing Tempest. Heal Tempest provides some of the strongest raw healing in the game and is an excellent reactive healer. What really gives Healing Tempest it's value is Might generation. Tempest is simple and effective and best used when Might is an issue for your team or if you are new to the role of Healer. Wash the Pain Away is insane value when paired with the Ten man Shouts. I play this Scepter/Warhorn in Harrier's gear. Staff works well too and offers stronger raw healing, but for most Strike staff is actually overhealing and Scepter/Warhorn brings might and boon sustain.[&DQYlFhE5MDXHEscSdhKlEqUSdhKPAI8AmRKZEgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

  3. Heal Scrapper. The low cooldown on the auto from the Healing kit means never having to worry about your heal being accessible. Scrapper, when traited correctly offers very strong healing. Toss Elixr B is a long splash of Stab, 5+4 off Elixr Gun is an easy effective combo.The real benefit to Heal Scrapper is the constant access to water fields that can be blasted via Whirl Finishers just as Shredder Gyro or Hammer 2. I play this in full Minstrel's. It's a bit of a meme build that I adapted from my WvW zerg support build just it carries pugs just fine on the easy encounters with long sustained healing. I've not played this on WoJ or Boneskinner yet.[&DQMdJy85KxmEABQBlQEmAQEBowBfAYoBiQESAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

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Depends which strike it is but generally it's firebrand because aegis procs are quite low cooldown especially with alacrity, axe outputs fury, and quickness makes even auto-attack spammers do 50% more damage. If you look at your typical supports, alacrity renegade helps a bit but can't handle big attacks well with Soulcleave summit and Breakrazor's bastion, even with protection output. Protection uptime on tempest is not as great either and damage is lowered if you run staff without party quickness to make up for it. A typical build with 2500-3000 power even with 25 stack might is gaining around 25% damage.

If you had ten full damage players you're looking at bit less than seven of those same players with quickness.

Shiverpeak Pass: Condi quickbrand because large attacks aren't often so aegis blocks more or less all of them , you can stack the entire time

Voice+Claw: Condi quickbrand (higher damage and health than power) with proper use of reflects, harrier/minstrel heal firebrand (use reflects), condi scourge with epidemic and barrier on shades (Desert Empowerment)

Fraenir: harrier/minstrel heal firebrand because the stomp attack kills people and aegis blocks it (as long as people kill elementals before phase)

Boneskinner: Condi-based barrier scourge on apothecary (or high toughness gear with healing power) with blood magic for transfusion res and epidemic for wisps---> Other options: minstrel tempest for raw heal output ; minstrel firebrand if people stack properly for quickness (use merciful intervention as a res)---> Without running toughness the squad needs more healers unless each individual player has heals on attack such as weaver or staff daredevil with signet heal or swapping critical strikes trait to Invigorating Precision

Whisper of Jormag: Heal Druid with spirits to block orbs , since people can't really stack all the time due to chains and red circles---> Other option: Barrier condi scourge with wurm ; heal staff tempest works okay up until 25% ; would not heal firebrand here due to the red circles (go condi quickbrand if you do run firebrand)---> Haven't tested alacrity renegade summons for orb blocking but unless you run condi then you don't really have a range weapon other than hammer

Forging Steel: Mobility for collection events and cleave is key to faster runs and due to sniper perches + tank as well as runes and the portals at the end, I'd say power soulbeast on Greatsword or staff daredevil with shortbow swap. People generally don't stack and sniping or using the tank with ammo recharges every time is more effective than running support.---> Honorable mention: Fresh air tempest because 25% movement speed in air attunement and overload air has huge cleave

Warrior is great for banners but cannot carry people that autoattack. Battle standard is on a long cooldown so ressing has a severe damage penalty and puts you at risk.

Ultimately while scrapper is popular in WvW due to cleanses, camping med kit provides zero DPS and not having quickness or fury output means you can't really make up for it. In addition, the heal scales with boons , so if you don't have boon providing classes the heal doesn't scale as well. Function Gyro res isn't as strong as blood magic scourge res both in number of targets and recharge time.

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A friend of mine and me always run as barrier scourge and druid and fill the rest with pugs. That way most of the strikes are very easy. Only WoJ and especially Boneskinner are annoying when people are standing in the wrong spot. But that's with every healer comp I think.

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  • 2 weeks later...

In order:

  1. Heal ScourgeHard to do without it for Whisper of Jormag and Boneskinner, its ability to pull down ally is just too good.

  2. Heal TempestProvides insane group healing and can upkeep might too, if you trait properly for it to do so. However it's hard to find a group with it as most group will want Druid over Tempest.

  3. Heal DruidSpirits, Might, Protection etc....

  4. Heal FirebrandQuickness uptime, might and almost every boon in the game. It's not at the top of the list because Condi Quickness Firebrand is an option too and a main heal + a off-healer are generally enough to keep the team alive.

  5. Healing HeraldOne of the strongest burst healing class in the game, your team will almost never die with a healing Herald in your team + glint gives really good buff.

Team wise, I like to go Druid + Healscourge for Jordan, Shiverpeak, Fraenir, WoJ. And Druid + Healscourge + Heal FB for Boneskinner.

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For pug strikes, Kitty would rather speak of combos than separate healers as the healers work best in certain combinations while not so much in others.

Kitty starts with single healers, though:

  1. Mightbot heal scourge (Kitty's version) - Full might for 10, barriers, resses, Flesh Wurm, pulls, some heals. The ultimate carry option. (And stronger than Teapot's or SC's when it comes to strikes as you usually have no clue how much boons other healers bring.)

  2. Healbrand - bring a pair and you have easy time as they cover boons (except alacrity), if they use axe and staff properly, and they have blocks and stab and mid-tier heals. Most of heals are in 240 radius, though, so has the weakness of short range.

  3. Warhorn Tempest - The Ultimate Boonbot. Especially the scepter version easily covers everything but quickness and alacrity with far greater range than any other boonbot which is superb at Whisper and Icebrood Constructs. Also brings auras, mid-tier heals and Rebound. Lacks ressing power, though.

  4. Heal Scrapper - Not exactly the best booner, though it does bring excellent amounts of defensive boons and underrated superspeed which helps people move out of mechs. It does, however, bring unrivalled combination of pure heals and resses. It has twice the sheer healing power compared to mid-tier healers and almost 3 times that of low-tier. And though scourge is the ultimate ressbot, Kitty would give 2nd place to Heal Scrapper as Function Gyro and Toss Elixir R are extremely potent ranged resses and HGH Toss Elixir R is essentially capable of ressing the whole squad over 10 seconds if they're not taking extra damage. It also has about 50s cooldown with HGH+alacrity. And as a snark, HGH and turret boons (if needed) are which make heal engi so strong, not Purity of Purpose which people seem to think engi is about. It also has lots of condicleanse, stab and projectile destruction available and other utilities as well as fury and decent amounts of might for 5 if needed. Though heals-wise there's one competitor with almost as much healing power but in less flexible format and that is...

  5. Heal Renegade - Alacrity and almost strongest heals. Every squad likes alacrity and heal renegade is also capable of bringing regen, retaliation, protection and some might. It has extremely potent ranged burst heals on tablet, strong sustained heal on Soulcleave and extra heals on Kalla heal and staff. As utility, it has good CC (doesn't work very well in strikes, though), tiny stab and projectile destruction.However, heal renegade has some serious shortcomings: Soulcleave is focused on sub instead of those who actually need heals at the time, Natural Harmony has small radius, the energy management might before an issue if there's slightly sustained burst of incoming damage and it's among the only 3 healers without native access to fury share (and fury has been even more serious issue lately). It also doesn't have ressing power in skills like pretty much every other healer do.

  6. Staff Tempest - Heals for all! It has 3rd strongest heals and good portion of those are ranged. Traited with Arcane, it has 3rd strongest ressing power and squad-wide defensive boons+some might with Tempestuous Aria. However, it has a problem of having to make a choice: squad-wide guaranteed protection through Earth or resses and partial protection through Arcane+Aftershock. 3rd option would be taking Air for squad-wide fury. As weakness, it relies on dpsers and other healers to bring important boons.

  7. Druid - the raider's choice for unique boons. Druid is a powerful boonbot with spirits and spotter. It's pretty much capable of bringing full might, regen, swiftness and fury for 10 as well as some vigor but no quickness or alacrity. However, after all the nerfs it's got, it is now among the weakest healers if bringing boons and it's incapable of healing its own sub fully in Boneskinner's overheal strat. Even less to heal itself since outgoing heal modifiers don't affect healers themselves. To make matters worse, druid's heals are mostly in Celestial Avatar, thus bursty type and Boneskinner is all about sustained heals. Such a pity, isn't it? For that reason, Kitty can't recommend taking druid unless your other healer can cover for druid's lack of heals. If you want spirits for 5% power damage boost+burns, take a druid but otherwise warhorn tempest is superior choice.

  8. Heal Chronomancer - Quickness for all...and some alacrity. This one's a build that probably 99% of players are unaware of as it's one of the more niche builds Kitty's crafted. It's capable of bringing full quickness for 10 through Seize the Moment-trait combined with full boon duration and it also has bunch of sustained healing, extremely potent burst heal on Well of Eternity and aegis+stab through Well of Precognition which are really useful especially at Bones. It also provides some alacrity through Tides of Time and Well of Recall to fulfill the alacrity from alacrigade. It heals by spamming tons of clones with scepter (each auto-attack chain summons one, blocking attack with scepter 2 summons 2 etc.) which trigger Illusionary Inspiration. Might not seem like that strong of a trait but it triggers a ton if you play it right. It's also capable of bringing most of chrono utility if needed. Heal chrono's weaknesses are druid-tier heals and inability to bring other boons so it relies on some other boonbot to bring might and fury.

  9. Heal Herald - Boons for all and heals...half the time. Heal herald is a curious case as it can bring full might, fury, swiftness, protection and very potent regeneration for all as well as extremely strong burst heals through Ventari tablet. However, it takes 15 seconds to ramp up that might and it can't stop attacking or might drops. Another big issue is that it can only heal through staff and regen when in Dragon stance for boons and thus its heal output is quite limited and it's a horrible choice for bosses where sustained healing is needed. So, a very niche build that sadly doesn't quite have an useful place atm except in very curious cases.

  10. Heal Deadeye - who let Kitty theorize that one? It's pretty much the 2nd worst healer of them all though it has excellent boonbot ability. It can provide full might and fury for 10 as well as swiftness and vigor for 5. It heals by spamming sword 2 for shadowsteps to trigger Shadow Saviour, stealths at full Malice and stealth attacks to reset Malice. Reaching full Malice causes Maleficent Seven to restore some initiative which creates a loop that's only limited by the speed you can stealth at. Unfortunately it heals slightly less than heal chrono and GotL druid which makes it a horrible choice for Boneskinner and since the heals are limited to small'ish radius around it, it's mainly decent for bosses where you can stay stacked tight. Niche choice with fun gameplay.

  11. Heal Warrior - the thing that shouldn't be. Shout warrior has always been such an infamous meme but Tactics revamp did add some interesting features to warhorn: it can now provides pretty much full fury and partial vigor, swiftness and resistance for 10. It's also gives bunch of barrier at very long cooldown and it can bring Empower Allies for bosses where condi cleanse isn't needed. Unfortunately half of its healing output is tied to cleansing condis from allies and thus it's even more niche than heal deadeye. Though Kitty's had some success with it in W2-raid due to constant incoming condis. Even at best, it heals slightly less than druid as low-tier healer.

-The usual heal scourge - Kitty's not sure how she'd place that one. It has extreme carry potential through resses and barrier if played right (very rare thing to happen according to Kitty's observations) but boon support-wise it's the lowest of the low and if the squad doesn't compensate for its total lack of boons, especially power dpsers are world of hurt due to low fury uptime (if they don't happen to have self-fury sources) which means 80%ish crit rate for most metabuilds. Thus Kitty can only recommend it as 3rd healer and she'd still rather have people add the boonbot-option with Pack runes and Harrier pieces as heal scourge doesn't really need that massive lifeforce pool to succeed and it would make heal scourge a full support instead of mere healer.

To be continuad... Also reserving next post 'cause Kitty' s now just done single healers but she's yet to write how to combine them effectively.

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for strikes I have prepared few builds:hfbhscourgealac (deviner biuld and healalac biuld). Last use If squad lack heal but no one is alac. Diviner is more common.driud

What I don't use: not use ele (only heal is pooor way), not use chrono - poor well 3th tick mechanic, not use hel srappper or etc ...

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1heal druid ( boons/buffs/healing)

2 heal renegade (boons/buffs/healing and ventari dome)

3 heal tempest ( wide healing and aoe boons + a nice ress)

heal scourge is the best defensive carry though.

Number 1 and 2 are taken for their boons and unique buffs in general. Ten man alac rev and might druid typically cannot really do dps so you dont lose much by letting them heal. Additionally rev heals are some of the best in game.

Tempest does shitloads of aoe healing and buffing. Hence in groups that spread around tempest is a must.

Scourge lots of CC, corrupts, barrier and the ressing make this one of the best builds in general.

Heal fire brand is an overrated build, you can get much of its benefits in a dps firebrand.

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