Healing in Fractals

[Eldor.4201]

Hey all,

This is my first post on GW2 forums, so I’m a little bit excited:) I have a question for you.

I’m playing this game since the core game released, most of the time I take a break for 5-6 months, then return and continue my progress from where I left it. But this time, I faced some warnings (or insults most of the time) during fractal runs with my HFB.

I believe, some of my teammates wants me to become their pocket healer during fractal. For ex. Snowblind fractal, last boss fight; in a phase, boss dissepear, summon some adds and whole combat area bombarding by AoE. I believe in this phase, every team member stop dpsing and start avoiding those AoEs. Then, after bombardement ends, whole party should focus on elite add, and right there, healer should heal his/her party members, am I right? Some days ago, after we wiped on mentioned boss, 2 of my team members started to insult me that how noob and idiot I am, and whining about where is the heal. I asked, we were all spread around, if I decide to heal, which team member I should heal? They didnt answer my question and after another insult phase, they rage quit. I mean… this is not WoW, there is no spot heal in GW2. And instead of raids, most of the fractal damage is avoidable. So, every team member should avoid damage if its possible (unless its an extreme situation like last boss of Reactor, if you decide to stay on one panel and burst the boss).

Or sometimes, ppl asking me for perma Stability, but it took 5 minutes to they take down a 1-min-fight-boss, and also during this time, they want perma quickness too.

Btw, these examples are minority. Most of the time, I find a party, we get in, clear the T4 dailies without any casulities, we wish having a nice day to each other, and left.

Is my logic wrong? Or did I just faced against elitism?

[ollbirtan.2915]

Your logic is correct. Your teammates were toxic. Only one thing to correct - as a hfb you are expected to provide perma quickness, which is easy since you kitten it left and right :) Stab is also easily maintained - not perma, but during the moments it's needed. And as you said, healing isn't usually needed, and as a fb you provide tons of aegis which already should be enough to survive most of the encounters :)

[SidewayS.3789]

You,as a HFB you must provide perma quickness, and stability on attacks where the boss/mobs are doing knockbacks or at least aegis when these attacks happens.

[Eldor.4201]

Thanks for the feedback. My problem is, in some fights, Stand Your Ground and Tome 3 are not enough for stab maintanence, so I have to get Mantra of Liberation (also, Discretize suggesting to always equip Mantra of Liberation unless there is no need for Stab). But then, it become harder to maintain perma quickness without Feel My Wrath, especially if my teammates doesnt stack. I can not unequip Bow of Truth for more Stab, because its my Level 2 "Oh s..." heal. I can not unequip Mantra of Potence, because, you know, its quickness:) And because all these, I can not equip Bane Signet most of the time. I'm trying to adapt my build to my pug group, not just to fractal. But these decisions are so complicated and rough as a hfb.

[SidewayS.3789]

Well let aside the dT build,because that build have in mind speed running. Aside of CMs or bosses have shorter phases, i always run SYG,might+quickness mantra+ bow/regenartion mantra for cleansing and of course as elite Feel My Wrath. Or let's just say the final boss on volcanic, i drop SYG for Wall of Reflection. That's the main thingy of a hfb, you must adapt according to the fights, don't just follow 1 build and go with it, because it won't cut it. You are playing with pugs, not a static or a speed clear group, and pugs are doing mistakes no matter how hard you are trying to play HFB, but if you keep them alive in the "OH SHIIIT" situations, everything it's good. I am a fractal god HFB, and i am playing this class for the past 2 years, so let's just say i have some experience with it.

[Cyninja.2954]

Always question yourself as far as personal ability goes and try to see if there was something you could have done better. There are a lot of mediocre players in this game who think they are good but could use a lot of improving.

That said and given the encounter described, I'd rather guess you met a bunch of mediocre dps players. Chances are high you could have saved them if you had pulled all registers, because quite frankly it is possible to keep even the weakest dps alive in regular T4 fractals (give or take some very nasty instabilities in specific cases), but that is beyond what you should bring to the table.

First off:Drop Retribution in favor of Virtues for regular T4 groups. Mostly because you want to be using something else than Bane Signet as your 3rd utility for most cases of pleb dps syndrome (and if you absolutely need CC, go with Sanctuary over Signet anyway). Use "Hold the Line" (yes, discretize does not mention this skill, but this combined with Shield 4 Shield of Judgement is permanent protection on group versus 60% uptime), Wall of Reflection, Bow of Truth or "Stand your Ground" on your remaining 2 utility slots as needed. Again: this is for regular T4 groups and general game play.

Second:Realize that there are a ton of players who have no idea how to behave or react in fractals. Here are some common behaviors of weak players:

1. players who assume the healer will always be at their back and healing only them no matter the circumstance.
2. players who are unable to stack because touching another character in-game might lead to corona infection
3. players who will not deviate from their build no matter what. This can be a Renegade who decides to never take Ventari for Protective Solace, even not during a Mai Trin fight to help out, a DH who will never slot a Wall of Reflection, even if it can be a damage increase during We Bleed Fire, or any other situational utility skill which might come in handy
4. players who will not react to anything which goes wrong or pay attention to what is happening. A good player will notice if their healer is somewhere else or if damage to group is high, automatically playing more defensively. A weak player will just eat the damage, go down and then complain. Not to be confused with high level of play strats where the entire group is aiming at skipping a mechanic, where too some players will adapt and others will just retry immediatly
5. it's always the healers fault. This is as old as MMORPGs. Many players will blame the healer over themselves because a healer could have covered for their mistakes

Third:Aegis. It not only blocks the next attacks but also heals when stripped. I should not have to explain more here. Learn to use this properly and try to not spam it.

Fourth:Elites, let's cover them:"Feel My Wrath" - almost never needed on heal firebrand. You should have a LOT of over-stacked quickness and fury from Mantras and Axe 3, almost never use this except in raids.Mantra of Liberation - your actual go-to elite. Always have this slotted. Make sure to understand when to use a stunbreak and when to use stability preemptively.Renewed Focus - reset of Tomes, situational on hfb, still better than FmWSignet of Courage - aoe passive healing on top of all your other passive healing. Again, better than FmW

[ollbirtan.2915]

@"Eldor.4201" said:Thanks for the feedback. My problem is, in some fights, Stand Your Ground and Tome 3 are not enough for stab maintanence, so I have to get Mantra of Liberation (also, Discretize suggesting to always equip Mantra of Liberation unless there is no need for Stab). But then, it become harder to maintain perma quickness without Feel My Wrath, especially if my teammates doesnt stack. I can not unequip Bow of Truth for more Stab, because its my Level 2 "Oh s..." heal. I can not unequip Mantra of Potence, because, you know, its quickness:) And because all these, I can not equip Bane Signet most of the time. I'm trying to adapt my build to my pug group, not just to fractal. But these decisions are so complicated and rough as a hfb.

I found that dropping Retribution in favour of Virtues isn't that helpful when you need to hardcarry through heals. Try valour 2-3-2 instead. Take mantra of cleansing, MI, and elite mantra for stability AND group stubreak. Even if you play with mace, you still provide sufficient fury thanks to Monk's focus and Smiter's boon. Meanwhile, MI is a much better clutch than Bow of Truth.

[Eldor.4201]

Thanks for the great feedbacks guys. I start to do some CMs last weekend. It was a great way to Aegis training:) Also, I really want to take elite mantra most of the time, but pugs, as Cyninja.2954 mentioned, rarely stacked. So its hard to give perma quickness just with utility mantras.

[Wolfb.7025]

@"Eldor.4201" said:Thanks for the feedback. My problem is, in some fights, Stand Your Ground and Tome 3 are not enough for stab maintanence, so I have to get Mantra of Liberation (also, Discretize suggesting to always equip Mantra of Liberation unless there is no need for Stab).SOOO this is the reason of the alarming increase of non feel my wrath healbrands on cms. Dude, that's really annoying, dont do that.

The only place you "need" extra stability is in skorvald and the alacrigade should take care of that, every other encounter you can single handedy provide stab with SYG and Tome3.What's the point of sacrificing one source of instant AoE Quickness just to have more stability that you really need? Is it really worth it to starve your dps with 60 uptime quickness for that? DIscretize recommends bringing Mantra of Liberation because they're literally top notch players able to mantain enough quickness by aiming every mantra towards the group. Truth is, if you're able to do that, you most likely won't ever need to bring Mantra of Liberation to begin with, so why bother then?

Sry, this was a quick rant, but i'm tired that 7 out of 10 pugs doesn't bring FMW and ends up affecting the whole party doing so.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Wolfb.7025 said:

@"Eldor.4201" said:Thanks for the feedback. My problem is, in some fights, Stand Your Ground and Tome 3 are not enough for stab maintanence, so I have to get Mantra of Liberation (also, Discretize suggesting to always equip Mantra of Liberation unless there is no need for Stab).SOOO this is the reason of the alarming increase of non feel my wrath healbrands on cms. Dude, that's really annoying, dont do that.

The only place you "need" extra stability is in skorvald and the alacrigade should take care of that, every other encounter you can single handedy provide stab with SYG and Tome3.What's the point of sacrificing one source of instant AoE Quickness just to have more stability that you really need? Is it really worth it to starve your dps with 60 uptime quickness for that? DIscretize recommends bringing Mantra of Liberation because they're literally top notch players able to mantain enough quickness by aiming every mantra towards the group. Truth is, if you're able to do that, you most likely won't ever need to bring Mantra of Liberation to begin with, so why bother then?

Sry, this was a quick rant, but i'm tired that 7 out of 10 pugs doesn't bring FMW and ends up affecting the whole party doing so.

As hfb you overstack both fury and quickness by 20-30s WITHOUT FMW with not perfect application of mantras. Unless your group is challenged at stacking or you are challenged at casting your mantras towards allies, there is 0 reason to take FMW with 100% bd in fratcals. Now don't get me wrong you can play how ever you want and obviously have to adapt to how bad a group is (aka if there is 0 stacking). Suffice to say, stability is more useful than ONLY at Skorvald IF you want to carry the group or don't want to send your renegade on dwarv.

You are essentially arguing that using a big cooldown or a utility slot is less valuable than taking an elite which is NOT NEEDED (without actually considering the stun break aspect of MoL, which is useful in Cliffside, Chaos, Sirenesreef and Sunqua Peak).

The final reason why FMW is a detriment is easy: it makes players sloppy. If you are realying on FMW to upkeep fury and/or quickness, you are a FB who needs to severely improve, and you won't be doing that when relying on a crutch skill which covers your mistakes.

[Wolfb.7025]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Wolfb.7025 said:

@"Eldor.4201" said:Thanks for the feedback. My problem is, in some fights, Stand Your Ground and Tome 3 are not enough for stab maintanence, so I have to get Mantra of Liberation (also, Discretize suggesting to always equip Mantra of Liberation unless there is no need for Stab).SOOO this is the reason of the alarming increase of non feel my wrath healbrands on cms. Dude, that's really annoying, dont do that.

The only place you "need" extra stability is in skorvald and the alacrigade should take care of that, every other encounter you can single handedy provide stab with SYG and Tome3.What's the point of sacrificing one source of instant AoE Quickness just to have more stability that you really need? Is it really worth it to starve your dps with 60 uptime quickness for that? DIscretize recommends bringing Mantra of Liberation because they're literally top notch players able to mantain enough quickness by aiming every mantra towards the group. Truth is, if you're able to do that, you most likely won't ever need to bring Mantra of Liberation to begin with, so why bother then?

Sry, this was a quick rant, but i'm tired that 7 out of 10 pugs doesn't bring FMW and ends up affecting the whole party doing so.

As hfb you overstack both fury and quickness by 20-30s WITHOUT FMW with not perfect application of mantras. Unless your group is challenged at stack or you are challenged at casting your mantras towards allies, there is 0 reason to take FMW with 100% bd in fratcals. Now don't get me wrong you can play how ever you want and obviously have to adapt to how bad a group is (aka if there is 0 stacking). Suffice to say, stability is more useful than ONLY at Skorvald IF you want to carry the group or don't want to send your renegade on dwarv.

You are essentially arguing that using a big cooldown or a utility slot is less valuable than taking an elite which is NOT NEEDED (without actually considering the stun break aspect of MoL, which is useful in Cliffside, Chaos, Sirenesreef and Sunqua Peak).

Tell that to the 60 quickness uptime HBs.

Like I said, syg and tome3 is enough to cover all the times you need to stab through attacks in CMs. FMW is also used as an AoE insta quickness, use it when your group is about to regroup after cc phase on artsariiv and people will start precasting everything even before artsariiv becomes vulnerable and without waiting for everyone to stack in front of you.

And i'm talking about CMs, T4s are so trivial I don't even care about how the other party members perform.

[Noah Salazar.5430]

well i usualy taking scrapper healer duo with qfb25% less dmg but you carry all that low skill players at t4 keeping them 100% hp as you just brr spam with 1 skill 100% of uptime and ress evry 25s ppl that not dodged one shot

[Cyninja.2954]

@Wolfb.7025 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Wolfb.7025 said:

@"Eldor.4201" said:Thanks for the feedback. My problem is, in some fights, Stand Your Ground and Tome 3 are not enough for stab maintanence, so I have to get Mantra of Liberation (also, Discretize suggesting to always equip Mantra of Liberation unless there is no need for Stab).SOOO this is the reason of the alarming increase of non feel my wrath healbrands on cms. Dude, that's really annoying, dont do that.

The only place you "need" extra stability is in skorvald and the alacrigade should take care of that, every other encounter you can single handedy provide stab with SYG and Tome3.What's the point of sacrificing one source of instant AoE Quickness just to have more stability that you really need? Is it really worth it to starve your dps with 60 uptime quickness for that? DIscretize recommends bringing Mantra of Liberation because they're literally top notch players able to mantain enough quickness by aiming every mantra towards the group. Truth is, if you're able to do that, you most likely won't ever need to bring Mantra of Liberation to begin with, so why bother then?

Sry, this was a quick rant, but i'm tired that 7 out of 10 pugs doesn't bring FMW and ends up affecting the whole party doing so.

As hfb you overstack both fury and quickness by 20-30s WITHOUT FMW with not perfect application of mantras. Unless your group is challenged at stack or you are challenged at casting your mantras towards allies, there is 0 reason to take FMW with 100% bd in fratcals. Now don't get me wrong you can play how ever you want and obviously have to adapt to how bad a group is (aka if there is 0 stacking). Suffice to say, stability is more useful than ONLY at Skorvald IF you want to carry the group or don't want to send your renegade on dwarv.

You are essentially arguing that using a big cooldown or a utility slot is less valuable than taking an elite which is NOT NEEDED (without actually considering the stun break aspect of MoL, which is useful in Cliffside, Chaos, Sirenesreef and Sunqua Peak).

Tell that to the 60 quickness uptime HBs.

Like I said, syg and tome3 is enough to cover all the times you need to stab through attacks in CMs. FMW is also used as an AoE insta quickness, use it when your group is about to regroup after cc phase on artsariiv and people will start precasting everything even before artsariiv becomes vulnerable and without waiting for everyone to stack in front of you.

And i'm talking about CMs, T4s are so trivial I don't even care about how the other party members perform.

Sure, doesn't change the fact that FMW is not needed. You are assuming that a HFB who is incapable of up-keeping quickness and fury without FMW will do even half the things a HFB could or should be doing. All it takes is reminding the HFB to press his mantras or ideally double check his boon uptime occasionally.

Suffice to say, it is far better to improve at the class than always rely on the a crutch. Then again I run in 200+ KP groups for as long as I remember, so maybe my bar for how bad players are is skewed.

That said, there is a reason that discretize recommends against HFB. A good one will cover ALL mechanics in pretty much every fractal for group members with MoL and Aegis, without needing FMW.

[Matze.8429]

Cyninja is totaly right hfb overcap so Hard that u dont need fmw and even with buttonsmashing u get enough Quick to your Group i do fractals multiple times a day and no Quick is a lesser problem than dps from warriors or cc from the alac ?

[Nephalem.8921]

@Cyninja.2954 said:As hfb you overstack both fury and quickness by 20-30s WITHOUT FMW with not perfect application of mantras. Unless your group is challenged at stacking or you are challenged at casting your mantras towards allies, there is 0 reason to take FMW with 100% bd in fratcals. Now don't get me wrong you can play how ever you want and obviously have to adapt to how bad a group is (aka if there is 0 stacking). Suffice to say, stability is more useful than ONLY at Skorvald IF you want to carry the group or don't want to send your renegade on dwarv.

You only achieve 16% overstack with 100% bd and perfect mantra application. 30-40% overstack with stalwart speed which would be better without fmw but pugs never read their traits. Taking stalwart speed reduces aegis and might application a bit but would always go for it.The thing is that pug fbs dont have 100% bd. they run around with like 40-60% because minstrels exists. They also dont take stalwart speed and always play with mace. I have probably 10 hfbs and blocklist by now who achieved 0% outgoing fury. Thats why i even stopped pugging on reaper and dont recommend it to anyone. 0% fury uptime is just not fun.Lets be honest, most hfb players in pugs are bad. Some are even skill clickers and cant press mantras on cd. Its hard to imagine that quickness can be a problem without fmw but pugs somehow manage 50% uptime with fmw. Just watch some streams where some players ignore the mantra for like 20sec.

On topic. In snowblind you kill the add as soon as it spawns. The circles are dodgeable. You cant really heal people running around and good players dont really need heal to begin with. Should probably focus on add/boss and heal where it is because thats where the dps players should stand.In 9 out of 10 times you should kick the dps players asking for more heal though. Sometimes the heal is really low and you can always carry hard as hfb but most fights are designed without a healer in mind. Players should be able to stay alive without one in most cases.Most dps players nowadays dont even know that reflects do damage :-(

[Matze.8429]

40% isnt even possible with full minstrel the potion alone gives nearly 20% bd xD

[Cyninja.2954]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:As hfb you overstack both fury and quickness by 20-30s WITHOUT FMW with not perfect application of mantras. Unless your group is challenged at stacking or you are challenged at casting your mantras towards allies, there is 0 reason to take FMW with 100% bd in fratcals. Now don't get me wrong you can play how ever you want and obviously have to adapt to how bad a group is (aka if there is 0 stacking). Suffice to say, stability is more useful than ONLY at Skorvald IF you want to carry the group or don't want to send your renegade on dwarv.

You only achieve 16% overstack with 100% bd and perfect mantra application. 30-40% overstack with stalwart speed which would be better without fmw but pugs never read their traits. Taking stalwart speed reduces aegis and might application a bit but would always go for it.The thing is that pug fbs dont have 100% bd. they run around with like 40-60% because minstrels exists. They also dont take stalwart speed and always play with mace. I have probably 10 hfbs and blocklist by now who achieved 0% outgoing fury. Thats why i even stopped pugging on reaper and dont recommend it to anyone. 0% fury uptime is just not fun.Lets be honest, most hfb players in pugs are bad. Some are even skill clickers and cant press mantras on cd. Its hard to imagine that quickness can be a problem without fmw but pugs somehow manage 50% uptime with fmw. Just watch some streams where some players ignore the mantra for like 20sec.

True, but any HFB with sub 90% boon duration is facing an itemization issue in my book. There is only so much stupid one can tolerate as far as player skill goes. If people are unable to mirror or copy simple builds when spoon-fed to them or make even slight adjustments when changing gear, that is on them. True though, it had not even occurred to me that some people might be itemizing with such low bd in their build on HFB.

I mean full minstrel gives you 55+% bd, without factoring for bonus stats from fractals (which is another 12.5-15%) or adjusting the build slightly (say with a Sigil of Concentration). Full Minstrel armor and weapons with Harrier trinkets is 65%+. Even a very defensive HFB with say full minstrel, harrier trinkets, Sigil of Concentration and some bonus from fractal potions will be at 90%+ bd. Even more if he uses food, which I would not recommend, like Soul Pastry (+% healing food is better for support).

The question is: what is the cut off point for stupidity to give advice for? Telling a HFB with 50% boon duration to take FMW will solve or cover the issue temporarily for that one run, but it doesn't fix the underlying issue of bad itemization or someone not understanding how to press buttons (in case uptime is bad). The reason I recommend not using FMW comes from a point of wanting players to improve beyond that bottom of a swamp level of incompetence.

@Nephalem.8921 said:On topic. In snowblind you kill the add as soon as it spawns. The circles are dodgeable. You cant really heal people running around and good players dont really need heal to begin with. Should probably focus on add/boss and heal where it is because thats where the dps players should stand.In 9 out of 10 times you should kick the dps players asking for more heal though. Sometimes the heal is really low and you can always carry hard as hfb but most fights are designed without a healer in mind. Players should be able to stay alive without one in most cases.Most dps players nowadays dont even know that reflects do damage :-(

+1 to this. The amount of dps who never learn how to deal with mechanics or which skills they could take to make both their or their groups life easier is to high.

The one thing I dislike in the current fractal scene, and I mentioned this too recently I believe:The amount of players who are able to play without a healer seems to be diminishing from what I have seen. Before the last KP change I would see a ton of 200kp or 300kp groups run CMs without a HFB, even 100CM. Now everyone just takes a HFB and a lot fo players I feel have completely lost the ability to dodge things.

I believe that's a development of not being able to filter any longer because we have moved more towards a "I have the KP or I don't have the KP" situation, with not much in-between (unlike before with scaling of KP demanded). This might just be a subjective impression for me, since I PUG only 1nce or twice per week.

[nish.5980]

@Eldor.4201 said:Hey all,

This is my first post on GW2 forums, so I’m a little bit excited:) I have a question for you.

I’m playing this game since the core game released, most of the time I take a break for 5-6 months, then return and continue my progress from where I left it. But this time, I faced some warnings (or insults most of the time) during fractal runs with my HFB.

I believe, some of my teammates wants me to become their pocket healer during fractal. For ex. Snowblind fractal, last boss fight; in a phase, boss dissepear, summon some adds and whole combat area bombarding by AoE. I believe in this phase, every team member stop dpsing and start avoiding those AoEs. Then, after bombardement ends, whole party should focus on elite add, and right there, healer should heal his/her party members, am I right? Some days ago, after we wiped on mentioned boss, 2 of my team members started to insult me that how noob and idiot I am, and whining about where is the heal. I asked, we were all spread around, if I decide to heal, which team member I should heal? They didnt answer my question and after another insult phase, they rage quit. I mean… this is not WoW, there is no spot heal in GW2. And instead of raids, most of the fractal damage is avoidable. So, every team member should avoid damage if its possible (unless its an extreme situation like last boss of Reactor, if you decide to stay on one panel and burst the boss).

Or sometimes, ppl asking me for perma Stability, but it took 5 minutes to they take down a 1-min-fight-boss, and also during this time, they want perma quickness too.

Btw, these examples are minority. Most of the time, I find a party, we get in, clear the T4 dailies without any casulities, we wish having a nice day to each other, and left.

Is my logic wrong? Or did I just faced against elitism?

HFB is only half of the FirebriGade, so if the Alacren slacks, you will def face difficulty. Newish (non-multirole) players will generally be toxic towards the HFB as they may not notice that the alacren is slacking :P

[meowmasker.3718]

@nish.5980 said:

HFB is only half of the FirebriGade, so if the Alacren slacks, you will def face difficulty. Newish (non-multirole) players will generally be toxic towards the HFB as they may not notice that the alacren is slacking :P

When alac pugging, I camp dwarf on Chaos last boss and Uncategorized first bosses, etc. Less facepalm and time wasted, and pug QHBs do not stab well.