Elementalist Healing in Dungeons and raids?

[Canadienwolf.6723]

So I just started this game and made an Elementalist as I saw she could heal, but when I read through the guides on the internet, I see that everyone wants the rangers?

So is Elementalist air/water spec for healing not good enough for healing and I have to remake character to a ranger?~~~~

[Aetatis.5418]

elementalit is a very good healer. (a lot more range via auras than ranger)the reason why everybody wants a ranger is the offensive boons the ranger offers, not the heal itself.the heal + boons + class specific offensive support makes the range so desired

as a second healer in raids however (10man) ele is pretty good, since most buffs, the ranger pumps out, are limited to 10 people instead of 5. so stacking two is abundant.

in terms of healing, the ele is the better healer imo. and can make 5man dungeons a breeze (fractals). the better your group however, the less healing needed and the offensive support of rangers is worth more.

the meta changes constantly. the druid is still desired, but there are better combos (for specific encounters) already - if groups go for min-max. people are just used to proven builds and combos.i dont know if it is worth changing your profession right upfront. if you want to get very easy accepted into groups, druid is (still) your way to go. buta. for how long?b. what do you enjoy playing?if you cant stand druid, dont play it. if you are up for "more" min-maxing, play it.at some point in the game, you will have multiple characters (because gw2 is very alt-friendly), then you might change professions on the fly. it shouldnt bother you too much, unless you want to really really stick to one profession only.

[Lillbryschan.3281]

Ele has great heal but are unfortunately outclassed by other healing specs, like Druids (Ranger healer spec), because of the additional things they bring (stuff that buff group DPS for example). However, Tempest (Elementalist healer spec) are good healers in some instances, e.g. as a secondary healer in a Raid format—see this build using Water, Arcane and Tempest specs:https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Support_Healer

EDIT: Yeah. What Aetatis said. :) And welcome to the game btw!

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Now with the lost of GoE, unless your group has trouble with might cap some others "healers" seems quite nice rather than druid, at least as second healer or with a soulbeast. Like FB who shares 2 Signets of Wrath in condi compo, or even renegade on "pillar" bosses. But yes people are not looking for a simple "healer" they want a buffer or a boonshare too; that why druid is/was OP with spirits, GoE, mights fury prot etc to 10 allies.Tempest has good healing and condicleanse, but no real buff and poor stab, mights etc in middle of fight.. Auras effect are too negligible in their current state : need you to be hit, 1 or 2sec of burning, or chill ... It lacks an unique buff to elem/tempest to share, like why not a "lesser harmonious conduit" or "fresh air" ferocity bonus ...

[Canadienwolf.6723]

So I am guessing I would have to get Hearts of Thorn DLC to be viable as a healer then ? :dizzy:

[Linken.6345]

@Canadienwolf.6723 said:So I am guessing I would have to get Hearts of Thorn DLC to be viable as a healer then ? :disappointed:Dungeons dont use healer.Fractals are going over to renegade/guardian comp instead of druid/chrono it seems.And raids want 1 druid on most bosses 2 on twins if the group splits so a elementalist healer is welcome as backup if the group needs it.

[Aetatis.5418]

@"Canadienwolf.6723" said:So I am guessing I would have to get Hearts of Thorn DLC to be viable as a healer then ? :dizzy:

oh yes. i was assuming you've got the expansion. sorry about that. without e-specs its again a different story. core rpofessions lack many things in regard of "specialization" such as healing.the closest thing to a healer "back then" was hammer guardian with perma protection and healing symbols (also providing stunbreak/stab when needed, reflects and minor offensive boons). but its not used anymore, because it doesnt offer enough. if it would deal a sufficient amount of damage, which it did during HoT (when PoF was not a thing), it would be still a thing - not meta but good enough, because QoL

technically it is possible to specialize with core professions (core game), but they would do only half the job an e-spec can do.

if you want to run raids at some point, you need HoT anyways, if i am correct. think about it - it is worth the money, even without playing raids.

[Thokketh.7594]

If you only have core game, ele has good healing, water form staff 3 is very nice. air doesn't do much in the way of healing. arcane/water is the main healing combo. and with no elite spec you can run whatever 3rd spec you want. keep in mind that as stated above, you don't have a lot of support outside of straight healing numbers. So I don't know how many min-max groups for fractals would take you (I certainly wouldn't mind). Raids are out of my wheelhouse so I can't say much there, but from what i've gathered tempest is an ok 2nd healer. (Tempest requires HoT but so do raids, and the expansions are worth it anyway)

[Henry.5713]

You won't even be able to step into raids without owning at least one of the expansions. Wing 1-5 requires the HoT expansion, Wing 6 is bound to PoF. Owning them should be a given, plus you will be able to play all specs. Tempests will only ever be an off-healer in most cases.

[thrag.9740]

Well, thats a tricky question to answer after the most recent patch.

TLDR: druid + tempest is good in a 2 chrono comp. Heal tempest has no place in fractals.

So, in a situation where your bringing 2 chronos and 2 healers, I think the best choice is 1 druid + 1 heal tempest. A druid's stone spirit's passive is only 60% protection uptime at best for the squad, and both chronos hitting soi perfectly is around 45%. Now, the people in the druid's own squad have better protection uptime due to the active (EDIT: read my posts further down, I was misinterpreting on screen text, the active hits 10 ppl), but overall replacing the 2nd druid with a heal tempest running tempest/water/earth seems more reliable in my experience, as the tempest can upkeep about 10 party wide might, easy perma protection, quite a lot of frust aura too, and heavy heals. This is never optimal, but running 2 healers never is. If your running two healers in a two chrono comp, I think tempest is the best at doing what your looking for. Core ele however? Not nearly as good, without shouts you don't have a lot of auras to produce. Additionally, heal tempest can bring some nice utilities such as rebound, 10 man stun break, and 10 man reflect (carry the fuck out of sloth).

However, now sc considers the meta to typically be 1 chrono, 1 druid 1 renegade 1 fire brand 1 warrior + 5 situational dps. Note, it can change a bit based on boss. Its quite difficult to imagine fitting a tempest anywhere in this comp. The first 5 classes are all responsible for doing something a heal tempest can't do, such as quickness alacrity banners etc. You could swap one of the dps for a heal tempest, and then the 5 locked in classes drop any tank/healing gear they had. But as a rule of thumb, role consolidation tends to be favorable. For example, chrono was the obvious tank for a long time because their dps was already getting lowered by boon duration being necessary. However, even with the introduction of diviners gear, the damage formulas of gw2 still favor specialization rather than hybrid builds. I.e. power is more powerful for each point of ferocity you have, and ferocity is more powerful for each point of power, additionally stacking healing modifiers multiplicatively. So, I would expect that making this substitution would still have a notable dps loss.

As for fractals, heal tempest is a terrible idea. renegade, firebrand, and druid are the only healers I would recommend considering in fractals. Heal tempest just doesn't really offer damage buffs that can compete.

[Krzysztof.5973]

@thrag.9740 said:where your bringing 2 chronos and 2 healers, I think the best choice is 1 druid + 1 heal tempest.Why the second source of might and fury? The best choice would be heal scourge where barrier doesn't collide with druid's heals and has no meaningless offensive capabilities just like heal tempest.A druid's stone spirit's passive is only 60% protection uptime at best for the squad, and both chronos hitting soi perfectly is around 45%No. It's 80+ and with decent group its 100% on fights where druid can stick with the group.

Dunno why people recommend garbage heals like scrapper or heal tempest. If you bring tempest, you can bring him for boons - that's when you pick boon tempest that brings might and dps and 1 slb that takes frost spirit. If your squad really needs to be carried you take heal necro that can coexist with druid.

[lare.5129]

no matter elem is good heal or not, ppl want old const meta, and if you want find party answer - yes, you should take only druidcan you use other class? yes, you can use mostly all classes for that, but you need understand what you will be always on toxic edge after each wipe and first person to get 'kick out' from party

[thrag.9740]

@Krzysztof.5973 said:

@"thrag.9740" said:where your bringing 2 chronos and 2 healers, I think the best choice is 1 druid + 1 heal tempest.Why the second source of might and fury? The best choice would be heal scourge where barrier doesn't collide with druid's heals and has no meaningless offensive capabilities just like heal tempest.The heal tempest I described is not a source of fury, don't know what build your looking at. I specifically said water/earth/tempest. No where did I mention fire.

A druid's stone spirit's passive is only 60% protection uptime at best for the squad, and both chronos hitting soi perfectly is around 45%No. It's 80+ and with decent group its 100% on fights where druid can stick with the group.Ok so I think your trying to use alacrity to reduce the cool down of stone spirit? But even then, its 6 / (10/1.25) = .75So, are you using improved alacrity? That would give 6/(10/1.5) = .9, which would allign with your claim, but improved alacrity only affects chronos.

Furthermore, the cool down for stone spirit isn't, 'inside' the druid. I.e. its not affected by the druid's alacrity. It's affected by the stone spirit's alacrity. You can see proof of that from these 2 logs, in which I auto attacked with druid staff to heal the stone spirit for about 4 mins to get an average both with and without alacrity. Both give identical results of 57% uptime.

https://dps.report/1TKE-20190508-113820_golemhttps://dps.report/Lngs-20190508-113211_golem

So even if stone spirit has perfect alacrity uptime, which is highly unlikely because soi's target cap is 10 and boon prioritization doesn't tend to favor spirits over allies, your claim is still not true unless the stone spirit is somehow miraculously running chrono's improved alacrity trait. Again as stated in my first post, this is for squad wide, as the active effect of stone spirit doesn't hit 10 people.

Dunno why people recommend garbage heals like scrapper or heal tempest. If you bring tempest, you can bring him for boons - that's when you pick boon tempest that brings might and dps and 1 slb that takes frost spirit. If your squad really needs to be carried you take heal necro that can coexist with druid.

I mean, if the numbers you gave were accurate, I might have a different opinion as well. But they're not, so I prefer heal tempest. Additionally, you've chosen to ignore the unique effect's I stated about heal tempest such as 10 man magnetic aura, 10 man stun break, rebound, and frost aura (about 40% uptime). Also I didn't mention it but you can also have 10 man super speed which is nice at rainbow road, but yeah thats niche.

[melandru.3876]

you can't even join a raid without owning an expansion (hot for wing 1-5) (pof for wing)

possible healer builds from least useful to most useful

• heal scrapper
• heal chrono
• heal tempest and heal scourge
• heal druid
• heal fb
• heal rev

mintrel stats for beginners, switch piece by piece to:

• harrier (+magi) for heal scrapper and heal tempest
• harrier for heal druid and heal fb
• marshal (+ shaman) for heal scourge
• diviner for heal rev

as you get more and more experienced.this will result in more personnal dps, at the cost of personnal survivability (that will become obsolete once you know encounters well enough)

[Krzysztof.5973]

@thrag.9740 said:tempest I described is not a source of furySupport chronos run pack rune so you only need a sliver of fury at the start of fight to get that numbers going. That we get from rebound and air #2. Again, garbage compared to druid but it's enough.You proposed 2 chrono squad comp - that means they're using 10man SoI all the time that pushes all the boon uptime. And there is protection coming from other sources that often cap it at 100%.Nice rotation btw, you do know that druid have to use active spirit skills these days? Please don't say anything about boons ever again.

[thrag.9740]

@Krzysztof.5973 said:

@thrag.9740 said:tempest I described is not a source of furySupport chronos run pack rune so you only need a sliver of fury at the start of fight to get that numbers going. That we get from rebound and air #2. Again, garbage compared to druid but it's enough.You proposed 2 chrono squad comp - that means they're using 10man SoI all the time that pushes all the boon uptime. And there is protection coming from other sources that often cap it at 100%.Nice rotation btw, you do know that druid have to use active spirit skills these days? Please don't say anything about boons ever again.

I'm beginning to suspect your not actually reading my posts. I specifically mentioned in my original post that active skills on sprits don't hit 10 people.

[Krzysztof.5973]

@"thrag.9740" said:I'm beginning to suspect your not actually reading my posts. I specifically mentioned in my original post that active skills on sprits don't hit 10 people.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nature%27s_VengeanceNow shush.

[thrag.9740]

@"Krzysztof.5973" said:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nature%27s_VengeanceNow shush.

Am I missing something here? I actually do care about having factual information. I've been taking that in game description as accurate. If its not, that would certainly change my opinion on tempest as the 2nd healer.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/575756782992097282/575756834728706058/10man.png

[Krzysztof.5973]

@"thrag.9740" said:Am I missing something here? I actually do care about having factual information. I've been taking that in game description as accurate. If its not, that would certainly change my opinion on tempest as the 2nd healer.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/575756782992097282/575756834728706058/10man.png

Yes it doesn't say its 10 targets on active skill. It says it on the trait.

[thrag.9740]

@Krzysztof.5973 said:

Yes it doesn't say its 10 targets on active skill. It says it on the trait.

Ok I didn't realize that sorry, Ill test it out tonight when I raid with my static, and either confirm or deny. Frost aura is still nice, but I might agree with you on heal scourge over heal tempest as second healer in a double chrono squad. This might all be a pointless discussion, as double chrono might die. Guess we shall see.

[Vinceman.4572]

Just here to make a litte correction to the 2 people posting the expansion requirements:You cannot enter Wing 5 with HoT expansion only.

Wing 1-4 --> HoTWing 5+6 --> PoF

[thrag.9740]

@thrag.9740 said:

@Krzysztof.5973 said:

Yes it doesn't say its 10 targets on active skill. It says it on the trait.

Ok I didn't realize that sorry, Ill test it out tonight when I raid with my static, and either confirm or deny. Frost aura is still nice, but I might agree with you on heal scourge over heal tempest as second healer in a double chrono squad. This might all be a pointless discussion, as double chrono might die. Guess we shall see.

Ok checked it today, your right the active skills do hit 10 ppl with boons. I think the 5 target statement in the picture I linked is referring to damage done to enemies (I gotta laugh, I honestly forgot spirits did anything besides apply boons).

Yeah, now its not clear to me that there is a runaway winner for the 2nd heal spot in a double chrono comp. Although I'm not fully sold on scourge. I'm looking over the traits, and one thing that is concerning to me for scourge is the target caps. It looks like f3 can hit 10 ppl with barrier (5 from necro and 5 from the greater shade) which seems good. Can manifest sand shade put barrier on 10 people? The sand savant trait says that a greater shade counts as three shades for related traits, and increases targets by 2. Then, desert empowerment says it gives barrier to 3 allies. So, does manifest sand shade give barrier to 15 players (like summoning 3 shades at once that all hit 5 players). Obviously my guess would be no, but then how many does it hit? Also, does the heal skill only give barrier to 5 players?

If you happen to know the answers I would certainly appreciate it. Otherwise I'll investigate it next time I get a chance.

[Krzysztof.5973]

@thrag.9740 said:If you happen to know the answers I would certainly appreciate it. Otherwise I'll investigate it next time I get a chance.

F1 alone puts barrier on 5. F3 puts it on 10. I personally prefer running well heal since You have tons of barrier from shades and F3 anyway. But yeah Sand Flare is 5man.

[ButterPeanut.9746]

Boon/Heal tempest is extremely strong in raids right now. Most groups would benefit by using this instead of a druid.

[lare.5129]

may be is best heal at all, but this is like best dps deadeye - nice numbers, and also instant kick from most setups.I see that bigger count players non interested in best, thay need 4 years old 'meta'. Be ready for this.