Explain to me GW2 healers

[Sindust.7059]

I'd like to try healing in GW2, but the expectations seem to be very restrictive (hfb or go home judging by LFG for fractals). So I was wondering if you could explain, why the meta is what it is, and what conceivable alternatives are there? For example I've seen a scrapper healer build on youtube that seems like a good option, providing quickness, might, stability, super speed, vigor and supposedly highest healing throughput in the game. Why don't I ever see anyone willing to take someone into their group with a build like that? The content I'm interested in are T4 fractals and raids.

 

For context, I've played GW2 about 2 years ago for a couple months and came back to the game 2 weeks ago. The only char I managed to get to a good enough level for the aforementioned content is a power holosmith. Anything other than straight dps seems to me to be very convoluted in this game, because there is a thousand options to choose from, of which most sound good to me, but 99% of them are apparently wrong. And grinding out ascended gear takes too long to risk getting it in a weight and stat combination that I may only be able to use on a build that is "wrong".

 

Also, are healers using Harrier's set because Minstral's and Giver's would pull aggro on some raid bosses and there is no healing power+concentration+vitality stat combo, or is it because healers are actually expected to contribute meaningfully through their own damage output? And if so, why not use Celestial?

[Infusion.7149]

There's 3-4 main healers right now.
* Healbrand (heal firebrand) , which is meta in fractals for the foreseeable future. Agony reduces healing by 70% in fractals and aegis (and barrier as well) work around this. It also serves as role compression due to quickness application.
* Heal quickness scrapper which heals for more than healbrand when boons are present, but does not provide aegis and fury in any appreciable manner. --- this is strong in a few encounters due to superspeed and cleansing potential (see W5 soulless horror and W2 matthias) and not amazing elsewhere , especially in fractals since you do literally zero DPS in med kit
*Heal druid,  meta in raids due to spotter/spirits and 25 might for 10 people
* Heal tempest, offmeta in raids but heals 10 people as well as applying might to 10 people (as well as typically providing protection and/or fury)
* heal scourge , which is typically worse than hybrid plaguedoctor scourge (which does ~27K DPS) because it doesn't actually heal per se, it mostly applies barriers and a minor amount of regen and a minor bit of might. If you use heal scourge it usually is run as an offhealer when your 10 man boons already are covered by a druid+ 2 firebrands/chronos/scrappers and there are mechanics that downstate people but don't instakill them.
* Heal renegade is sort of optional compared to alacrity renegade (which is alacrity for 10 people), sometimes people run it on Conjured Amalgamate and Cardinal Adina for example for projectile blocking mainly. The tablet is annoying to work with in terms of its placement as it has a cooldown on the tablet movement.

We will gain heal specter (which applies 5 man alacrity when traited) and heal mechanist (which applies 5 man alacrity when traited and barriers) in EOD. Catalyst and harbinger both will apply quickness but are unlikely to have a strong healing role.

There is a hybrid celestial and/or seraph firebrand that does 20-24K DPS , see https://discretize.eu/builds/guardian/seraph-firebrand/

Quickness is a tier 1 boon because it not only buffs DPS but also requires people to not use any thought whatsoever as even if they are autoattacking they gain a tangible benefit (similar to might). It also improves any sustain that is from traits or autochains whether from med kit, tempest autoattacking on staff in water, druid on staff, guardian on mace, etc. The benefit far exceeds that of 25 might which only has offensive value, fury (which affects power more than condition output), or alacrity (which is near meaningless for thieves for example).

In essence with EOD there will be two classes that cannot heal in any fashion on par with other specs, warrior and mesmer.
Warrior is sometimes run as a support in WVW with tactics but it is kind of poor in PVE due to the nature of shout cooldowns and burst healing. Mesmer has inspiration traitline healing and wells but the healing output is quite poor as well, luckily it fulfills a quickness role.
To recap:

1. Guardian: heal firebrand is meta in fractals
2. Warrior: only taken as heal support in WVW and sometimes in PVP
3. Revenant: heal renegade is rather niche as opposed to 10 man alacrity renegade
4. Ranger: druid is meta in raids
5. Engineer: offmeta heal in raids as heal scrapper , applies quickness
6. Thief: will have a barrier alacrity support with heal specter
7. Elementalist: offmeta heal in raids
8. Mesmer: not really a healing class , use chrono if you want to heal due to Alls Well that Ends Well
9. Necromancer: sometimes run as offheal

If I were in your situation I would build out the engineer for now, minstrel scrapper is meta in WVW at least until EOD due to superspeed and cleanse potential. With the launch of EOD you'd also have alacrity mechanist to fall back on if it ever is mainstream. Minstrel firebrand works in fractals but you should not expect to run it in raids unless you are tanking. If gearing firebrand strictly for PVE I would make a harrier  or seraph set (which has no toughness).

Edited December 25, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Vidit.7108]

1 hour ago, Sindust.7059 said:

For example I've seen a scrapper healer build on youtube that seems like a good option, providing quickness, might, stability, super speed, vigor and supposedly highest healing throughput in the game. Why don't I ever see anyone willing to take someone into their group with a build like that?

If you have a static group for raids/strikes you can build around Scrapper as one of your healers. There is a lot of versatility to build out the group you want in 10-man content. In Fractals that's not the case, players want to compress as much as possible in their support options. 

I've done some t4 fractals with a heal scrapper, it can work without many problems if 1. The group doesn't need a lot of stability, 2. Heal Scrapper has alacrity, 3. Missing boons are covered by something else, 4. Instabilities are kind that day.

Base guardian has so many support utilities that it's extremely versatile in what boons it can give, it can also keep stability up 100% of the time on it's own, and it has aegis. A fractal pick-up-group can trust the healbrand can cover it's needs easily, less so with Scrapper. That said you can still do it, if you start your own group and know what you are doing in each fractal. An alac ren can provide the group with stability on it's own, an alac mirage will cover might and fury, be warned though when you go off meta in PUGs that you might end up with less experienced or more casual players that are less prepared to adjust to a different healer. Certain fractals are more likely to be a struggle than with a healbrand especially on particular days with instabilities the scrapper is less equip to deal with. Your group might fall apart or take longer than usual to clear, if you don't mind this then go for it.

[Sindust.7059]

Thank you very much for the responses.

Sounds like I'm either collecting medium harrier for raids (have all the medium classes leveled already, so in EOD I would be able to use this set on whole 4 specs, and 2 right away), or a heavy only for the guardian that I will use as healer in fractals and potentially tank in raids.

Would a celestial firebrand build actually be welcome in fractals, or would I be losing too much healing/support compared to harrier/minstrel? And would I be able to actually tank with it if I went into raids with it, or should I rather collect minstrel's then to cover healing fractals and tanking raids? I'm afraid of being too squishy even for just a fractals healer if I go with harrier/seraph on a guardian with his 12k HP.

And are there going to be any new stat combinations in EOD that are relevant for this discussion?

Edited December 25, 2021 by Sindust.7059

[Infusion.7149]

Nobody knows about EOD stat combos other than Arenanet so unless you have legendary gear I would not plan with that in mind.

People only look for healbrand in fractals and don't specify stats, unless you are really bad or they are really bad then celestial/seraph is fine as there isn't a toughness tanking mechanic. There's some raids with high incoming damage you would probably want minstrel for but for Gorseval or Keep Construct for example it is a nonissue.

Note: If you plan on WvW then minstrel firebrand gear serves dual use, at least that is what I did before legendary gear. Up until 2019 gyro rework scrapper wasn't a strong WvW support (and 2021 cemented its position with the addition of quickness), it was mainly firebrand and some aura midline tempests. You would not run your PVE gear in WVW on a DPS since everyone uses marauder which is not meta PVE gear and WVW stat infusions for power have a +18% DPS bonus against guards/lords if you fill out all slots (whereas a damage mitigation from guards on heal stat infusions is minor in comparison).

Edited December 25, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Vidit.7108]

2 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

Would a celestial firebrand build actually be welcome in fractals, or would I be losing too much healing/support compared to harrier/minstrel? And would I be able to actually tank with it if I went into raids with it, or should I rather collect minstrel's then to cover healing fractals and tanking raids? I'm afraid of being too squishy even for just a fractals healer if I go with harrier/seraph on a guardian with his 12k HP.

Nobody is going to know what your gear is, and probably won't know if your heals are too weak. That said it all depends on what your skill is and the skill of people you play with. If you're in a static with friends and you know everyone's skill level and what they will bring then cele firebrand is probably fine. 

A quick reminder that firebrand gets an extra 250 vitality when it has quickness so your hp will be 14k most of the time in full harrier.

If you are in a random group from LFG you might be lucky and the scourge sends out enough barrier that no one notices your screw ups. Maybe you're really good at giving the group aegis at just the right time or anticipating when to reflect for the most effect. Maybe the group doesn't have that one guy who stands in 4 overlapping aoes every time. If you get really worried about your healing ability you can always run Signet of Courage and maintain fury entirely with Symbol of Vengeance. Also remember to also use tome 3 skill 5 to reduce group damage.

[Cuks.8241]

You mentioned a risk with getting ascended gear of the wrong stats. You can change the stats on ascended gear (armor and weapons) quite easily in mystic forge, only requiring exotic insignia and some quite easy to get materials. And once you will tackle tougher content you will have easier time getting more ascended gear.

Also healing in general in this game is not what you are used to from other games. And this goes for all modes. There are no targeted healing spells (at least up to now), the mayor healing part is usually a somewhat passive output of the build. Your main focus is to provide defensive and offensive support in terms of boons or some other specific abilities, even dps and with some oh snap healing abilities for tough moments or when things go awry. This also reflects in the meta where builds with best utility and synergy are taken over builds with highest healing output.

I actually found this type of healing or in better words supporting quite refreshing and much more fun compared to many other games where most of the time you were looking at raid bars and spamming your 1 to 3 heal spells on the tank or players with low hp the WHOLE freaking raid. 

[Ashantara.8731]

On 12/25/2021 at 12:59 AM, Sindust.7059 said:

I'd like to try healing in GW2, but the expectations seem to be very restrictive (hfb or go home judging by LFG for fractals).

That's because Fractals are 5-player content and you need the rest for 1 Alac and 3 DPS dealers in high-tier Fractals or else they will take forever. Every other content allows for a variety of builds (see previous responses).

[Sindust.7059]

Yesterday I noticed that I already had ascended minstrel's saved in one of the equipment templates on my guardian, aside from weapons, and with enough infusions for T3. I had totally forgotten about it. I was trying to make a tank back then, and I forgot how close I came to actually finishing 2 years ago. So since fractal healing with minstrel's works, I'll finish this set and make him my fractal healer (and maybe later raid tank if I find a guild that still takes on noobs in such an old MMO, since the guild I am in from back then is practically dead).

15 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

healing in general in this game is not what you are used to from other games

And I hated healing in all other games. I like ranged DPS and tanking, and GW2 has neither in the kind of content I usually enjoy the most (i.e. dungeons in other games, or fractals here). My best attempt at a ranged DD was a condi soulbeast with axe+torch, and I couldn't get her past ~22k DPS. This was also the reason I quit after playing through the story and getting a bit of a taste of end game. I'm hoping that with healing being this different here I might actually like it enough to stay more than a few months with the game.

Thanks everyone for explaining it to me and giving useful hints. Especially @Infusion.7149 for the insightful and detailed explanation of how this thing works.