In your experience, which Support spec feels best?

[Zinnia.1842]

I’d like to hear your opinions on which support spec feels the most fluid in combat? Which one is fun?

 

I’ve always played healers in mmorpgs but I’m looking to be a supporter, maybe not a full healer. Right now I’m liking the aesthetic of the Ranger but I haven’t made it to level 80 yet to try Druid. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Imba.9451]

I played Guard since release, so naturally, I played alot of HFB. But since the rework of the tome mechanics, it just doesn't feel that almighty anymore, wich, in terms of balance, is probably for the best, but still stings a little bit for me.

I recently tried heal-alac druid, and I don't know if it's just the sensation of something new, but I kinda dig it. It's not exactly complicated, but it feels good. Same with heal ele, although ele is probably hit or miss, since, as a healer, you are very dependant on your water attunement and need urility skills that can throw out a quick heal if you tuned into something else. Also, many people do not like the gameplay of tempest alac-healer, but I am personally fine with it. The coming update will probably take some of the pressure away.

Last but not least, Healscourge is amazingly fun, although a double edged sword. It's a good healer to carry inexperienced groups, but it offers very little in terms of boons. I just wish they'd add 10-man barriers again. Because having two healscourges is not worth 2 teamslots, while a single healscourge does not cover a 10-man squad, wich makes the class fall flat in many but some special situations.

[SlipLihte.1307]

Tl;dr

I'd prefer quickheal firebrand for fractals and heal alac tempest everywhere else.

 

To start off with, in gw2 a lot of people refer tonsupports as either offensive support or defensive support. Typically offensive support can provide either alac or quickness, as well as do dps. Defensive support provides either alac or quickness, as well as healing. Based on the comments in your question, I assume you are referring to a defensive support that provides healing, but please say if you want to know about offensive supports as well.

 

In the current metagame, the defensive supports played most often are

Heal alac mech (ham)

Heal alac tempest (hat)

Heal alac druid (dudu)

Quick heal firebrand (qhfb)

Quick heal herald (??? Too new to have an acronym it seems)

 

I have personally not played HAM or herald, and can't comment on them. HAM however is a favourite of many groups, and I think the best heal alac for fractals. Qh herald is also very popular because of the amazing boontime and ability to do a decent amount of damage as well.

 

For the rest,

Qhfb was meta for years and is still quite popular because of the ability to swap utility skills t suite the situation. Need aegis? Bring advance. Need stab? Bring stand your ground. Need condi cleanse? Bring mantra of lore. Etc. However, it currently faces two problems. The first is that it can run out of cooldowns over time, which means that it can't keep healing up. In heavily scuffed boss fights this may become an issue. Secondly, because it provides quickness, you need an alac dps in your subgroup as well as offensive support, and alac dps is currently not as good as quickness dps. Thus, most static and organisedgroups run heal alac + qdps, and not the other way around. However, I still raid and strike in pug and guild groups quite often on qhfb and usually the alac dps spot will get filled.

 

Personally I like thr playstyle, especially after the changes, and I feel it is quite quick, active and rewarding. It works very well in fractals in my view.

 

Heal alac tempest has amazing amounts of healing and boon uptime, and I have been in groups where a single good heal tempest can easily carry healing for some big boss fights (e.g. Q1, Deimos). The major frustration with HAT right now is the way it generates alac is susceptible toninterruption, but thus is being changed for the next balance patch. Personally I think it plays fun and heals very well, but can be a bit harder to play and you need to be careful not to lock yourself out of water when you need it.

 

I haven't played a lot of dudu and still have a lot to learn. The main benefit I found so far is that it has very good ongoing healing, and alac generation is more reliable than tempest in some fights. It also allows you a lot of flexibility to "send" healing, so you can keep people alive that are off doing mechanics or vice versa. The playstyle is ok for me, but I prefer tempest. It also doesn't keep as many other boons up as easily as tempest does. However I have also never found that this is a major limiting factor in groups.

 

The last one not mentioned above is heal scourge, which has godlike abilities to keep players alive, but doesn't provide alac or quickness. As such it only really gets played in training groups as well as on boneskinner. Most groups don't want the dps loss of having to have a qdps, an adps, and a heal scourge, and would rather have less staying alive power but combine two roles.

Edited February 9, 2023 by SlipLihte.1307

[Infinity.2876]

I don't prefer Druid because of staff has weird aa and is a lot better in a larger group

qhfb is pretty good lacks personal sustain.

I LOVE HAT but I play with elemental bastion instead of lucid singularity for more healing and use staff.

If you don't like druid here is a support soulbeast build you can try. (For use try to use quickdraw to bring back CotW )

[zeyeti.8347]

Personally Hfb and druid .

 

Hfb , because what SlipLihte.1307 mentioned up , having free slots in your skill bar is a must and uber usefull when you know the fight you gonna face , but i don't think it lacks heals , ppl tend to play it with axe/shield - staff , i prefer playing it with mace/shield - staff , mace has strong passiv healing from AA , healing for almost 1500 hp every member close to you when you do the 3rd hit , and for fury uptime "feel my wrath" do all the work and add a long range quickness uptime. Only weak point of hfb for me is he lacks long range healing.

 

Druid , because he is a pumping healing machine when he goes to avatar , who is up every 7,5 sec , has a lot of long range healing skill and great mobility (what the hfb lacks) , bring  a lot of cc too , weakness is , not a lot of option for aegis or stabilty (aegis only from a pet skill ... and stab trough the elite glyph , or another glyph only when in avatar )

 

Healmech is strong but boring to play , you will most of the time just spam your skills to have boon uptime and the range of the boonshare is so high you don't even care about your placement .

 

Healtempest is very fun (maybe the funniest supp heal to play) but is weak , he has cluncky heal access and cluncky boon application on a short range , and even with the update on overloads pulsing alacrity it will still be a pain to play if you get interrupt , all other healers have the key boons on very short casting skills and dump out might like no tomorrow , while tempest has to rely on a tiny 180 wide aoe to pulse might then share it with warhorn skills ... making the use of next staff update not usefull at all.

 

Healherald , not played , can't get a point of view .

[Zinnia.1842]

Thank you for all the replies, these really help to narrow my options down! I'm now looking at Tempest, Druid, Firebrand. Leaning more for the Tempest and Druid, it's soooo difficult to choose as I like them both so far. 😊

 

Staff is one of my favorite weapons, and a larger part of my decision. The staff on the Druid is one of the things I'm not sure about, I haven't played with it, so it sounds like this one has an annoying usage, and weird sounds. The Druid, while I love the aesthetic, I don't know how useful I will be to throw out dps when I am solo or playing with my hubby, I appreciate the link to the Soulbeast support build for that.  I like the staff so far on the Elementalist, it seems all the abilities are useful and flow well together, but overall it has weakness, clunky rotation(?), and the interrupts doesn't sound fun.. Then the Guardian, I didn't realise it has a lot of staff usage, but the shorter range healing kinda hampers things, I will need to look into this one too.

 

This is going to be a hard decision, and I'm likely to level at least two of them to 80. Thank you again everyone. 

 

18 hours ago, SlipLihte.1307 said:

To start off with, in gw2 a lot of people refer tonsupports as either offensive support or defensive support. Typically offensive support can provide either alac or quickness, as well as do dps. Defensive support provides either alac or quickness, as well as healing. Based on the comments in your question, I assume you are referring to a defensive support that provides healing, but please say if you want to know about offensive supports as well.

 

In the current metagame, the defensive supports played most often are

Heal alac mech (ham)

Heal alac tempest (hat)

Heal alac druid (dudu)

Quick heal firebrand (qhfb)

Quick heal herald (??? Too new to have an acronym it seems)

 

I wasn't aware that supports have offensive/defensive styles, but that makes sense now, I appreciate all the references to the professions too. I have read that the alacraty and quickness is really important, so I'll be sure to look for that when I get farther into the game.

[mikko.4013]

I think it depends on the content you are playing.

 

As most people, my favourite defensive supports are q HealFirebrand, Heal Alac Mech, Heal Alac Tempest, and Druid.

 

I have been playing CM fractals for years, played the 4 classes, and mainly play q HealFirebrand (axe-torch / staff, or axe-shield / staff) for this content, for 7 reasons :

 

1) versatility of utilities : without touching your utility skill bar, you always have access to reflects, stability, water field, light field, fire field... like any other Fireband spec

2) great access to stability (Stand your Ground, Mantra of Liberation, Tome of Courage #5) and aegis (Advance, Tome of Courage #5) on demand, according to the encounter

3) quickness instant casting

4) easy fury and might generation

5) great healing and cleansing, especially if you know your combos, and ranged healing/cleansing if you use Bow of Truth + Staff 2

6) good DPS as a defensive support, especially if you play Seraph with axe-torch

7) very good skipper for fast runs

 

The playstyle is very dynamic, and the APM can be quite high if you want to "do it all".

The combination of instant aegis/stability/reflects will cheese lots of mechanics.

 

IMO, the downsides of HealFirebrand are :

1) mediocre fast hard cc (sanctuary is great, but slow) unless you take hammer of wisdom

2) burst healing is good, but sustained healing is not that great, especially for long fights and feeding parties

3) mobility is meh, not bad but not good

 

On the other side :

- HAM offers : good barriers on utilities and on AA, passive alac on barriers, some stability/aegis on F2, good hard cc, good healing/cleansing, good mobility + skipping abilities... but heavily relies on the Jade Mech (RIP if pet dies, RIP underwater, RIP if Mech is too far, RIP if pet runs crazy)

- HAT offers : good healing/cleansing, pulsing alac on overloads, some stability/aegis on utility shouts... but heavily relies on rotating your elemental attunements because of alac generation (meaning your abilities will depend on the off cd attunements)

- Druid offers : good healing/cleansing, alac on spirit skills, some stability/aegis depending on your utilities/pets, good cc, good mobility

 

IMHO :

- HAM is the most beginner-friendly defensive support, because of passive barriers/alac and no strict rotation.

- q HealFirebrand offers the best for versatility, but demands higher APM to shine

- HAT and Druid shine better in long fights / raids

Edited February 10, 2023 by mikko.4013