Post Feb14 patch, best support healer?

[Aylpse.6280]

With the changes to HAM, and the buffs to Tempest, have things been shaken up? Where do the support classes stack up now? Especially for 4man content? Not the biggest fan of Mech, tried it out after having it recommended last time I asked this, but I think things changed enough that I can warrant asking again? Is Tempest viable, if jank? It looks fun. What about Druid and Firebrand? Are they relevant? Is there a class people will see join a party and sigh in relief? Basically, whats the most in-demand support now? Honestly anything but Rev, I hate Rev more then any other class.

[Serephen.3420]

I wouldn't really say that HAT got that much better. I've done some test runs with it in fractals and raids. Staff changes are nice but not really game changing. But I still like the sentiment behind it.

 

Alac is a bit weird now  the nice part is that you can access it a little earlier than before but actual uptime is harder to maintain that before ironically. I would think dagger/warhorn will still be far superior to staff in heal support for a pve setting purely for sand squall. You have less time to get off skills between overloads than you did before. So it feels a bit more rushed than it used to.

 

Will have to see how it goes from here though.

[soul.9651]

Most in demand are firebrands with heal/dps alac mechs as always....  

[Polar.8634]

Tempest is good enough for all content, never saw tempest being kicked play it if you like it.

Sometimes i play healherald in PvE , people get surprised that herald can heal lol.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

HFB, HAM, HAT and HQherald are the best all round healers. Druid can fill in most of the time but simply lacks in stabi/aegis. All 4 should be able to give support Boons & keep the parties alive. HAM and HFB are normally the preferred healers. HAM is the easiest healer and very consistent boon application. HFB has the most access to utilities & wider range quickness application. 

That being said, there's 0 added value in keeping your allies "more" alive, neither is a 30 sec uptime on alac/quick beneficial in any way. I believe HAM and HAT offer the best dps (depending on traits and gear ofc). Against harder more healing oriented fights the HAM is able to upkeep a significant amount of damage while all healers drop alot in dps. 

 

So they're all good enough to play (except maybe druid in some fights). Out of those 4 i'd say that HFB & HAT have the highest potential for healsupport. HAT is considerably harder to play and more prone to fckups. HFB's main weakness used to be the need for an alac support, but with the latest balance patches they've definitely gotten some nice buffs. 

[zeyeti.8347]

36 minutes ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

HFB, HAM, HAT and HQherald are the best all round healers. Druid can fill in most of the time but simply lacks in stabi/aegis

druid has better aegis than Hat , white tiger can pull off an aegis every 25 secs , and while stab isn't great on druid , still better than healmech (2 glyph can give you stab , and one is a pulsing stab) , and in term of pure healing , the avatar can simply play yoyo healing with all your group , what a hat or healmech can't do cause healemch has poor healing , but great accessibility , and Hat has strong healing , but poor accessibility . 

So overall druid , hfb and healmech are the most played for a good reason , while Hat and his cluncky alac is behind them all ,  source ? https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity Hat was at 2.3% right after patch , now it's already under 2% , ppl tryed and are now running away from it , while in strikes it goes up i agree , still healmech and hfb are far higher than him.

Pulsing alacrity isn't enough and it's funny now that you struggle more to upkeep it ...

Edited February 21, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Sylvi.8372]

17 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

HFB, HAM, HAT and HQherald are the best all round healers. Druid can fill in most of the time but simply lacks in stabi/aegis. All 4 should be able to give support Boons & keep the parties alive. HAM and HFB are normally the preferred healers. HAM is the easiest healer and very consistent boon application. HFB has the most access to utilities & wider range quickness application. 

Tangent here. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and I read “keep the parties alive” as ‘keep the parasites alive’ 😂

Had to do a double take and reread.

[Polar.8634]

19 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

So overall druid , hfb and healmech are the most played for a good reason , while Hat and his cluncky alac is behind them all ,  source ? https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

they are most played not because they are best. these mentioned classes are some of more popular overal, so its easier to people also play them as heal even if before they played dps. also graph does not show if spec is played as heal or other role.

heal fb has been nerfed few times and is still most played support not because it is best, it is because it became so common through the whole history of game. some ppl only play guardian because it can do anything.

other reasons ppl play classes is how easy thay are to play - look at mech popularity, even after nerfs people play it because how easy it is.

to conclude tempest, or any other class, can outperform competition easily in right hands, i see it all the time. also best class is what is fun to play as always.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Polar.8634

[Vidit.7108]

As someone who put together and played a heal build for every class here is my perspective on the PvE healer meta. Quick and Alac healers don't really compete with eachother, once a group has alac heals or quick dps they're not gonna make room for an HB most of the time and one is not gonna show up. With that in mind:
Alac Healers are the most competitive group with a lot of good builds.
HAM is on top because it's easy to learn and play well, the players especially in PuGs, have always had a bias toward barrier heals.
Druid is right behind it in function and strength, the basics are easy to pick up but there are a lot fewer people who know how to play it. It is much easier to tell when a druid underperforms at healing than when a HAM does. I would say though a competent HAM and Druid player are on par with eachother in all PvE content.
Tempest at the high end is as good as druid, but it is much harder learn. I've found more bad tempests than competent ones, my guess as to why is a lot of players get told they can hybrid heal/dps with it and are overconfident about how good they are at healing. Recent changes might have made it easier to learn but I kind of doubt it at the moment.
Heal Alac Renegade might have crawled back into relevancy with the alac buff once people slot in magi to replace some harrier pieces. It's not a bad build but not a lot of people play it.
Those 4 make up the field, someone competent at using those heal builds can handle all the healing in most content in the game. They all each offer something unique and get the job done well. The remaining alac healers underperform in a lot of different ways and are mostly irrelevant.

On the quick side there is just really two builds.
Healbrand, which is still good and squares well against the 4 alac healers. Then there is Heal Quick Herald, which hasn't seen any improvements.  Right now if you're asking which build is better or easier to learn the answer is Healbrand. No patches have made meaningful enough changes to how Herald heals that would help it match healbrand though they are actually pretty close. Heal scrapper exists but it's never been the same since those heal kit nerfs that were meant for HAM. The rest of the possible builds have seen no improvements really.

Right now they're overly focused on hobbling firebrands rather than helping other quick builds heal, it's more likely at this rate that alac healers will become the norm and we won't think about quick healers. Anyone looking to jump ship from firebrand is looking at picking up an alac healer, and an alac healer looking to jump ship is looking at a different alac healer. Right now there is not as many *clearly* better options so much as there are some that are easier to learn. Ease of learning and playing has the largest impact on what's common or meta, follow by versatility the build offers . They tried with the staff changes to open a door for elementalist but I don't think it worked. There is a learning curve to healing in this game and combined with the difficulty in gearing a healer causes the meta for healers specifically to move really slowly. If something is nerfed people drop off faster than join up after something gets buffed.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Vidit.7108

[Mell.4873]

With the Mantra changes to Mesmer we can throw Chronomancer into the pool of viable healers. 

It mostly boils down to Aegis uptime. Right now Mesmer has the most frequent uptime and it's easily able to pump out 5 aegis onto a group every few seconds if played right. 

Mesmer have port, boon rip, long Ranged resurrect. It's a utility healer.