Are there any fun healer options these days?

[Raarsi.6798]

Wanting to make a healer option, but I'm not a fan of heal mech because it seems like they're everywhere, and really can't stand HFB because the thought that seemingly every Anet dev mains firebrand absolutely ruins the spec for me.  So between that and the developmental atrocities done to scourge and druid, are there any healer options that could be considered "fun" at this point in GW2?

[phandaria.4891]

What is it that you are looking in a spec? What is it about HFB that you can't stand? What would you consider "fun" in a spec?

Other possibilities are Herald and Tempest.

[Raarsi.6798]

4 hours ago, phandaria.4891 said:

What is it about HFB that you can't stand?

While it suffers the same issue I have with heal mech of also being all over the place (only healers I ever see these days are either one of those two), but FB in general has the added factor of what could only be described as developer favoritism due to how powerful it's been as an elite spec seemingly since its inception back in PoF, which to me has always been a massive turn-off.

As for "fun", while I suppose that's always a vague descriptor, I guess I'd go with something functional for PvE without being too difficult to work with (basically something that isn't at piano-playing levels).

[Infinity.2876]

herald is going to be better support in open world because it can be a damage dealer when the situation demands it.

tempest is good in pvp and wvw because it can survive. (herald can survive too but it has less escape functions like mist form, arcane aura and such)

Druid is also a good choice but is harder in open world because of low damage.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Infinity.2876

[Vidit.7108]

There isn't really anymore dev favoritism to firebrand, also heal firebrand specifically wasn't what was receiving a lot of favoritism. IMO don't play or not play a healer based on what you think the devs want you to do, play based on what will work for your team and what you like playing.

HFB is everywhere because its only competition in the quickness healer space is Herald. Heal Quick Herald is pretty good give it a try. Player adoption lags behind viability, you'll see more heralds in the next 6 months as people give it a try or new players decide to build in that direction.

On the Alac healer side you've really only left yourself Tempest. I don't personally like it that much but it gets the job done and is easier to learn than the next hardest healer which is probably heal alac specter. 
Heal Alac Ren can still work but it's sort of marginal now since it hasn't kept up with the boon upkeep of other healer builds. If your quick dps is a herald or firebrand I think it's probably fine but not as much for every situation.

[AlPower.2476]

I've played Druid in the Chrono-druid support rulers era.

If I hadn't played it 'cause everyone does that, I'd never have played support most HoT and 1/3 PoF era.

However, I've played (PvE support roles):

Druid (not the new alac one), Renegade, Scrapper (not the new quickness one), Healbrand, Tempest, Scourge, and Warrior.

I gonna tell you, my favorite (as for fun) is... no one, healer is a boring role.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by AlPower.2476

[phandaria.4891]

To be fair, FB had been actively nerfed since its conception. FB's peak was when it could spam aegis with mantra. The strength of FB was with how much utility it packed. Tome 2 and 3 provided on demand heal, stab, reflection, giving FB a lot of flexibility with utility skill. Plus the constant heal from symbols and easy quickness mantra made FB one of the best healers.

The fundamental of tome design gives FB great value as support and healer, but with tome redesign, it is a lot weaker than it used to be. I can't see any favoritism there.

Herald is recently buffed and seems gonna have more people playing it, whereas Healmech might be losing in popularity soon.

I think the piano healer is only Healmech due to the kits involved. But many specs require energy management for healing which add complexity.

 

[Kuma.1503]

Alac Specter

One of my favorites right now. 

Heal varient has so much barrier they make scourges sweat with envy. Great alac uptime (easily overcaps). Good mobility. On demand stability. You can also bring useful utility like portals, immobilize, and arguably the best break bar pressure in the game. If your group struggles to break defiance bars, you can carry them solo. 

DPS varient has a very easy rotation with good output. Still great alac uptime, and access to the same utility if you choose to bring it. 

 

Alac Druid 

MUCH less annoying to play after the rework. 

Playstyle is different now. Celestial Avatar becomes a part of your support "rotation". Unfortuantely, this means you won't be able to rely on it for burst heals like you used to. However, this is alleiviated by various other buffs this class has gotten. Staff is much better now. Healing is still great. You have the ability to perma immobilize a target. This can be useful in fights like Gorseval or Samrog. You've also got a very short cooldown push. Useful in fights like Vale Guardian. Very good condi cleanse. Good mobility. A very short cooldown projectile destruction. 

Druid has a little bit of everything. There's a good reason it's been a staple in raids for so long. There a lot of things that Druid uniquely excells at. 

 

Quickness Herald 

Contender for best support in the game this patch. It's a quickness support that is very easy to play. Quickness comes by simply using your upkeep skills. This makes it a very no-stress support to play. But while the skill floor is low, the skill cap is immense. There's a lot a skilled Herald can do to carry a run. Between dropping stability roads, nuking break bars, healing, cleansing, boasting the longest lasting anti-projectile bubble in the game, stripping boons, pulling enemies together... the list goes on. 

A good herald is an asset to any party. 

 

These would be my top three in this patch. If you want a safe choice, I'd go with Druid. It's always been good in one form or another. If you want my opinion for which is the most fun... definitely Herald for Quickness, and Specter for Alac. 

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Gaiawolf.8261]

23 hours ago, Raarsi.6798 said:

Wanting to make a healer option, but I'm not a fan of heal mech because it seems like they're everywhere, and really can't stand HFB because the thought that seemingly every Anet dev mains firebrand absolutely ruins the spec for me.  So between that and the developmental atrocities done to scourge and druid, are there any healer options that could be considered "fun" at this point in GW2?

Hmm, since you don't like healer specs based on how popular they are, you should probably try heal deadeye. I hear no one is playing that. You'd probably find it real fun based on that alone. 😉

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Alac Specter

One of my favorites right now. 

Heal varient has so much barrier they make scourges sweat with envy. Great alac uptime (easily overcaps). Good mobility. On demand stability. You can also bring useful utility like portals, immobilize, and arguably the best break bar pressure in the game. If your group struggles to break defiance bars, you can carry them solo. 

DPS varient has a very easy rotation with good output. Still great alac uptime, and access to the same utility if you choose to bring it. 

 

Alac Druid 

MUCH less annoying to play after the rework. 

Playstyle is different now. Celestial Avatar becomes a part of your support "rotation". Unfortuantely, this means you won't be able to rely on it for burst heals like you used to. However, this is alleiviated by various other buffs this class has gotten. Staff is much better now. Healing is still great. You have the ability to perma immobilize a target. This can be useful in fights like Gorseval or Samrog. You've also got a very short cooldown push. Useful in fights like Vale Guardian. Very good condi cleanse. Good mobility. A very short cooldown projectile destruction. 

Druid has a little bit of everything. There's a good reason it's been a staple in raids for so long. There a lot of things that Druid uniquely excells at. 

 

Quickness Herald 

Contender for best support in the game this patch. It's a quickness support that is very easy to play. Quickness comes by simply using your upkeep skills. This makes it a very no-stress support to play. But while the skill floor is low, the skill cap is immense. There's a lot a skilled Herald can do to carry a run. Between dropping stability roads, nuking break bars, healing, cleansing, boasting the longest lasting anti-projectile bubble in the game, stripping boons, pulling enemies together... the list goes on. 

A good herald is an asset to any party. 

 

These would be my top three in this patch. If you want a safe choice, I'd go with Druid. It's always been good in one form or another. If you want my opinion for which is the most fun... definitely Herald for Quickness, and Specter for Alac. 

 

 

 

I’ve been playing Max Heal Druid in WvW (instead of Alacrity bot trait, it’s lingering light) and it’s been really fun post reworks. I think the biggest contributors to it being good were the changes to staff 1 and 2, Celestial 1 and some of the astral force changes. 

one of the biggest reasons Druid was bad before was total lack of being able to gain astral force without enemies being in range and attacked. The ability to select and actually heal allies as well as the passive gain in AF, make it way less aggravating.

sword changes also seem more fun and intuitive to play as a mobility tool.

Spectar seems interesting to me as well but I haven’t tried it out yet. I heard that it can heal group allies now.

[Mell.4873]

I might suffer some criticism but Chronomancer is starting to become a more viable support and by extension Healer. The move of Alacrity and Quickness onto Shatters and Phantasms allows you to take much more varied utilities. Resulting in either a heavy Mantra, Clone, or Well Healer.

No one has really formulated what that could mean for a healer but a few more balance patches and we might have something decent. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I've been messing around with the new Heal Specter build.  The old one was power harriers, and it was pretty simple to use.  The new plaguedoctor condi healer spec has been more complicated.  It requires frequently switching between enemies and allies to change how the heals are distributed, which can be quite difficult to manage without specialized keybinds.  Gotta use shadow siphon on the enemy to give the boons, then use scepter 2 on allies to stack barrier and protection, but then target the enemy while in shroud to use their skills, and it flips between doing all of these quite fast.