Similar healers recommendation

[Dark Viper.2378]

Heyo, main HFB lover here who wants to spread out their roots to other healer classes. I wanted to start by sayinf I just LOVE how HFB works and was wondering if there were any other healer classes you guys would recommend me to try based on my love for it. And yes I know every class iis unique in their own way with their own playstyle, but if you can recommend me the nezt healer to try who would it be? 

What I got in the list so far is Heal Herald and Druid, let me know if you got any more in mind. Thank you for your time brothers and sisters

 

Update: Trying heal herald as some suggested and loving it so far, its a nice change of pace. But another class caught my eye is druid is I already made a class for it and gona try it after im done with herald, thanks to everyone who contributed

Edited November 7, 2023 by Dark Viper.2378

[Passerbye.6291]

Seconding heal herald, not because it is similar to heal firebrand, but because it tends to fill the gaps of very few things heal firebrand isn't amazing at. Before I get into it, keep in mind that no other healer in the game will give you the kind of control heal firebrand has over your group's survival. After FB's tome changes, HFB has become the single most versatile healer in the game, even without having to dip into your utility slots for said versatility.
That being said, for me, the biggest downfall of heal firebrand has been the unforgiving radius of the mantras. You either make sure your group is tightly stacked, or hang behind the group to attempt to have them in a 450 range frontal cone, which tends to be difficult when your party members have less than ideal positioning. This is where heal herald comes in, almost all your boons come with a massive 600 radius, making it a welcome change after HFB.
On top of this, as said, while no other healer comes close to the versatility that tomes provide for HFB, due to not being forced to swap legends off of cooldown as a heal herald, since you don't need to do so for boon uptime or energy regen, you get to camp glint and toggle facets back on after running out of energy. This style of gameplay, while technically inefficient in terms of energy management, allows you to treat your centaur legend as a sorf of panic/on demand heal/stab/projectile hate/cleanse switch, the heal being one that essentially full heals everyone.
Another thing HFB can somewhat struggle with is range healing at times. While you have the bow of truth and staff 2 for range healing, when kitten hits the fan, even that may prove insufficient. Whereas in the case of heal herald, you get to do over 10k heals on 2 second cooldown with centaur utility 2, while redirecting the tablet to send the heal where it's needed. 
Oh and herald is getting group aegis next month as well ^^.

When it comes to your second choice, druid, it does have an amazing aoe resurrection ability called glyph of the stars, which will make you feel omnipotent when you get it right. The problem, however, is that due to being forced to go into celestial avatar for boon uptime, you'll likely have times when you won't have your big heals available when you need them. This is especially a problem if you are in any way lacking in encounter knowledge. So, going from HFB, druid can potentially feel restrictive, since your baseline duty as a boonheal forces you to use your massive healing stance, meanwhile HFB has its tomes available at all times.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Passerbye.6291

[zeyeti.8347]

Can also point out the healscourge who has several pros now :

-Most powerfull condi cleaner in the game (clean a condi with f2 every 3sec and on barrier application)

-Ability to kite and give your group healing and boons from 900 range

-Increadibly tanky with -15% strike damage taken , up 100% of the time

-Best downstate savior of the game (signet of undeath and garrish pilar up every 10 sec)

-Insane amount of barrier very frequently (honestly it needs a little nerf)

-Lots of cc

-can be very mobile with fleshworm and sand swell

-can easily corrupt boons

Minus :

-no boons provided as swiftness and vigor , the lack of switftness in some squad comp. hurts a lot

-Has a very long stab on a small cooldown , but it's very annoying to apply to allies and only give 1 stack

-Decent aegis application , but far away from firebrand.

-lack of real burst of true healing (you have basically 3 healing skills and vampiric aura ...+régen)

-no invulnerability or blocks skills , can be hard to tank some bosses like deimos (taking death magic just for holy sanctuary hurts a lot)

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Ashantara.8731]

Also seconding Heal Herald. Many also still enjoy playing Heal Scourge.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Big fan of Alac heal Druid. 

Glyph of stars mass rezz is just to satisfying. 

[Dadnir.5038]

There is the 2 overlooked brothers as well:

• Tempest: It got massive healing output, indecent amount of condi cleanse, "Rebound!" can save you the hassle of having to rally allies... etc. I'd say that it's only flaw is that it is a little limited with the boons it can provide.
• Renegade: Decent healing and cleansing, easiest alacrity source of the game. Unfortunately it's lacking when it come to provide a wide variety of boons (especially offensive boons).

 

[draxynnic.3719]

My thought is that for practicality reasons, it's probably better to go for a heal alacrity build in order to complement firebrand's heal quickness role. Problem is, I don't really have enough experience with heal alacrity builds to say which might be closest in feel to firebrand. My gut feeling, stereotypical as it is, is actually currently leaning towards heal alacrity mechanist: you have some access to aegis and stability (not as much as guardian, but who does?), periods of projectile blocking, and multiple sets of "weapon skills" to cycle through in order to hopefully provide just the right support at the right time to your team. While druid is typically regarded as the better healer nowadays, HAM isn't too far behind, and is probably closer to replicating the 'swiss army knife of support' style that firebrand has. It's also probably less prone than druid to accidentally locking yourself out of your burst healing because you needed to apply alacrity.

I personally don't like mechanist despite also being someone who mostly heals on HFB, so you might consider that a data point, but I think my reasons are subjective enough that they might not apply to you.

Something worth keeping in mind that ArenaNet does seem to be making serious efforts at bringing more healing builds into the meta over the next few months (mesmer, warrior, maybe even bringing heal spectre and renegade back), so it might be worth holding off on committing too many resources to a new heal build until we see how that shakes out. Heal chrono in particular might be worth checking out if that becomes a thing.

[AlPower.2476]

Heal Alac Druid

Is a bit mo' difficult, and can't spam stab and aegis BUT you still have Aegis and Stab for an emergency

Overall HB is better than druid, except that Druid's heals are stronger.

And having an alac source, aside quickness source (although both are healers) isn't a bad practice

Edited November 24, 2023 by AlPower.2476