Chronomancer Healer with high DPS

[Mell.4873]

Has anyone tried to do Greatsword and Rifle Healer. My reasoning is you don't really need Boon Duration on Chronomancer support if you spam enough phantasms and shatters. You also only really need a little bit of healing power and some static healing buffs. 

Sounds like it would be possible since it isn't that different the Boon DPS Chronomancer. 

[Mell.4873]

I can report back I did fractals with no Healing power or concentration. 

[Noodle Ant.1605]

a healer that does its job properly already significantly contributes to dps by allowing players to focus less on staying alive and more on doing dps (more uptime)

if a player dies/downs/backs off/plays defensively when they otherwise wouldnt/shouldnt, youre already making dps losses that devalue the dps youre supposedly gaining. sure, no one mightve outright died, but was it because they had to play differently to support your job (instead of you supporting their job)?

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

The problem would be your heal is hard-locked to Inspiration and your boons are hard-locked to Chaos, so to be a standard healer you’re required to bring those 2 lines.

And the 0 duration Boon DPS build cannot function without the Greatsword trait in Domination, at that point it’s just a worse Staff. 

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

a healer that does its job properly already significantly contributes to dps by allowing players to focus less on staying alive and more on doing dps (more uptime)

if a player dies/downs/backs off/plays defensively when they otherwise wouldnt/shouldnt, youre already making dps losses that devalue the dps youre supposedly gaining. sure, no one mightve outright died, but was it because they had to play differently to support your job (instead of you supporting their job)?

I had a spare template slot with nothing on it so I just tried this. I still have the normal healer build if I need it but like I am indicating Rifle has enough HPS to not need Healing Power. 

[Mell.4873]

1 minute ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

The problem would be your heal is hard-locked to Inspiration and your boons are hard-locked to Chaos, so to be a standard healer you’re required to bring those 2 lines.

And the 0 duration Boon DPS build cannot function without the Greatsword trait in Domination, at that point it’s just a worse Staff. 

You only need Inspiration you don't need chaos for healing or boon support. This means you can run Domination. 

This doesn't seem hard to figure out, I don't know why people are so resistant to it. I was pulling about 5-10k DPS in fractals with this build. I mostly ran Marauders and used Danger Time. 

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

You’ll need Chaos for Protection sharing since that’s the only access Mesmers have to it. And I don’t think the healing output can justify forgoing it. 

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

You’ll need Chaos for Protection sharing since that’s the only access Mesmers have to it. And I don’t think the healing output can justify forgoing it. 

Most groups won't need it, other supports can also technically provide it if needed. 

This is all just more options like said I still have the other Healer build on standby if we need protection. 

[Nepster.4275]

With that setup you are not a healer nor a DPS at that point you could technically play q/a chrono DPS and the group would benefit more

Without Chaos you lose out on most of the might and fury you would generate, even if the group does not require protection

I hate it when people run some kind of sub-optimal healing builds and call it a healer, being able to heal people for 1-2k per second does not make you into a healer, you also need to upkeep the basic boons like might and fury and swiftness for normal runs

The fact that people survived in your group is not an evidence that you are a good healer on that build, but rather that they were good at surviving

On the side note tho, we are still not sure what group comp it was, what tier of fractals you did and neither that what were the uptimes on certain boons like alac/quick/might/fury, at least these basic 4, if you did not have a competent rev then most likely all these were lacking

Yes you might do 5-10k DPS more, but with low boon uptimes you prevent the other 3 DPS doing 5-10k more too

Also if something, marauder is again, contributes nothing at all to the build, if you say that you are able to heal, it would be also possible to take bers/assa mix to crit cap yourself, since danger time again, is not optimal at all since the slow uptime is low in all game modes, even raids so you get no benefit from that, and again if you say you are a healer, running without vitality also should be fine

[Teknomancer.4895]

If you're going to use the thing at all, why would you even try to make it do damage? It's not designed for that, it's no good at that, and ANet has worked very hard to ensure that "hybrid" type builds are garbage to the point that if you're not specialized, don't even bother. The rifle's usefulness to a solo player who occasionally jumps in on map events is (charitably) limited at best; it does excel at "keep the NPC alive" type events, I'll give it that. It basically calls for its own dedicated build and gear templates, which depending on what you like to do in-game may or may not be worth the opportunity cost. But if you're going to carry this thing at all, why would you not focus your build toward its strengths?

Despite not liking it I recognize that it does have its uses -- right up to the moment that you try to force it to do something it's not designed for. I prefer OW and map/meta events, which tends to push toward a jack-of-all-trades approach since you need to be more self-sufficient for that. However the rifle is obviously a group-oriented weapon. If you try that self-sufficient approach and kitten yourself in a misguided attempt to do DPS with a healing weapon while wearing DPS gear, you're going to end up providing crap support and even crappier DPS. You can either be really good at one thing, or mediocre-to-crap at several things.

If you're wearing Zerk, Marauder or some other DPS stat you're too glassy to reliably do the one thing a healer really needs to do, which is stay alive so you can help others stay alive too; few things are more useless than a downed healer. Trying to pump out DPS with a healing weapon is not only doing it wrong but missing the entire point. Either pick one role and be good at that, or try to do several things and be crap at them all.

[Mell.4873]

12 hours ago, Nepster.4275 said:

With that setup you are not a healer nor a DPS at that point you could technically play q/a chrono DPS and the group would benefit more

Without Chaos you lose out on most of the might and fury you would generate, even if the group does not require protection

I hate it when people run some kind of sub-optimal healing builds and call it a healer, being able to heal people for 1-2k per second does not make you into a healer, you also need to upkeep the basic boons like might and fury and swiftness for normal runs

The fact that people survived in your group is not an evidence that you are a good healer on that build, but rather that they were good at surviving

On the side note tho, we are still not sure what group comp it was, what tier of fractals you did and neither that what were the uptimes on certain boons like alac/quick/might/fury, at least these basic 4, if you did not have a competent rev then most likely all these were lacking

Yes you might do 5-10k DPS more, but with low boon uptimes you prevent the other 3 DPS doing 5-10k more too

Also if something, marauder is again, contributes nothing at all to the build, if you say that you are able to heal, it would be also possible to take bers/assa mix to crit cap yourself, since danger time again, is not optimal at all since the slow uptime is low in all game modes, even raids so you get no benefit from that, and again if you say you are a healer, running without vitality also should be fine

I was using Well of Action for Slow upkeep and Rifle 3 with a little bit on boon duration so that is 20 stacks of Might so this was not a problem. 

I was doing Tier 4 fractals, I use Marauders since it is a 4 stat gear so I get more overall benifit.

If for some reason I wasn't keeping up with boons I could trait Signets and run Signet of Inspiration but that would sacrifice some healing. 

 

Honestly this isn't to hard to understand and I will repeat myself this is just another option in conjunction with my other healer setup which I can switch to. 

I even have a condition damage Virtuoso that has a Inspiration template incase the strike or fractals doesn't have enough healing or resurrecting potential. These are all just more options.......

[Mell.4873]

10 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

If you're going to use the thing at all, why would you even try to make it do damage? It's not designed for that, it's no good at that, and ANet has worked very hard to ensure that "hybrid" type builds are garbage to the point that if you're not specialized, don't even bother. The rifle's usefulness to a solo player who occasionally jumps in on map events is (charitably) limited at best; it does excel at "keep the NPC alive" type events, I'll give it that. It basically calls for its own dedicated build and gear templates, which depending on what you like to do in-game may or may not be worth the opportunity cost. But if you're going to carry this thing at all, why would you not focus your build toward its strengths?

Despite not liking it I recognize that it does have its uses -- right up to the moment that you try to force it to do something it's not designed for. I prefer OW and map/meta events, which tends to push toward a jack-of-all-trades approach since you need to be more self-sufficient for that. However the rifle is obviously a group-oriented weapon. If you try that self-sufficient approach and kitten yourself in a misguided attempt to do DPS with a healing weapon while wearing DPS gear, you're going to end up providing crap support and even crappier DPS. You can either be really good at one thing, or mediocre-to-crap at several things.

If you're wearing Zerk, Marauder or some other DPS stat you're too glassy to reliably do the one thing a healer really needs to do, which is stay alive so you can help others stay alive too; few things are more useless than a downed healer. Trying to pump out DPS with a healing weapon is not only doing it wrong but missing the entire point. Either pick one role and be good at that, or try to do several things and be crap at them all.

It is a power weapon with really high base healing. The HPS alone from the auto attack can reach 2k in a group without any healing power (400 per member). 

There is potential for a DPS build to heal, Marauders also provides vitality so I can survive. 

I feel like people are missing the point of this topic..... I'm not replacing a current healer setup just providing another option since rifle is a Power weapon. 

Does anyone complain when a Mirage Alacrity Healer can do 10k+ DPS? 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

I mean sure but if you are being healer DPS then you probably aren't wanting to use the rifle. I would lean more on the staff at the very least in this case, since it has combo potential to boost some spike damage. Rifle is basically from 1 to 5 all about supplying boons and healing not damage. It does some damage but because it is so low, this is the reason that using harrier's gear is rather pointless on a rifle heal chrono build because the power stat is basically going to waist.

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I mean sure but if you are being healer DPS then you probably aren't wanting to use the rifle. I would lean more on the staff at the very least in this case, since it has combo potential to boost some spike damage. Rifle is basically from 1 to 5 all about supplying boons and healing not damage. It does some damage but because it is so low, this is the reason that using harrier's gear is rather pointless on a rifle heal chrono build because the power stat is basically going to waist.

True it was more me trying to fit it into a new type of healer. For a pure healer Rifle is not really needed as well 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

44 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

True it was more me trying to fit it into a new type of healer. For a pure healer Rifle is not really needed as well 

Well you can certainly feel that way I am certainly going to disagree with you. I much prefer the rifle over scepter/shield and staff combo, I have my staff as my auxiliary and I never really swap to it. The rifle also gives regeneration with 100% uptime consistently, it's really ridiculously easy to get clones up, and add onto that, you get things such as resistance regularly. With rifle 3 you can trigger chaos auras on demand. The only thing I don't generate with regularity is protection, but even that is kind of not a big deal since I generate aegis consistently and for long periods of time too.

I personally do not care about damage numbers, I like to do support. This point you are making just is baffling, and shows a rather debilitating group think that has infected some of the more vocal people that the only thing that matters is the damage, but I know when I go in playing as the healer that a meta event or fractal or even strike tends to survive a lot better than a guy who is constantly demanding to know what their DPS is on ARC (because we already know he has ARC so didn't need to ask but is asking because he's bragging).

In the end, I think if you want to do damage as support anyways, play a mechanist. That will easily land you 5k if not more DPS even as a pure support. It's not my prefered playstyle though.

Edited March 17 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Mell.4873]

3 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Well you can certainly feel that way I am certainly going to disagree with you. I much prefer the rifle over scepter/shield and staff combo, I have my staff as my auxiliary and I never really swap to it. The rifle also gives regeneration with 100% uptime consistently, it's really ridiculously easy to get clones up, and add onto that, you get things such as resistance regularly. With rifle 3 you can trigger chaos auras on demand. The only thing I don't generate with regularity is protection, but even that is kind of not a big deal since I generate aegis consistently and for long periods of time too.

I personally do not care about damage numbers, I like to do support. This point you are making just is baffling, and shows a rather debilitating group think that has infected some of the more vocal people that the only thing that matters is the damage, but I know when I go in playing as the healer that a meta event or fractal or even strike tends to survive a lot better than a guy who is constantly demanding to know what their DPS is on ARC (because we already know he has ARC so didn't need to ask but is asking because he's bragging).

In the end, I think if you want to do damage as support anyways, play a mechanist. That will easily land you 5k if not more DPS even as a pure support. It's not my prefered playstyle though.

All true, we shall see maybe I never play the build I suggested or i swap out Domination for Chaos and just don't worry about Greatsword that much. 

There are tons of build options with a dedicated healer weapon, it is one of the best in the game.

Edited March 17 by Mell.4873

[Excitonalt.7340]

I think it is better to just play q/a dps chrono with a rifle in no dedicated healer composition. You can heal using rifle 1/2/3/5 but your dps is still pretty good. It should be a good pick in speed fractal runs.

Edited March 19 by Excitonalt.7340

[Micah.3789]

9 hours ago, Excitonalt.7340 said:

I think it is better to just play q/a dps chrono with a rifle in no dedicated healer composition. You can heal using rifle 1/2/3/5 but your dps is still pretty good. It should be a good pick in speed fractal runs.

This is definitely the better choice statistically if you're attached to rifle chrono specifically. If you take more healing/support traits and skills, the damage suffers entirely too much; like even worse than celestial hybrid healers. With pure damage stats, all those support choices lack potency as well. So basically, all the synergies just fall flat and you end up with significantly less overall potency which defeats the purpose of hybridizing in the first place.

If you really want to play a chrono with some hybrid potential, celestial stats with scepter and staff would be a lot more potent in both damage and healing. It would be mostly condi damage though, and would probably be a bit weaker than mirage. Would be easier to play though. Then you could make use of Chaos' condi damage and boon support traits simultaneously. 

[Mell.4873]

20 hours ago, Micah.3789 said:

If you really want to play a chrono with some hybrid potential, celestial stats with scepter and staff would be a lot more potent in both damage and healing. It would be mostly condi damage though, and would probably be a bit weaker than mirage. Would be easier to play though. Then you could make use of Chaos' condi damage and boon support traits simultaneously. 

That is my point if you want to make a Rifle hybrid healer you need to be power since It has no condition damage. If you wanted a condition damage hybrid healer then sure Staff and Scepter would be fine. 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

25 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

That is my point if you want to make a Rifle hybrid healer you need to be power since It has no condition damage. If you wanted a condition damage hybrid healer then sure Staff and Scepter would be fine. 

Even with harrier's gear you eek out at 2k dps as a healer with the rifle, maybe a bit more in some fights (ones where AoE might play a part). The weapon just isn't built for damage. Not sure what it can do if you went hog with berserker's gear but then you wouldn't really be a healer at that point and just a sub part DPS.