Struggling trying to gear/get my foot in the door as a healer

[Sircian.8065]

Just wanted to chime in and point out another decent source of harrier statted exotics. As you gain achievement points, you should recieve chests for every 500 points you get. These chests, among other things, contain badges of honour, a currency which can be spent at vendors in World vs World for stat-selectable exotic pieces. You get at least 100 badges in each chest, which is enough for a coat or two trinkets at the vendor. Just look for the golem called TEID-07 Unified Vendor System in any borderland.

Also, I feel I have to point out that the bar for completing fractals/other end game content is far lower than you seem to think. Back when the maximum fractal level was 50, I reached it using a hammer/staff core guardian with full knight's gear, which is about as far from meta as you can get. This was before ascended weapons and armour, and before elite specialisations, so you'd probably have an easier time than me. Seriously. Grab your friends, try a few, and you'll almost definitely make it through them, you might even come out of it with some ascended gear for your trouble.

One more thing after spotting your last post. Ascended weapons are the largest upgrade you can get...in terms of dps. For a healer it's much, much less important. As long as your boon uptimes are good and nobody's going down, nobody's going to care about your damage output.

 

[Cuks.8241]

It's a long thread and I didn't read through it, maybe this was already said numerous times.

Having lot's of alts and builds is really easy in this game. Many of us have various professions, build and gear sets for various occasions. Don't get too worked up into one specific direction if it doesn't work for you now. When new your options are limited. Once you discover more of the game and get more resources it will suddenly be super easy to just make a new build and gear it in minutes.

Open world is a huge part of this game. It's by far the biggest and also best done part of the game compared to other games (best in business). Dedicated healers are unfortunately not really useful in open world. You will struggle immensely as a full Harrier healer. Now that being said, you can make various hybrid builds that work great in open world, can easily run solo anything and also support open world groups. Usually celestial stat combo is great for that. But I don't know you will get a good guide for that. You will probably need to work it out yourself.

 

Now the most important piece of info from me. Healers in this game are not anything to what you would expect from other mmorpgs. (And for me they are the most fun implementation but you have to like it.) It's why they are usually addressed as healing supports with emphasis on supporting your groups. In most games healers primarily do well, healing. And they dedicate most of it's time, button presses to healing skills. Gw2 is not like that. There is hardly any targeted healing as in target friendly player and press healing button. Most of the healing is just aoe passive. You only need to truly heal as in burst heal when your group does silly things or in specific moments during the encounter.  

Healing supports really have a very broad role in this game. You need to provide boons (buffs) but you need active rotation to do this. You need to support your group by playing pre-emptive by blocking big attacks with aegis boon, prevent CC with stability boon, stun break players, revive downs, cleanse conditions. And on top you are still actually doing damage and provide offensive tools like CC. You are actually targeting the enemy, doing dmg. healing and supporting skills are usually aoe, centred around you (or cone, or line), or as ground targeted aoe. To be the best healing support you really need to know encounters well so you play pre-emptively. But it's a lot of fun and don't be afraid to go for it because the instanced content has a difficulty curve and in easier content just providing boons and healing is fine.

Healers also often take a role of tanks (mostly only applicable in raids and challenge mode strikes)  or other specialised roles.

[ChrisTheEnby.9046]

5 hours ago, Sircian.8065 said:

Just wanted to chime in and point out another decent source of harrier statted exotics. As you gain achievement points, you should recieve chests for every 500 points you get. These chests, among other things, contain badges of honour, a currency which can be spent at vendors in World vs World for stat-selectable exotic pieces. You get at least 100 badges in each chest, which is enough for a coat or two trinkets at the vendor. Just look for the golem called TEID-07 Unified Vendor System in any borderland.

Also, I feel I have to point out that the bar for completing fractals/other end game content is far lower than you seem to think. Back when the maximum fractal level was 50, I reached it using a hammer/staff core guardian with full knight's gear, which is about as far from meta as you can get. This was before ascended weapons and armour, and before elite specialisations, so you'd probably have an easier time than me. Seriously. Grab your friends, try a few, and you'll almost definitely make it through them, you might even come out of it with some ascended gear for your trouble.

One more thing after spotting your last post. Ascended weapons are the largest upgrade you can get...in terms of dps. For a healer it's much, much less important. As long as your boon uptimes are good and nobody's going down, nobody's going to care about your damage output.

 

Yeah, i was just worried that instanced content was going to be a step up from the open world content that i still struggle with even with a power dps set in heart of thorns/path of fire, like i remember me and my friends struggling a lot with Explorer Mode dungeons, and i thought fractals were going to be a step up from dungeons, especially anything above tier 1, given explorer mode dungeons is way harder than story mode.

i just assumed given how much of a difficulty spike the expansion open world maps are, that endgame instances were going to be even trickier than that.

[RavensSorrow.6128]

On 4/20/2024 at 4:36 PM, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

I know people are getting frusted about me not "listening" (or rather immediately applying all advice at once) but it can be a little difficult sifting through all of the differeing viewpoints about what I should do, you know?

I hope you didn't take that as I'm frustrated at you but at the game. It's dumb that it puts you in a position so unprepared for HoT and then guides tell you Ascended is easy but you have zero maps unlocked so you struggle. It's a weird system where we are now. The game does not prepare you in skills or equipment for what comes later. They try to fix this bit by bit but the core game is so lacking. I hope that clears that up.

[voltaicbore.8012]

7 minutes ago, RavensSorrow.6128 said:

I hope you didn't take that as I'm frustrated at you but at the game. It's dumb that it puts you in a position so unprepared for HoT and then guides tell you Ascended is easy but you have zero maps unlocked so you struggle. It's a weird system where we are now. The game does not prepare you in skills or equipment for what comes later. They try to fix this bit by bit but the core game is so lacking. I hope that clears that up.

I'd like to reiterate this. I personally play new games quite slowly, almost entirely solo. I spent a long time learning a few classes, then learning 1x meta build and 2-3 other builds of my own making, then acquiring 2-3 full exotic gear sets mostly through solo dungeon clears. Exotic gear came so easily along the way, because I wasn't in a rush.

But this was when HoT was the only expansion released, and before living world season 3 was out. So even if I took it quite slow in the beginning, I had so little to catch up on. Fewer maps, fewer currencies, and even fewer traits/specs to learn. Even if the game was not good then (just as it's still not good now) at teaching all this stuff, there was just less to learn. I could reasonably learn everything at a very slow pace, and once I caught up, I became a "veteran" and only had to learn what each expac added as they came along.

I can understand how players starting now don't feel like they have the luxury of taking it as slow as I did. There's a lot more content now, so many more choices that feel like you could be making the wrong choice.

Here's the magic of GW2 though - there is never a point where you Must do the "Right" Thing, Right Now. In fact, the greatest disservice you can do is commit too early to just one idea of how to play, without even knowing how to make it work for you. I think the best approach is to not be afraid of deviating from your initial ideas to meet the challenges of the game. Once you crack the code, so to speak (of learning how to balance killing vs staying alive), you might be surprised at how effective "healing" builds can be in solo combat.

But give yourself the chance to learn, which in turn comes from playing without following some other dude's guide like it's the bible. Read your tooltips, get gear piece by piece, learn attack patterns, learn your timings, etc.

[ChrisTheEnby.9046]

https://gw2geary.com/c/Wild_Viridian?eq=1&bld=

I managed to mostly fuly unlock chronomancer (i'm only missing the elite skill now, should have it soon, but most importantly i have the ful trait tree now) and i finally managed to complete my set of Harrier's armor. (I got pretty bad luck getting the drop for the bladed chest from the HoT night meta boss so i just worked on achievements and just used badges of honor and bought the WvW chestpiece) the only thing i'm really missing is solid weapons and trinkets. I'm using some placeholder exotic weapons (Giver's candy cane scepter until i can get a Harrier's scepter, though i may wait for Ascended for that) but the bigger thing is my staff, my staff is a placeholder because it's Berserker's, not a healing prefix and i probably should get a healing prefix exotic or better staff. for on swap.

 

but the big issue is trinkets, exotic trinkets feel way to expensive to me for pieces that will probably be the first to replace given how easy it is the get ascended trinkets.... alledgedly

 

Now after looking, yeah there are incredibly easy to get ascended trinkets.... for my power dps set, because fractals gives really easy berserker's rings and laurels give an easy berserker's amulet.

But it's a little more difficult to get healer-prefix trinkets, your choices for healer prefixes is a lot more limited at the laurel vedndor (best they have is Celestial I think?) and the pristine fractal relic ring vendor. the only option for healer prefix trinkets are the stat selectable trinkets that are harder to get. (locked behind LW seasons, or grinding up all the pristine fractal relics and Matricies for Mist Trinkets)

Edited April 24 by ChrisTheEnby.9046

[Chyro.1462]

You can just go for celestial trinkets to start with, they're really fine as healer stats. You can clear all the way to T4 Fracs with full celestial even, so filling a few slots with celestial is really not a problem and as you noticed you can easily get them through fractal currency or laurels. And since all ascended is accountbound, once you do get your harrier's or minstrel's (or giver's) trinkets that you desire, you can still use the celestial trinkets for another char since they're very versatile. Or even just for an open world solo build on your mesmer.

Also the candy cane stuff is totally fine to use, not just as a placeholder. It's exactly the same stats as harrier as far as healing + boon duration are concerned, which are the stats you seem to care most about - just with toughness instead of power. There's also a staff variant of the candy cane weapons, just look it up on trading post (less than 1g). Even comes with an already slotted boon duration sigil ^^

[Sobx.1758]

16 hours ago, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

but the big issue is trinkets, exotic trinkets feel way to expensive to me for pieces that will probably be the first to replace given how easy it is the get ascended trinkets.... alledgedly

Stop trying to "min max your gold spending" ("not getting it because it's not healer gear!"), I thought you already learned it doesn't work well for you since you end up not being able to clear content.

When you've started playing the game, you've basically stood in front of the staircase and instead of taking 4 steps to reach the top of it, you concluded it's not worth the effort when you can just keep trying to jump to the top with one move. Then you proceed to keep falling down, so you come to the forum for help, made one step forward and now went back to saying it's not worth taking next steps because you'll just reach the top in one jump.
Just play the game instead of stressing over spending 10 gold. You'll get much more soon enough.

Edited April 24 by Sobx.1758

[Chyro.1462]

Eh.. while it's true that you shouldn't worry too much about spending some gold to improve your char a bit, I'd still say that throwing out 10g on trinkets alone is a waste. It may not be much for vets, but it's quite a bit of gold for a newer player. There's more useful stuff they can buy with that (more impactful stuff like runes and sigils, or even a relic - or convenience like bag space). Getting cheap lv80 trinkets to fill the slots is totally fine (like greens) and since he started doing fractals and is apparently earning some currency there, going for some core stat ascended trinkets isn't that big of a leap to go to. If he's already at this point with his gear overall more rounded out, throwing money at the TP to get exotic trinkets does not seem like a great idea. Just my opinion, but the bit of immediate stat increase does not seem worth that cost investment at the point he's at right now - especially if he's already well on the way for getting some ascended cele trinkets through low tier fractals.

[ChrisTheEnby.9046]

15 hours ago, Chyro.1462 said:

You can just go for celestial trinkets to start with, they're really fine as healer stats. You can clear all the way to T4 Fracs with full celestial even, so filling a few slots with celestial is really not a problem and as you noticed you can easily get them through fractal currency or laurels. And since all ascended is accountbound, once you do get your harrier's or minstrel's (or giver's) trinkets that you desire, you can still use the celestial trinkets for another char since they're very versatile. Or even just for an open world solo build on your mesmer.

Also the candy cane stuff is totally fine to use, not just as a placeholder. It's exactly the same stats as harrier as far as healing + boon duration are concerned, which are the stats you seem to care most about - just with toughness instead of power. There's also a staff variant of the candy cane weapons, just look it up on trading post (less than 1g). Even comes with an already slotted boon duration sigil ^^

ah, i can actually use the celestial trinkets that are on the laurel vendor and the fractal relic vendors? I don't have to farm longer for Mist Trinkets/buy LW access to get giver's trinkets like the guides say right away?

thanks!

[Nash.2681]

12 minutes ago, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

ah, i can actually use the celestial trinkets that are on the laurel vendor and the fractal relic vendors? I don't have to farm longer for Mist Trinkets/buy LW access to get giver's trinkets like the guides say right away?

thanks!

Hate to quote myself, but...

On 4/22/2024 at 11:50 AM, Nash.2681 said:

• [...]the influence of gear in this game is much smaller than many people think; traits, skill choices, mastering character handling, using active defenses and knowledge of encounters are by far more important

So yes, you will be fine.

[ChrisTheEnby.9046]

though one thing that does worry me with my current trinket i just picked up from the laurel vendor is the agony infusions... i'm supposed to be using Healing +9 Agony Infusions, just to make one of these, i need 3 of the regular +9 agony infusions, which appear to go for 5g each, so they'd cost me about 15g just for one infusion, but that's not all, i'd also need 20 intergrated matrixes as well, just to get my ascended pieces up to snuff in terms of agony resistances to climb up the fractal ladder to be able to farm for the better trinkets that are stat selectable, given how many PFR+ Matrixes each Mist Trinket costs.

[Sircian.8065]

1 hour ago, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

though one thing that does worry me with my current trinket i just picked up from the laurel vendor is the agony infusions... i'm supposed to be using Healing +9 Agony Infusions, just to make one of these, i need 3 of the regular +9 agony infusions, which appear to go for 5g each, so they'd cost me about 15g just for one infusion, but that's not all, i'd also need 20 intergrated matrixes as well, just to get my ascended pieces up to snuff in terms of agony resistances to climb up the fractal ladder to be able to farm for the better trinkets that are stat selectable, given how many PFR+ Matrixes each Mist Trinket costs.

Stat infusions are designed for people who have a ton of spare money and want to gain every possible advantage. You don't need them for any content (except maybe Temple of Febe Legendary Challenge Mode, which is overtuned to the point of insanity). There's only one build I can think of where stat infusions have a noticeable effect, and the build creators specifically mention a different gear setup for people who don't have stat infusions, just because they know how bad value for money they are. To put it into perspective, each infusion costs around 90g. For that same 90g you could get 200 gems and buy a living story episode so you've got easy access to stat-selectable trinkets.

In short, ignore the stat infusions and just slot in regular +9s as higher fractal levels start to need them.

[costepj.5120]

And worth stressing that you don't need any Agony Resistance to do the first 20 Fractal levels.

[Sobx.1758]

4 hours ago, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

though one thing that does worry me with my current trinket i just picked up from the laurel vendor is the agony infusions... i'm supposed to be using Healing +9 Agony Infusions, just to make one of these, i need 3 of the regular +9 agony infusions, which appear to go for 5g each, so they'd cost me about 15g just for one infusion, but that's not all, i'd also need 20 intergrated matrixes as well, just to get my ascended pieces up to snuff in terms of agony resistances to climb up the fractal ladder to be able to farm for the better trinkets that are stat selectable, given how many PFR+ Matrixes each Mist Trinket costs.

You don't need to min-max to comfortably play this game. Stat infusions are "just a little extra".

Edited April 25 by Sobx.1758

[RoseofGilead.8907]

5 hours ago, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

though one thing that does worry me with my current trinket i just picked up from the laurel vendor is the agony infusions... i'm supposed to be using Healing +9 Agony Infusions, just to make one of these, i need 3 of the regular +9 agony infusions, which appear to go for 5g each, so they'd cost me about 15g just for one infusion, but that's not all, i'd also need 20 intergrated matrixes as well, just to get my ascended pieces up to snuff in terms of agony resistances to climb up the fractal ladder to be able to farm for the better trinkets that are stat selectable, given how many PFR+ Matrixes each Mist Trinket costs.

You keep putting the cart before the horse. Your priority for getting your ideal gear together should be getting all of the pieces of your armor, weapons, and accessories. Once you have all that sorted, then maybe worry about your runes and sigils. And as you're getting all of that done, you can be playing content (like fractals) to farm the items you'll need to make the infusions. Then, as you get the items and gold needed, start getting whatever infusions you're wanting/needing.

[Nash.2681]

People trying to help over four pages and providing important information about the game, what's important and what's of minor importance, especially for new players, and it's as if OP didn't read any of it. Or maybe we're just feeding a more subtile version of a troll, I don't know. However, I give up.

[ChrisTheEnby.9046]

5 hours ago, Sircian.8065 said:

Stat infusions are designed for people who have a ton of spare money and want to gain every possible advantage. You don't need them for any content (except maybe Temple of Febe Legendary Challenge Mode, which is overtuned to the point of insanity). There's only one build I can think of where stat infusions have a noticeable effect, and the build creators specifically mention a different gear setup for people who don't have stat infusions, just because they know how bad value for money they are. To put it into perspective, each infusion costs around 90g. For that same 90g you could get 200 gems and buy a living story episode so you've got easy access to stat-selectable trinkets.

In short, ignore the stat infusions and just slot in regular +9s as higher fractal levels start to need them.

Sorry, I didn't realize, i'm just trying my best to follow what build guides recommend, and it lists Healing +9 Agony Infusions under gear.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Boon_Support_Healer

Granted, I can't exactly follow the guide to the letter (Rifles are locked for me atm because I don't currently own SotO) but I'm trying my best to utilize guides like people have said, but maybe the whole healing infusion thing is just another thing like the rifle thing and that I should adapt to what's more accessable for me. (like adapting to cheaper infusions for now just like I can't use rifle atm until i have weaponmaster access from SotO)

 

 

Edited April 25 by ChrisTheEnby.9046

[Chyro.1462]

1 hour ago, Nash.2681 said:

People trying to help over four pages and providing important information about the game, what's important and what's of minor importance, especially for new players, and it's as if OP didn't read any of it. Or maybe we're just feeding a more subtile version of a troll, I don't know. However, I give up.

He's trying, he really is. Try seeing it from his perspective. A new player trying to do his best to learn abot the game, looking at guides and asking for help in the forums. Most new players won't even bother to do that (which is fine really). He is struggling, and the game can be overwhelming with how much there is to learn. There are many peope helping, often with walls of text (am also guilty of that), often with differing opinions on what's the right thing to do or the next step to take. Which can also add to the confusion.

Cut him some slack please. I've been ingame with him and also helped along a bit. This topic is no troll, just a player really trying and struggling. If you're getting fed up or frustrated, you don't have to keep trying to help. But don't go out calling out the possibility of trolling. It's nice if you tried to help, but if you don't have the patience to keep helping and clarifying stuff that can be confusing from build guides, don't take  that frustration out on the new player.

[Randulf.7614]

4 hours ago, Chyro.1462 said:

He's trying, he really is. Try seeing it from his perspective. A new player trying to do his best to learn abot the game, looking at guides and asking for help in the forums. Most new players won't even bother to do that (which is fine really). He is struggling, and the game can be overwhelming with how much there is to learn. There are many peope helping, often with walls of text (am also guilty of that), often with differing opinions on what's the right thing to do or the next step to take. Which can also add to the confusion.

Cut him some slack please. I've been ingame with him and also helped along a bit. This topic is no troll, just a player really trying and struggling. If you're getting fed up or frustrated, you don't have to keep trying to help. But don't go out calling out the possibility of trolling. It's nice if you tried to help, but if you don't have the patience to keep helping and clarifying stuff that can be confusing from build guides, don't take  that frustration out on the new player.

I agree, but the irony is it's the strict adherence to following videos and guides which is more confusing to a new player than any advice given here. That's why they are getting overwhelmed with stats, lack of funds and rigidly thinking about specific roles etc. I'm a big advocate for ignoring such things as a new player - they overwhelm and send people down paths that cause the confusion to spiral. 

But, having someone helping them out in game is a better step forward at least

 

 

 

Edited April 25 by Randulf.7614

[ChrisTheEnby.9046]

5 hours ago, RoseofGilead.8907 said:

You keep putting the cart before the horse. Your priority for getting your ideal gear together should be getting all of the pieces of your armor, weapons, and accessories. Once you have all that sorted, then maybe worry about your runes and sigils. And as you're getting all of that done, you can be playing content (like fractals) to farm the items you'll need to make the infusions. Then, as you get the items and gold needed, start getting whatever infusions you're wanting/needing.

well runes and sigils are pretty easy/affordable if i go for budget options that exist, and now i know stat boosting infusions are min/max stuff i don't have to strictly adhere to.

[Cyninja.2954]

3 hours ago, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

well runes and sigils are pretty easy/affordable if i go for budget options that exist, and now i know stat boosting infusions are min/max stuff i don't have to strictly adhere to.

Just to put stat infusions (agony + stat, which would be required for fractals) into perspective cost wise:

- you need a total of 20 infusions to max out a build (6 armor, 4 weapons, 2 back, 2 accessoires, 6 rings)

- at around 50g per infusion (pretty much the cheapest you can go) that's still a minimum of 1,000 gold

- the 90 stat points acquired provide a performance increase of around 1-2%

- for any content which does not require agony resistance (that's EVERYTHING besides fractals) WvW stat infusions do the exact same thing, while costing a fraction

There are a ton of things which make more sense to get than agony stat infusions for players, even veteran players.

[Chyro.1462]

To add another tidbit about stat infusions and how low priority they are .. I play the game since 10+ years and never bothered to get any. They make such a small difference for such a big price that most people don't bother getting them. And I like doing fractals on most my chars so the cheap WvW infusions aren't really an option since they don't have agony resist. They're like the very last bit of min-maxing you can do if you care about that tiny bit of extra stats at the end. But nobody will expect you to have stat infused gear. You can clear every bit of content the game has to offer fine without them.

Edited April 26 by Chyro.1462

[Sobx.1758]

I think it wasn't mentioned yet so let me add that...

On 4/25/2024 at 5:19 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

You don't need to min-max to comfortably play this game. Stat infusions are "just a little extra".

Oh wait, it was!
So I don't know why we're still repeating that exact thing, but I'm glad to be a part of it now. Stay tuned for another "don't worry about stat infusions" post tomorrow or whenever. 😉

Edited April 26 by Sobx.1758