Self-healing class for hard solo or duoing

[petespri.6548]

Hey all-

My daughter just started playing.  I'm looking for a class to face-tank/take aggro.  Looking for the best melee aoe threat holder that can self heal/sustain.  Been a bit since I played, hoping for some insight.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Easily any Necro builds with dual Swords and Blood Bank, especially Reaper. It has it all: AoE cleaving, self-boons, self-sustain, barrier, very tanky and essentially a 2nd Health Bar. Sadly you won't be able to support your daughter much, but being able to tank everything does feel really good.

For support you can go Scourge, not tanky as much but it gives you a lot of support options (healing, sharing boons).

[Alcatraznc.3869]

My first pick would be Necromancer. It is relatively easy to play, very forgiving due to having basically 3-4 health bar with shroud + self heal.

 

[Beddo.1907]

3rd vote for necro. Scourge can easily carry someone else, while letting them play.

[Asum.4960]

Celestial Curses + Death Magic Harbinger (P/T) or Celestial Corruption + Salvation Herald (Spear). 

Both can do >20k DPS solo self buffed, both give AoE Quickness+Fury (plus every other boon, like 25 Might, other than Alac for Herald), making them perfect for duo play with a DPS or AlacDPS (or just carrying), both are incredibly tanky while healing for over 1000 HP a second - enough to fairly comfortably solo even high end group content let alone anything in the OW or such. 

Cele Herald probably being the most potent solo or small group Build rn, as it has the far greater boon support, also some AoE healing, and since Spear even more DPS as well. Let me know if you need any build details.

Edited August 26 by Asum.4960

[Triptaminas.4789]

Staff Spb. Easily least punishing class in the game, low complexity. Active def but, it's really lowest complexity u can find, and once again, least punishing for mistakes.

Can face tank 3 glass cannons in pvp where nuke or be nuked is meta now, without playing anything close to perfect 

More damage u take more you heal and smlr nonsense loaded everywhere, so much defense it can outbunker any necro.. simply said the outliner in bunkering currently is spb, broken kitten.

People suggest necro because it have high hp pools, def modifiers etc etc... don't get fooled by dem necro molds they don't know any other class and look at the surface only.

Edited August 26 by Triptaminas.4789

[Panda.1967]

Necromancer, Guardian, or Ranger… best options for that sort of build.

Necro has some absurd self healing and with shroud you’ve got a second HP pool to keep yourself alive with.

Guardian has aegis for days… and a ton of self healing to boot… its not too hard to build them to be immortal

Give Ranger dual maces and you’re practically immortal…

 

honorable mentions:

Spellbreaker Warrior with Staff - amazing self heals and party heals… near immortal once you get used to using Counter.

Mirage Mesmer - Dodge everything and watch everything melt around you… beware: mistakes are deadly.

Edited August 26 by Panda.1967

[mizaru.1385]

Go to youtube, search for Lord Hizen......use any of the build for any class u like.

[petespri.6548]

On 8/25/2024 at 11:14 PM, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Easily any Necro builds with dual Swords and Blood Bank, especially Reaper. It has it all: AoE cleaving, self-boons, self-sustain, barrier, very tanky and essentially a 2nd Health Bar. Sadly you won't be able to support your daughter much, but being able to tank everything does feel really good.

For support you can go Scourge, not tanky as much but it gives you a lot of support options (healing, sharing boons).

Ty!  Havent looked into Necros new swords yet!  
 

[petespri.6548]

Additional wuestion: what classes share barrier enough to help my daughter but also be tanky?  Im thinking I could try Necro Scourge?  Or Does mechanist have enough Barrier capacity?

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Both can do it. Scourge is better at it. Scourge is just better.

[Minax.3284]

On 8/26/2024 at 11:07 AM, Asum.4960 said:

Celestial Curses + Death Magic Harbinger (P/T) or Celestial Corruption + Salvation Herald (Spear). 

Both can do >20k DPS solo self buffed, both give AoE Quickness+Fury (plus every other boon, like 25 Might, other than Alac for Herald), making them perfect for duo play with a DPS or AlacDPS (or just carrying), both are incredibly tanky while healing for over 1000 HP a second - enough to fairly comfortably solo even high end group content let alone anything in the OW or such. 

Cele Herald probably being the most potent solo or small group Build rn, as it has the far greater boon support, also some AoE healing, and since Spear even more DPS as well. Let me know if you need any build details.

Hey, I'm not the OP but I'd be very interested in seeing a build for your Cele Herald! I'm just getting into revenant and I've been having a good time just running condi viper renegade (or cele vindi for some Janthir champs), but would love to take Herald for a spin and get used to the spec a bit; figure out how to apply the boons etc.!

[Jobber.6348]

Celestial Scourge. Not only are you tanky, you can shield your ally, grant them an array of boons and also do decently good damage.

[Asum.4960]

16 hours ago, Minax.3284 said:

Hey, I'm not the OP but I'd be very interested in seeing a build for your Cele Herald! I'm just getting into revenant and I've been having a good time just running condi viper renegade (or cele vindi for some Janthir champs), but would love to take Herald for a spin and get used to the spec a bit; figure out how to apply the boons etc.!

Sure thing! A few things beforehand to keep in mind - Rev is ironically incredibly flexible and can be built in many different ways with fairly comparable efficacy.

I'll share what I found to be the best "Can solo/carry everything that can be solo'ed" variant, but just about everything can be adapted to your needs/means. There are very few "Traps" on Revenant unlike for example Necromancer with Blood Magic, which promises some sustain and damage with Life Siphons to the inexperienced build maker, but in reality provides such pitiful sustain for such a monumental damage loss, that taking it is straight up heavily nerfing yourself by not building correctly into the alternatives (even more so since the introduction of Relic of Zakiros). 

This is the Build - let me know if I forgot anything. 

To highlight some features and options:

Corruption: Abyssal Chill or Pact of Pain depends on if you want to run Tormenting Runes or Trapper Runes. You can take Diabolic Inferno for slightly more DPS if so desired, but perma movement condition Immunity from Resistance + 500 HP healing per second are pretty hard to pass up on.

Salvation: Cleanse on Dodge is really nice Utility, even just for all those trapped in combat by ages of Bleed or Cripple moments. Besides that you get more healing, more Boon duration, 15% Strike DR and most importantly 1400 Barrier every three seconds. Just that together with Corruption's Fiendish Tenacity already puts you at near 1000 Healing+Barrier per second - and we are far from done. 

That said, this Trait line can be swapped for about everything else. Retribution has similar sustain with Steadfast Rejuvenation providing 432 healing per second, 10% Strike DR, greater Condition Defense with permanent Resolution, as well as increased Endurance Regen and Vigor - but since we already have enormous raw healing in the build, I personally value the Barrier much higher, as well as prefer the Cleanse QoL. And you can ofc try Invocation and Devastation for a bit more DPS at the cost of sustain and QoL.

Herald: Very straight forward. Better regen for even more sustain, AoE Might and Quickness, and even more sustain. Which is another 250 (AoE) healing per second from perma Regen, and 200 (AoE) healing per second from Elevated Compassion. 

__

That way we have perma Quickness, 25 Might, Fury, Regen, Swiftness + some Protection uptime and 500 healing per second AoE, + self perma Resistance, 500 healing per second and 500 Barrier per second. 

To maintain this the general gameplay loop is:

Glint:

(if you are feeling fancy only) On entry double tap Chaos (if no need for CC expected) ->  double tap True Nature to gain Protection, and then extend Protection and the Reistence from Swap;

Maintain: Light, Elements, Strength and Darkness, for Regen, Swiftness, Might and Fury as well as the required 6 pip drain for Quickness. 

These are good to maintain even OOC, if you are running around gathering or whatever - the Swiftness and Quickness is great QoL, and you'll start any fight with 25 Might already.

On Exit: Elements + Strength; for extra damage + damage modifier.

Mallyx:

On entry and then maintain Embrace the Darkness for DPS and 6 pip drain for Quickness. 

Otherwise you got great Utility here with Call to Anguish for grouping trash/CC and Banish for Boon Removal, but at steep Energy/DPS costs - so you need to drop Embrace if you want to utilize those and keep up Spear 5.

Spear: AA; 2 and 5 on CD, 4 for grouping trash/CC.

If Spear get's nerfed into the ground, the build was already great with Maxe+Axe before, albeit with much less DPS. On that just spam 2 between AA chains and 5 for CC/grouping trash.

 

Edited August 28 by Asum.4960

[willow.8209]

I didn't read everything so might be repeating something, but adding my 2 cents.

Like someone else said, celestial is good for when you need to do all the things. 

here are some classes/specs I've found useful for both survivability and for helping out:

Condi or celestial druid. Tho any ranger really, you can pick out a pet that's a great tank and usually more visibility-friendly and flexible than the mech, and you can use a utility skill for pet to rez other players. Pet can rez you with a downed skill. Condi druid is especially durable while still having damage skills, and some amount of heal skills. Mace/mace provides tons of CC and staff has heals, but other weapons are possible. Soulbeast can easily share both offensive and defensive boons. 

Spellbreaker. boons, rez with elite banner, damage, cleanse. Great facetank. 

Any guardian/ guardian elite. Lots of ageis and other boons.  Firebrand has so much stability. People do find firebrand fussy tho (might need extra attention to own skills). 

Tempest, especially one speced to share auras. Or any cleanse tempest. Ele is known for being squishy, but the auras help a lot. I don't find tempest fussy but some people do consider ele to be fussy. 

Necro is great for self-sustain; scourge is considered the best group spec. I found scourge fussy but haven't tried it in a while. Reaper I don't find fussy and has a lot of carry, but not as much support. Core actually still works too, last i checked.

Revenant is, like ele, especially flexible in what it can be asked to do. Hearald is considered a great boonshare. But rev might need extra attention to own skills, tho herald is less fussy. 

Here's the wiki page discussing barrier specifically, but other things like resolution and so forth will also contribute to sustain.

Edited August 28 by willow.8209

[willow.8209]

additionally you might like to browse these sites:

GW2 Builds - GuildJen - Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Builds - Hardstuck  actually this one, brain fog moment Guild Wars 2 Builds - Hardstuck

WvW - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds

 

Edited August 29 by willow.8209

[petespri.6548]

On 8/28/2024 at 5:14 AM, willow.8209 said:

additionally you might like to browse these sites:

GW2 Builds - GuildJen - Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Builds - Hardstuck  actually this one, brain fog moment Guild Wars 2 Builds - Hardstuck

WvW - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds

 

Ty!

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlZwgYLMHWKO+KvNXA-DSZYihoCBOKogunDpqMqoACPBc82ALCvsBA-e

This is my current power-scrapper build, which I use since the Kinetic Accelerator (June 2023). It is a Jack-of-all-Trades, that work excellent for carrying and guarding new players through content without them feeling useless.

- You supply your team-mates with permanent quickness, a lot of might, permanent fury and stability when needed.
- You can revive them from safe distance, while distracting the enemies.
- You spam more crowd-control than most builds in the game, which makes fights significantly easier due to the enemies limited opportunities to perform an actual attack.
- You can apply barrier to your ally via System Shocker (crowd control) + Bulwark Gyro. When timed properly, you can balance out the lack of coordination and evasion of your team-members.
- You even have a little area-heal that can add up to 4-5k.
- Your own HP regeneration and barrier-generation are high enough to face-tank most enemies in the game.

I use this build for newbie HP runs, Fractals (up to T4), Strikes (no CMs) as well as Open World and Story Content. The gameplay itself is quite intuitive and imo easy to learn. Most of the skills can be used off cooldown. Stuff like the Function Gyro and Defense Field, should be saved for special situations.

The only real disadvantage is that you do not deal optimal DPS. With ascended food and nothing to worry about, you can get 14-16k, which is imo sufficient for most casual groups. Because you can maintain those numbers in the heat of  the combat. A lot of players take the top-dps builds, but their dps hits rock bottom the moment the enemy stops standing still. You can move freely through the battlefield and aid your allies as needed. It shines when you play with casual players. The more inexperienced they are, the better it works. And due to the 'low' damage-output, they never feel like deadweight. Which is one of the main problems for most builds when you try to introduce new players to the game.

If you have access to Waystations and EMPs, you can barrier-boost your allies through zerg-fights. I use it in Dragonstorms to keep people alive during Jormag's AoE. In general, the more enemies you fight at once, the more barrier you create for yourself and your allies and the more HP you gain from CC. So if you are getting ambushed by patrolling mobs, they actually help you.

[petespri.6548]

Ty for that scrapper build!  I have not found an engineer that I enjoy and I will give this a try