Request for a discussion in Blood.

[Saint Sated.2698]

Hey all,My set up atm is mostly viper's, save 1 ring and 1 accessory, and back, and I'm wanting to add some Healing Power in.The unique utility of "Transfusion" and "Last Rites" have prevented wipes in my experience with casual fractal pugging. I really enjoy this play style.My stance on the necromancer's healing capabilities through the Blood Magic line is that it isn't intended to function as a main healer in a group, but it does have a strength in controlling allies downed state, and with Scourge - damage mitigation. The utility of teleporting downed allies and helping them get back up enthralls me, but because necromancer doesn't have exuberant amounts of consistent outgoing healing, I don't want to invest so heavily as a dedicated healer into Healing Power.I don't really think I need to, either, because thanks to Last Rites:Healing Power above 75% Health: 150Healing Power below 75% Health: 300Healing Power below 50% Health: 450When we're in a pinch, this boost of Healing Power will help restore the health bars of myself and teammates. Again, I really enjoy this playstyle (thanks Anet).My question for the community is - how much?How much Healing Power is too much without sacrificing damage? I'm willing to respec my gear completely, as I don't own some of the ls3 stories and can't get a full viper's set without an intense amount of time dedication on my part. I'm thinking of going with Scourge because healing power would be more beneficial there and better group might stacking.Conditions or direct damage?The builds on Metabattle and such that have blood magic build heavily into healing power, which is not what I'm looking for. Thoughts?

tldr;

I play fractals with my gf now and I need the utility of blood magic. help me with a build.

[Warscythes.9307]

Well I suppose it depends on your definition of full healer. I am also going to speak from a somewhat min/max point of view.

If you are playing reaper then the answer for how much healing power is 0. You want to run full berserker everything with transfusion instead of the well trait. The dps loss is small. Just use your shroud 4 on cd. I think it heals for about 3k even if you do not have any healing power assuming you get the full channel off. The issue with this is of course that your heals are kind of terrible but that should not be the objective of the trait change. The trade off of dps loss is simply too big if you were to swap to any healing gear. If you really do not care about damage at all and insist on healing then maybe give marshall gear a try? It is a pretty heavy investment though and it is definitely not something that I'd consider viable but is flavorful I suppose.

If you are leaning towards the healing side then a support scourge is what you are looking for. A support scourge is actually able to function as a full healer if you do decide on doing so. Of course your damage will be low but it won't be full ministrel chrono sort of low.

Consider a using seraph gear and mix in a bit of ministrel/magi/harrier/shaman. You need a dagger mainhand to sustain your life force. You can cap 25 might pretty easily and heal for a decent amount as well. I don't really have a number for how many pieces of XYZ gear you should run but consider going with either full seraph and slowly mix in magi/ministrel if people are dying too much. Or do the reverse and start with full magi/ministrel and slowly swap pieces for seraph. Support scourge is just not something people have tried extensively so none of us have an exact gear build but this should be the gist. The idea is have enough concentration so you can sustain might; enough healing power so your teammates will not die; enough vitality so you can spam your shroud skills and rest can go in condition damage.

[Saint Sated.2698]

@"Warscythes.9307" said:Well I suppose it depends on your definition of full healer. I am also going to speak from a somewhat min/max point of view.

If you are playing reaper then the answer for how much healing power is 0. You want to run full berserker everything with transfusion instead of the well trait. The dps loss is small. Just use your shroud 4 on cd. I think it heals for about 3k even if you do not have any healing power assuming you get the full channel off. The issue with this is of course that your heals are kind of terrible but that should not be the objective of the trait change. The trade off of dps loss is simply too big if you were to swap to any healing gear. If you really do not care about damage at all and insist on healing then maybe give marshall gear a try? It is a pretty heavy investment though and it is definitely not something that I'd consider viable but is flavorful I suppose.

If you are leaning towards the healing side then a support scourge is what you are looking for. A support scourge is actually able to function as a full healer if you do decide on doing so. Of course your damage will be low but it won't be full ministrel chrono sort of low.

Consider a using seraph gear and mix in a bit of ministrel/magi/harrier/shaman. You need a dagger mainhand to sustain your life force. You can cap 25 might pretty easily and heal for a decent amount as well. I don't really have a number for how many pieces of XYZ gear you should run but consider going with either full seraph and slowly mix in magi/ministrel if people are dying too much. Or do the reverse and start with full magi/ministrel and slowly swap pieces for seraph. Support scourge is just not something people have tried extensively so none of us have an exact gear build but this should be the gist. The idea is have enough concentration so you can sustain might; enough healing power so your teammates will not die; enough vitality so you can spam your shroud skills and rest can go in condition damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBLftG2JRvQ1NYTvgPNA/NYxYwm6BJtXQ0PLAcA0brz18KA-jBiHQBoR/zVVD4kKBJpqPmZ/BAcSAq1TAwkK/CAkAMeEPiHxDY8EPxzmupbq20NdT30NdT30NdT3UpAkWkF-e

Like this? Thanks for your reply, very insightful and within what I had in mind. Scourge would be the way to go. I could swap curses for soul reaping (get the burning and 20% cd on shade skills) but saving 2-4s on any given shade ability vs the extra condis/cd from Corruption Master and te extra 150 condi dmg seems lackluster.

[Warscythes.9307]

@Saint Sated.2698 said:

@"Warscythes.9307" said:Well I suppose it depends on your definition of full healer. I am also going to speak from a somewhat min/max point of view.

If you are playing reaper then the answer for how much healing power is 0. You want to run full berserker everything with transfusion instead of the well trait. The dps loss is small. Just use your shroud 4 on cd. I think it heals for about 3k even if you do not have any healing power assuming you get the full channel off. The issue with this is of course that your heals are kind of terrible but that should not be the objective of the trait change. The trade off of dps loss is simply too big if you were to swap to any healing gear. If you really do not care about damage at all and insist on healing then maybe give marshall gear a try? It is a pretty heavy investment though and it is definitely not something that I'd consider viable but is flavorful I suppose.

If you are leaning towards the healing side then a support scourge is what you are looking for. A support scourge is actually able to function as a full healer if you do decide on doing so. Of course your damage will be low but it won't be full ministrel chrono sort of low.

Consider a using seraph gear and mix in a bit of ministrel/magi/harrier/shaman. You need a dagger mainhand to sustain your life force. You can cap 25 might pretty easily and heal for a decent amount as well. I don't really have a number for how many pieces of XYZ gear you should run but consider going with either full seraph and slowly mix in magi/ministrel if people are dying too much. Or do the reverse and start with full magi/ministrel and slowly swap pieces for seraph. Support scourge is just not something people have tried extensively so none of us have an exact gear build but this should be the gist. The idea is have enough concentration so you can sustain might; enough healing power so your teammates will not die; enough vitality so you can spam your shroud skills and rest can go in condition damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBLftG2JRvQ1NYTvgPNA/NYxYwm6BJtXQ0PLAcA0brz18KA-jBiHQBoR/zVVD4kKBJpqPmZ/BAcSAq1TAwkK/CAkAMeEPiHxDY8EPxzmupbq20NdT30NdT30NdT3UpAkWkF-e

Like this? Thanks for your reply, very insightful and within what I had in mind. Scourge would be the way to go. I could swap curses for soul reaping (get the burning and 20% cd on shade skills) but saving 2-4s on any given shade ability vs the extra condis/cd from Corruption Master and te extra 150 condi dmg seems lackluster.

You are on the right track but before you actually start gearing, please think a bit about exactly what you want to be. Again I am going to speak from a purely min/max perspective in high level fractal/raids so if you want to play for flavor or low tier content; disregard everything I say.

If you want to be a dps with some healing capabilities, a scourge with blood is not it. You will be taking too much of a damage loss for not enough gain by taking blood. Especially because you will not be able to sustain transfusion due to lack of life force.

A blood scourge in pve is primarily a healer with some dps. If this is what you are looking for then I would start thinking a bit of how to gear. I tweaked the trait/skills slightly but not everything since I am lazy so don't take it word for word. Gear is something you have to think about on your own. Consider getting exotic first and then ascended once you are sure.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIht+1JRvQ1NYVvgPNA/NYpbwmeADgAgePdomUpmAjgDFA-jRyGQBA4BAkSlfk7EAoSlg46IAsGNNaVNg0s/wJV9JAQCQIeAMein4ZT30NVb6mupb6mupb6mupbqUASLyC-e

The primary purpose of a healer in pve is actually not just healing but providing offensive boons. Capping 25 might is the most important thing as long as fury if you can manage it. That is why taking dessicate is important especially because it gives life force. Taking dagger is almost necessary in order to fuel your shroud 3 and 4. The second set is generally what you want, I know some people take staff but I'd rather have scepter/torch for damage. That is again up to you. Plague can be swapped for golem if you need cc. Epidemic over well of power if you need aoe cleave since your build should have some condi damage.

You are right that Soul Reaping is better than curses for this build as your purpose should be using your shroud skills as much as possible. The cd really helps. Taking the top tier for scourge is important as a healer due to the might and addition barrier. Otherwise your group barrier will just be your f3 and heal which may not be enough.

As for sigils, transference and water is pretty standard for healing builds I believe. I think renewal works too instead of water? Altruism is a good choice just because of the fury. As your long your chaos chrono can get it, they should be able to spread it to the others and you don't have to worry about perma upkeep.

The gear is something I am not sure on. You definitely do not want to go full seraph. The idea for this is to have enough concentration so you can maintain might; enough healing power so your team do not die; enough vitality so you can use your shroud skills and damage should be the lowest priority. Full seraph lacks vitality which is pretty important.

So I would mix in some shaman, ministrel or even magi to see how it works out. Honestly since exotic shaman gear is pretty cheap, consider just grab a full set and try it out. Then start to slowly get more concentration and replace some of the pieces once you feel you can afford to get more concentration.

[Saint Sated.2698]

What I want to be is a "back-up (literally, get people back up) monk" that doesn't fulfill the role of healer but rather damage mitigation and downed state control that can stack might and condis. I don't personally want a huge investment into healing power from my gear because of Last Rites giving me 450HealPower when I'm at or below 50% hp, which in practical sense is when you'd really want the higher heals. SO with that +450HealPower at 50% in mind, I'd like the rest to go into either condi or power. I'm leaning condi because I can still Epi and that's an added reason for running curses. Like I said, the 20% cd on shroud skills hasn't been a huge loss so far on scourge so long as I am thoughtful on my usage of Garrish Pillar. Saving 1 sec on Shroud 1, 2 on 2, 3 on 3, and 4 seconds on skill 4 hasn't been as appealing as Epi bounce or the duration from Lingering Curses.These are just my thoughts and I will try to add more vitality gear to my build, because I do agree that more vit to spam shroud skills is useful. I also haven't had a problem with LF gen if taking Desicate.

[Sephylon.4938]

There is no point hybridizing in this game as it will just net you the worst of both worlds. You need to decide if you want to do damage or do you want to support.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAofWnE9C90gV9CW3As9iluBj6DMCOUTPgNWAQvnOUTqA-jRROQBXS5HAVCCg9HGp6PPRfApACckF-e

Here's a might staking barrier spam build. Out going healing isn't as important to necros since barriers aren't affected by it, and your sources of healing to others are extremely limited, and highly dependent on you gaining lf quickly.

[Anchoku.8142]

If you need to support your girlfriend, run a full support healing build, add toughness if you want to be the tank. Healing, toughness, and power... Become a cleric staff/GS Reaper and suck up the low dps. Play like a tank and make sure she shares heals. Do not expect to be meta, though. Death, Blood, Reaper, and minions will take all of the pressure off of her but will extend fights.

[eaman.7562]

If you like this play style I would recommend you to get an exotic healing | health set, put Rune of Mercy and attend openworld events like Palawan with a staff | dagger to get a feel of what can be done and with what results. For example on the harbour it's wonderful: I can tank everything and ress everyone.

That may be enough rewarding for you not to go "full support" in fractals.