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Elementalist as a Healer?


corwin.3495

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Well, as you can see in the title, is it possible to build an Elementalist as a healer for fractals/dungeons and to be viable? Or should I just drop this and build a guardian healer?I really like the idea of an Elementalist as a healer and a class. All my characters are damage dealers and I would like to have one support character.I dislike how druids look like, that is why I am in two minds whether to go with an Elementalist or a Guardian.

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An Elementalist can heal, most effectively when specced into Tempest. I believe staff is the weapon of choice. Unless it has changed recently, Tempest Ele heals provide the absolute highest throughput healing out of any healer in the game, but their damage is mediocre at best, potentially the lowest out of any profession that attempts to heal.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

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@Ashtanga.3179 said:An Elementalist can heal, most effectively when specced into Tempest. I believe staff is the weapon of choice. Unless it has changed recently, Tempest Ele heals provide the absolute highest throughput healing out of any healer in the game, but their damage is mediocre at best, potentially the lowest out of any profession that attempts to heal.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Yes I found that build somewhere but there are also people saying how that build is not viable anymore because of PoF. I mean as you said, it is good but only when it comes to healing. That is why I am thinking of building a Gaurdian after all.

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@corwin.3495 said:

@Ashtanga.3179 said:An Elementalist can heal, most effectively when specced into Tempest. I believe staff is the weapon of choice. Unless it has changed recently, Tempest Ele heals provide the absolute highest throughput healing out of any healer in the game, but their damage is mediocre at best, potentially the lowest out of any profession that attempts to heal.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Yes I found that build somewhere but there are also people saying how that build is not viable anymore because of PoF. I mean as you said, it is good but only when it comes to healing. That is why I am thinking of building a Gaurdian after all.

Yeah Guardian can do damage during its support/heal rotation unless you need to burst heal or support in F2 or F3, about as much as the worst parsing Chrono spec (maybe a bit more). But since it can just give boons like no one's business, that is also a big draw to the Firebrand. The one downside I have seen to FB, in a PvE context, is the group needs to be stacked kind of tight for you to be at your highest effectiveness. Otherwise, you're better off as Firebrand over Tempest.

From a WvW/sPvP view, I cannot comment. I just know Firebrand is wanted in those, too. And the place of Auramancer Tempest is unknown to me in PoF.

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Viable? Yes, a tempest healer is viable. When just heals are concerned, they are probably the best healers with high throughput and better flexibility than guards or revs. However, eles lack access to boons and meaningful buffs (a problem of all healers except druids), so make sure the groups you join just want a healer, not a buffer.

€: Concerning your thoughts about a guard healer, that one may (or not) be a bit more future-proof if the devs finally get their support balancing right. In general, however, right now guard isn't really in a better spot than ele. A chrono makes half of the guard's utility redundant, so it's niche like all non-druid healers.

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Ele heals are veeery good. The problem is, ele does not give more than that. No buffs, no utilities, nothing. Just heals. Not very ideal.

Firebrand is extremely good but it requires an specific composition around it. I mean, you won't want to use a druid nor a chrono when you're using a heal firebrand in fracs. However, fb lacks something that chrono has: alacrity. So, you ideally want to be sorrounded of DPS classes that don't depend on alacrity (like thieves).

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Build a Healing tempest if you like it. It's pretty fun and very useful. Not the best option, but you can do everything with it. You heals are the best heals of any other healers, and you can bring some useful auras, like the frost aura (-10% incoming dmg) or magnetic aura (reflect all the projectiles).

Also, with a Ministrel gear + monk runes + potion + sigil of concentration, you can keep up 25 might stacks, fury and vigor for the entire group. Also regeneration and swiftness, but you don't need boon duration for this 2.

Your DPS would be very low compared with other healers, but don't worry, it's not that really important, when you're not going to do a decent dmg since you're going to heal. Make sure that your party is always above 90% hp and everything will be fine.

Here you have the example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCNYiVYC+XCcYiFBAjoLkEOCut2YbuNIAMBOAA-jxhXAByp8R3LAQwKhiV9nQfAgOAA2fYblg3DQAGgAAAH9oH9oH9oVACQACQACQACQACgUA+NyC-e

Remember that the movility potion gives you 15% boon duration at 150 AR, and you're going to swap attunements all the time, so with the concentration sigil you'll get the 100% boon duration, a lot of vitality, toughness and healing power.

P.S.: Sorry, I forgot the variant of the build, if you want to try it on a different way with more CC, but less ranged healing: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJ0gJWhJ4fJwhJWEAM3WbsN3GEAmAHAiuQS4IA-jxhXAB6eCACWJ02KBBY/hYV/J0HAoHQOlPBASAePuHAMTz0MNTz0MV3z9cP3z9cP3z9cP3jUA+NyC-e

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I do not know pve all that well but i can see it being an ok healing class. After the last few updates eng maybe a better healing in pve i know it is in wvw then tempest. Sadly tempest maybe the "worst" healing aimed class in gw2 atm at least in wvw.

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Give Tempest specced for support a try. There are enough groups out there who will appreciate the support, especially in higher fractals, since it not only allows the rest of your group to focus on dealing damage, but also increases it by giving might and fury. If at some point you feel like going for a bit more damage and still have nice healing, you could still give a full set of celestial gear a try.

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@Patty.3268 said:Give Tempest specced for support a try. There are enough groups out there who will appreciate the support, especially in higher fractals, since it not only allows the rest of your group to focus on dealing damage, but also increases it by giving might and fury. If at some point you feel like going for a bit more damage and still have nice healing, you could still give a full set of celestial gear a try.

The thing is, a druid will always be better. It provides heals plus boons like regen, fury, swiftness, vulnerability and weakness, perma 25 stacks of might. It encreases DPS by using frost and sun spirit, it gives Spotter (100 precision) and also gives protection by using stone spirit. Plus, it has a party ressurrect. And, if that was still not enough, it has a variety of useful pets like iboga, which even nerfed deals good damage, and cc ones like the rock gazelle and the wyvern.

So, druid will always be superior. And given the endgame content meta composition, I think only very casual t4 parties will be okay with not having a druid.

In my opinion, even firebrand is vastly superior. It brings a lot more boons, potent heals, cc, resistance, a pull and lots of aegis.

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@corwin.3495 said:So the only difference is that one build is with a staff and the other is dagger warhorn?

Yeah:

  • Staff gives you more ranged healing and more blasts for your camps, but less CC. Healings are better with that weapon, because you can blast with 2 from Water almost everything, and heal just by autoattacking.
  • Dagger/Warhorn gives you less blasts and doesn't have a good ranged healing, but it have much more CC and it's also easier to keep up your boons thanks to 4 from Fire and 4 from Earth. It also makes easier to inflict 25 vulnerability stacks.
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@nia.4725 said:

@"Patty.3268" said:So, druid will always be superior. And given the endgame content meta composition, I think only very casual t4 parties will be okay with not having a druid.

I agree that Druid is strong and slightly better when it comes to support, but it's not like there are worlds between them. Tempest, too, provides Fury, 25 Might and regen for the group. While Druid provides protection, Tempest provides vigor. Tempest can also share the aura effects with the group. While the fire, frost and shock aura might not seem as strong as a group wide magnetic aura at first, they still add up. It's additional CC, Burning and damage reduction, after all.

And there are a lot of players out there who don't care about endgame meta compositions as long as they get the content done, even in T4 fractals. I did quite a few T4 runs in full celestial gear and groups without a Druid, and never had trouble or have been kicked or something like that. Quite the opposite, a few people even said stuff like "always good to have an auramancer". Sure, those runs weren't as fast as runs with meta compositions, but they weren't significantly slower, either.

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Most in WvW are using FB and Scrouge support ONLY because these are the two meta classess that make up 60% to 80% of most zergs.

They are wanted not mainly for their heals or barriers in WvW. Everyone knows FBs are unbeatable for their defensive support and Scrouges have huge and never ending toxic aoes which can be dropped from a distance of 900 but effective range is more like 1200...

So, if you are looking for a strong and the best sustainable heals for your zerg or small group, nothing beats a pure healing Tempest. And, very tanky too with100% minstrels.

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@"nia.4725" said:Ele heals are veeery good. The problem is, ele does not give more than that. No buffs, no utilities, nothing. Just heals.

That's not quite right. The ele healer can bring stunbreak, some boons, optional protection or a pretty strong revive at 1200 range. Its actual downside is the lack of offensive support. Its utility is more in the line of "help beginner groups have smoother experience" than "always good", which makes it a niche pick. Additionally the boons provided are usually covered by the chrono anyway, so that further reduces its value.

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@Feanor.2358 said:

@"nia.4725" said:Ele heals are veeery good. The problem is, ele does not give more than that. No buffs, no utilities, nothing. Just heals.

That's not quite right. The ele healer can bring stunbreak, some boons, optional protection or a pretty strong revive at 1200 range. Its actual downside is the lack of offensive support. Its utility is more in the line of "help beginner groups have smoother experience" than "always good", which makes it a niche pick. Additionally the boons provided are usually covered by the chrono anyway, so that further reduces its value.

You're right. And it also lacks boons other heal classes will provide you.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Mil.3562 said:Most in WvW are using FB and Scrouge support ONLY because these are the two meta classess that make up 60% to 80% of most zergs.

They are wanted not mainly for their heals or barriers in WvW. Everyone knows FBs are unbeatable for their defensive support and Scrouges have huge and never ending toxic aoes which can be dropped from a distance of 900 but effective range is more like 1200...

So, if you are looking for a strong and the best sustainable heals for your zerg or small group, nothing beats a pure healing Tempest. And, very tanky too with100% minstrels.

Thats not the entire picture. Scourges and Spell Breakers are the counter to the Boon Share meta that existed prior to POF, and the Firebrand exists as their counter balance. Its a broken balance system, because its modeled after Raid style group comps.... you NEED to have Boon Conversion, Condition Conversion, AOE damage and AOE sustain against CCs and Damage, because thats what the other team will logically run. Druid should actually be a big part of this meta with its healing/might generation, but it dropped because it lacks the ability to manage conditions on a large scale. Aside from Empower before a fight, there isn't any focused effort to maintain might stacks..... instead its a battle to maintain stability, which the Guardian has always excelled at. But now it maintains stability, cleanses enmass, and can heal on top of that..... thus both Druid (which was always had issues in WvW) and Support Elementalists (which can cleanse or buff, but not easily do both) got side lined.

I think the struggle right now is finding value for Auramancers when Ele currently has much higher value as back line damage. And Druids are still stuck with the problem of being weak in both condition management and too few ways to deal with hard CCs that don't sacrifice its other support skills.

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  • 1 year later...

@"Rembar.7298" said:Build a Healing tempest if you like it. It's pretty fun and very useful. Not the best option, but you can do everything with it. You heals are the best heals of any other healers, and you can bring some useful auras, like the frost aura (-10% incoming dmg) or magnetic aura (reflect all the projectiles).

Also, with a Ministrel gear + monk runes + potion + sigil of concentration, you can keep up 25 might stacks, fury and vigor for the entire group. Also regeneration and swiftness, but you don't need boon duration for this 2.

Your DPS would be very low compared with other healers, but don't worry, it's not that really important, when you're not going to do a decent dmg since you're going to heal. Make sure that your party is always above 90% hp and everything will be fine.

Here you have the example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCNYiVYC+XCcYiFBAjoLkEOCut2YbuNIAMBOAA-jxhXAByp8R3LAQwKhiV9nQfAgOAA2fYblg3DQAGgAAAH9oH9oH9oVACQACQACQACQACgUA+NyC-e

Remember that the movility potion gives you 15% boon duration at 150 AR, and you're going to swap attunements all the time, so with the concentration sigil you'll get the 100% boon duration, a lot of vitality, toughness and healing power.

P.S.: Sorry, I forgot the variant of the build, if you want to try it on a different way with more CC, but less ranged healing: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJ0gJWhJ4fJwhJWEAM3WbsN3GEAmAHAiuQS4IA-jxhXAB6eCACWJ02KBBY/hYV/J0HAoHQOlPBASAePuHAMTz0MNTz0MV3z9cP3z9cP3z9cP3jUA+NyC-e

interesting builds ! are they still vaiable ? and why mix of magi and ministral if you dont mind explain? and wont the extra toughness be an issue in raids due to agro?if going ministral wouldnt it be better just full ministral? or maybe full magi? thanks you and if you have one more updated for tempest support id love to see it im in a search for tempest sup build right now.

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@"noiwk.2760" said:interesting builds ! are they still vaiable ? and why mix of magi and ministral if you dont mind explain? and wont the extra toughness be an issue in raids due to agro?if going ministral wouldnt it be better just full ministral? or maybe full magi? thanks you and if you have one more updated for tempest support id love to see it im in a search for tempest sup build right now.

If you want to go pure healing, this is the build you want to run (This is a WvW build)http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAYlRwcYMYlYafd1qB-z1QYvoAghvMSqAqOB89gEKbg3ifbWA-w

It is BIS Healer for Tempest and it is indeed one of the best healers in the game. Magi's is the go-to gear. Minstrel's is a waste because half of the stats are useless, both in PVE and in WvW. Reason is because most of the boons you output on tempest are worthless, and even without concentration, this build can gives you 45% boon duration. Magi's also has a useless stat (precision) but the extra 500 in healing is worth it because it scales well with outgoing healing modifiers.

The first thing to note about healing on ele is knowing which skills actually heal and which ones don't. Staff is the absolute best weapon for healing. Consider that;

1) Staff 1 heals for nearly 10x more than any other weapon set, and 3x as much as all weapon sets combined. Staff 1's heal capacity on BIS heal gear, is 1.3 million healing over 3 minutes.

2) Soothing Mist is also a very strong heal, it's heal capacity being 2.3 million healing over 3 minutes.

3) Overload Water is the strongest Healing ability in the game, with a heal capacity of 1.9 million healing over 3 minutes. Wash The Pain Away is the next strongest heal with 1.2 million...followed by Cleansing Wave on dodge (540k) Flash Freeze (500k), Magnetic Aura (150k), and Rebound (240k).

If you are going for raids or WvW, ideally, you want to be spamming Staff 1, keeping Overload Water off cool-down as much as you can afford, and using flash Freeze for regeneration to procure 3k HPS per ally. Whenever you take a big burst, use Wash The Pain Away, and whenever you need utilities, use Geyser for Resurrection, Magnetic Aura for Projectile hate and Rebound for anticipation of a big burst.

If you are aiming for 5 man content, you may want to change some traits around to better suit the game mode. 10+ facilitates this build much more, and i've even solo healed a pug group of 20 with it in WvW (I also run this during our guild runs). The Healing potential is incredibly strong.

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To people who say the Ele can't give buffs and utility- I disagree.

While their raw boons provided (Fury, Might, Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness, Vigor) are nothing to write home about compared to Quickness and Alacrity, they are still very heavy buffers in small groups that lack other classes, with a single Ele able to keep the party alive, topped up, and at full might and dodges quite easily, not to mention activating the many traits on the various classes that synergise with those boons.

This is also not taking into account the sheer effectiveness of auras as buffs, which while insignificant when triggered from a combo due to their short duration, are a huge advantage to the party when they are near-permanent, especially Magnetic Aura in reflects situations.

People underestimate the advantages of being able to do e.g reflects tactics without worrying about positioning.

The Elementalist, Tempest in particular, is mediocre at everything, except healing and reviving, but when you combine everything they can do on top of that, it makes the party very hard to kill, perhaps the most resiliant possible in the game, and while the builds are notorious for poor DPS, remember that if you successfully carry even one person you've already replaced your entire lost DPS.


A few comments on some of the posts here:

  • Precision is only a "useless" stat if you don't run water sigils, which require crits for heal.
  • My preferred healing gear (from LS1+) is Magi armor, Clerics trinkets, and Zealot's weapons; remember that your healing % modifiers are outgoing only and don't affect you, so having more health can do more harm than good depending on the situation.
  • Celestial is still good for Elementalist to have an okay DPS, heals and survival, if you like playing open world or WvW.

Before 2018, I mostly ran pure HPS builds, but since then I'm running a monolithic build, Celestial+max heal%+dagger/warhorn+auras+full rotation. All game modes, 5man, 10man, etc. I want to experiment with a pure HPS build again now that build templates were added, though.

@Waisenpai.6028 said:You don't need tempest heals in pve. WvW everyone is using scourage barrier and FB for heals. Staff heals are just lazy spams but not true damage mitigation or life savers.You don't know what you're talking about here, the Ele has a trait that cleanses conditions when they grant Regeneration which with aura sharing and boons basically turns them into an ultimate cleansing powerhouse for zergs, the heals are just icing on the cake.

Healing Rain is one of the go-to rush defenses in the game, and entire battles can be decided by it.

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@"Hannelore.8153" said:To people who say the Ele can't give buffs and utility- I disagree.

While their raw boons provided (Fury, Might, Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness, Vigor) are nothing to write home about compared to Quickness and Alacrity, they are still very heavy buffers in small groups that lack other classes, with a single Ele able to keep the party alive, topped up, and at full might and dodges quite easily, not to mention activating the many traits on the various classes that synergise with those boons.

This is also not taking into account the sheer effectiveness of auras as buffs, which while insignificant when triggered from a combo due to their short duration, are a huge advantage to the party when they are near-permanent, especially Magnetic Aura in reflects situations.

People underestimate the advantages of being able to do e.g reflects tactics without worrying about positioning.

The Elementalist, Tempest in particular, is mediocre at everything, except healing and reviving, but when you combine everything they can do on top of that, it makes the party very hard to kill, perhaps the most resiliant possible in the game, and while the builds are notorious for poor DPS, remember that if you successfully carry even one person you've already replaced your entire lost DPS.


A few comments on some of the posts here:

  • Precision is only a "useless" stat if you don't run water sigils, which require crits for heal.
  • My preferred healing gear (from LS1+) is Magi armor, Clerics trinkets, and Zealot's weapons; remember that your healing % modifiers are outgoing only and don't affect you, so having more health can do more harm than good depending on the situation.
  • Celestial is still good for Elementalist to have an okay DPS, heals and survival, if you like playing open world or WvW.

Before 2018, I mostly ran pure HPS builds, but since then I'm running a monolithic build, Celestial+max heal%+dagger/warhorn+auras+full rotation. All game modes, 5man, 10man, etc. I want to experiment with a pure HPS build again now that build templates were added, though.

@Waisenpai.6028 said:You don't need tempest heals in pve. WvW everyone is using scourage barrier and FB for heals. Staff heals are just lazy spams but not true damage mitigation or life savers.You don't know what you're talking about here, the Ele has a trait that cleanses conditions when they grant Regeneration which with aura sharing and boons basically turns them into an ultimate cleansing powerhouse for zergs, the heals are just icing on the cake.

Healing Rain is one of the go-to rush defenses in the game, and entire battles can be decided by it.

would you mind to please also share build so it will be easier to see and learn it? thank you! ^^

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@"Hannelore.8153" said:To people who say the Ele can't give buffs and utility- I disagree.

While their raw boons provided (Fury, Might, Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness, Vigor) are nothing to write home about compared to Quickness and Alacrity, they are still very heavy buffers in small groups that lack other classes, with a single Ele able to keep the party alive, topped up, and at full might and dodges quite easily, not to mention activating the many traits on the various classes that synergise with those boons.

This is also not taking into account the sheer effectiveness of auras as buffs, which while insignificant when triggered from a combo due to their short duration, are a huge advantage to the party when they are near-permanent, especially Magnetic Aura in reflects situations.

People underestimate the advantages of being able to do e.g reflects tactics without worrying about positioning.

The Elementalist, Tempest in particular, is mediocre at everything, except healing and reviving, but when you combine everything they can do on top of that, it makes the party very hard to kill, perhaps the most resiliant possible in the game, and while the builds are notorious for poor DPS, remember that if you successfully carry even one person you've already replaced your entire lost DPS.


A few comments on some of the posts here:

  • Precision is only a "useless" stat if you don't run water sigils, which require crits for heal.
  • My preferred healing gear (from LS1+) is Magi armor, Clerics trinkets, and Zealot's weapons; remember that your healing % modifiers are outgoing only and don't affect you, so having more health can do more harm than good depending on the situation.
  • Celestial is still good for Elementalist to have an okay DPS, heals and survival, if you like playing open world or WvW.

Before 2018, I mostly ran pure HPS builds, but since then I'm running a monolithic build, Celestial+max heal%+dagger/warhorn+auras+full rotation. All game modes, 5man, 10man, etc. I want to experiment with a pure HPS build again now that build templates were added, though.

@Waisenpai.6028 said:You don't need tempest heals in pve. WvW everyone is using scourage barrier and FB for heals. Staff heals are just lazy spams but not true damage mitigation or life savers.You don't know what you're talking about here, the Ele has a trait that cleanses conditions when they grant Regeneration which with aura sharing and boons basically turns them into an ultimate cleansing powerhouse for zergs, the heals are just icing on the cake.

Healing Rain is one of the go-to rush defenses in the game, and entire battles can be decided by it.

A lot of people have too many misconceptions about this game because nobody really bothers to do the research and would rather default to a bias as to what they “think” works, when objectively it’s not the case

Running Water sigil for example, is probably the biggest misconception here. Consider that to use water sigil you’d have trade a 10%or 12 % healing modifier. Tempest are capable of pulling out over 6 million (potentially 7 million) healing every 3 minutes. 10% of that is 600k-700k.

Compare that to Water sigil, which if you crit to land a heal 100% of the time will yield only 216k. Unless I’m wrong about the target cap which I’m assuming is 5 players, that’s a 500k difference in healing. So ya, making use of precision is a net negative and it’s why it’s still a pretty useless stat, unless you actually do want to deal some mediocre damage.

Another thing is that Healing Rain is a good skill but I’d hardly classify it as the best healing tool on the kit. It’s a big water field which is what makes it important, but Overload Water Waaay outclasses and had more consistent potential. Water fields have limitations (only 5 allies can blast it and in order to make good use of it you have to be blasting it hard which takes a coordinated effort which usually never happens, even in serious GVG settings.)

Now can you yield good results with it? Yes. But I wouldn’t consider it as defining the outcome of a battle because of how hard it is to reach its max potential (which is 1.8 million over 3 minutes btw, assuming 5 unique players each blast it 5 times.)

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