Possibly returning player that typically heals in MMO's... is there a "best" healer?

[Wandidar.1692]

Hello everyone - I'll keep this quick and simple:

Most of the folks I play MMO's with seem to be off doing other things - and I'm looking to (possibly) try GW2 again. I typically heal in an MMO. Is there a best choice? Does that best choice have another role it does OK at?

Thanks in advance!

[Eros.6801]

In Guild Wars 2 there are no actually Healer, Tanker, DPSer, all class can do everything but some classes can do a certain role better than the others.

Best healer right now is Druid (Ranger), they are great in both raid and WvW, beside being a healer you can be a great DPSer as well.

Other off-meta healer are Firebrand (Guard), Scourge (Necro), Rev-Ventari (Raw Heal), Tempest (Ele).

*Raw heal here mean rev can provide a ton of raw HP healing while other class like Druid can also do the same but with many more offensive boons so ppl tend to favor Druid over other.

*Also noted that every last one of the healer above is a beast if you choose to DPS instead of Healing.

[bigo.9037]

uhm.. it depends on what part of the game you wanna play most. if you wanna heal in pvp setting, it's firebrand. pve, yea druid I guess.

[Wandidar.1692]

Thank you!

[Biff.5312]

You should be warned though that in open world at least there is pretty much zero use for a healer. Better to build a hybrid that can contribute to damage but occasionally offer healing in group events. If you build full heals you'll find yourself unable to do anything much solo, and nobody will really need you for groups except for major bosses.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

metabattle.com can answer your gw2 build questions.

[Talecgosa.7326]

Just my two cents, I personally love Druid (Ranger elite specialization) as a healer. My main raiding class is a Druid healer, and it's loads of fun in terms of support, the amount/types of heals you can provide, as well as support buffs. It's also beautiful in terms of how the skills look. I find it a fun and very useful support specialization.

Best thing to do, try them all out and find which one you like the best! Every class is versatile and you can tweak it to do what you want in whatever mode you're looking for. Enjoy!

[Pretty Pixie.8603]

The short answer is Druid in PvE, Firebrand in PvP/WvW.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Eros.6801 said:Best healer right now is Druid (Ranger), they are great in both raid and WvW, beside being a healer you can be a great DPSer as well.Haha no. Healer druid is universally panned in WvW regardless of roaming or zerging. Very few use it.

Firebrand is primary zerg frontline healer while scrapper is cleanser/general healing. Not many more run healer now, even ele has been shifted to dps. Same thing with barrier scourge, its power dps meta. Even small roaming groups use meta firebrands for their heal support. Saves time I guess.

In PvE anything goes. Well except maybe heal thief. Never seen those. It'd be funny though.

[Paradox Reaper.7249]

In PvE anything goes. Well except maybe heal thief. Never seen those. It'd be funny though.It's possible, they do have shadow's refuge which stealths and heals but heal thief is not necessary as they do so much dps.

[XenoSpyro.1780]

You can consider warrior shouts. Three of them use the ammo system now. Combine it with traited Battle Standard.Zealot if power, Apoth if condi.

[TamX.1870]

@"Eros.6801" said:Best healer right now is Druid (Ranger), they are great in both raid and WvW, beside being a healer you can be a great DPSer as well.

Hmmh, no. In fact, Druid does not even compete in heal output compared to "real healers". At PvE side, for a very long time, Druid have accepted as a support class only because they can buff the party with offensive buffs - might, fury, spotter, spirits and such. And a bit from healing, even that they have been out of the meta that really needs heals (sPvP, WvW), they still can dish out some.

Other off-meta healer are Firebrand (Guard), Scourge (Necro), Rev-Ventari (Raw Heal), Tempest (Ele).

Firebrand is meta support in both PvP game modes (sPvP and WvW). Scourge is excellent healer, much better than Druid, but Scourge can't output as much offensive boons than Druid can - so it is not usually wanted that much in PvE side. The same goes with Tempest, Revenant and for example Engineer: while they are most probably much more effective healers as Druid, they dont offer the same offensive boons as Druid can for PvE, where the raw output of healing only matters for inexperienced groups.

Druid as a healer was nerfed a lot during the time. Staff damage was taken down, CA cooldown has increased (Druid's biggest drawback is that its heals comes only in bursts, when s/he can access CA form), pet damage was nerfed etc. etc. Druid was dropped from PvP side healer long ago, it is only useful when (1) fights are predicatable like PvE instances, and (2) when offensive boons are more important than heals. It is def not a true healer. Not compared to e.g. Firebrand or Tempest.

[messiah.1908]

@Wandidar.1692 said:Hello everyone - I'll keep this quick and simple:

Most of the folks I play MMO's with seem to be off doing other things - and I'm looking to (possibly) try GW2 again. I typically heal in an MMO. Is there a best choice? Does that best choice have another role it does OK at?

Thanks in advance!

yes there are several class who are healers

wvwFB is a must - both as healer with low hps and strong boons sharingscrapper - mainly condi cleanse and boons (cannot control the boon he share) and sustain healing . high hpsrev ventari - mainly healer with the highest hps . both sustain healing and burst healing . also boons sharingaure ele - not in use that muchdruid - not in used due to low healing and viability in wvw

raiddruid - is the king due to group buffs and boons and nice healingrev - also viable due to boons and best healing and alacrity

[Runiir.6425]

@XenoSpyro.1780 said:You can consider warrior shouts. Three of them use the ammo system now. Combine it with traited Battle Standard.Zealot if power, Apoth if condi.

It took way too long for someone to mention this build. A shout/banner warrior can heal rather well all while never stopping the damage as everything you do is either prepared beforehand (banner) or you simply do while attacking and it doesn't interupt your attack (shouts). This build is also typically rather high on the survival scale.

[Gulbasaur.1865]

Druids and chronomancers historically fit together like clockwork, which is why they're such a common combination in groups where you'd worry about composition. They also bring some useful buffs that synergise well with warriors, who, again, bring a lot of buffs.

Druids have lots of heals, but none are hugely strong. They make up for it by blasting lots and lots of heals out in quick succession.

In 90% of the game, healers aren't necessary (and are very occasionally unwelcome as a DPS loss) as everyone can self-heal, though.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

"Healer" is such a deceptive word...

Necromancers may not be best healers (though they have potential to heal others, just not as top of the line healers), but they are hands down the best revivers in the whole game. On multiple occasions, be it fractals or harder open world (HoT maps metas) speccing Blood Magic on my reaper (for healing and revives) made me carry groups so hard it's not funny. Massive resses, decent healing, huge tanking (screw meta, i used crusader gear and got no regrets!) , and respectable personal dps (reaper does not have to sacrifice much dps to revive and heal).

If you want more "healy" from necro, then there's scourge. His flavor is using shields (here called barriers) for his allies, while on the healing end, he provides constant regen like healing with transfusion trait (reaper uses same trait for burst heal, scourge makes it more over time effect, but has lower cooldown on it's usage).

Most will shun necro and not want it in their "pro group". Well, groups i've seen needed Blood Magic necro like water. Almost every time i went pure dps, there were ally corpses all over. Once i gave up on some dps and went revive/heal + dps path, lo and behold, content gets cleared in a jiffy.

What elitists spew over and over again may apply to their elite groups. But reality is most end game pve groups aren't that elite and a necro is the #1 solution for keeping a bad group going.

[Chyanne Waters.8719]

If you are a healer in other MMO's then you probably use the party bar for healing a team. You see someone losing health fast click on the name and you heal them. That is how they did it in GW1. GW2 is different you have to actually use AOE and defensive heals to heal a party, and you cannot use the party bar to heal. Now if you want a different experience then welcome to GW2.