Help me pick a Healer class for WVW

[aaron.7850]

I want to play a support/healer class for wvw and feel like I am really changing the tide of the battle with it.

I have no idea how any of the support classes play out, but if it helps I would rather stay in range and use my abilities as opposed to having to be in melee range to help out.

[Infusion.7149]

You probably want to play staff heal tempest if you don't want to be in melee range.

The other main healers are scrapper and firebrand, with support spellbreaker being less common and celestial scourge acting as a barrier support (which is actually countered by the 50% warrior's cunning trait on warriors) and some additional condi clear.

[jul.7602]

Your options.GuardianScrapperElementalistWarriorRangerRevenant

GuardianBackbone support of any group. Generally at least 1 per party. Support your party with boons, healing, damage reduction, condi removal. Some alternate version forgo a bit of healing in favor of giving quickness and more might.

ScrapperGenerally the secondary support meant to clear any gaps in sustain by the firebrand. Superior in converting hundreds of conditions into boons for your allies, very strong raw healing, comes with stealth and various other gadgets.

ElementalistAnother secondary support, sometimes considered the alternative to scrapper. Focuses more on clearing conditions, granting superspeed, healing, and giving auras.

WarriorA bit more of a niche build that focuses on clearing conditions, granting massive amounts of barrier, moderate amounts of healing, and very conveniently, debuffing your enemies with winds of disenchantment.

RangerNot very common, but druid offers some moderate amount of healing, and some condi clear.

RevenantNot a very good healer, but can be specialized into renegade, and once equiped with boon duration runes you can easily stack two the most powerful boons in the game: resistance and alacrity. Furthermore, with dwarven stance you give your allies stability, and high damage reduction. Not so much a healer as much as a buffer, with potential to do reasonable amounts of damage if equipped with harrier or plaguedoctor.

[Dawdler.8521]

@jul.7602 said:Your options.GuardianScrapperElementalistWarriorRangerRevenant

GuardianBackbone support of any group. Generally at least 1 per party. Support your party with boons, healing, damage reduction, condi removal. Some alternate version forgo a bit of healing in favor of giving quickness and more might.

ScrapperGenerally the secondary support meant to clear any gaps in sustain by the firebrand. Superior in converting hundreds of conditions into boons for your allies, very strong raw healing, comes with stealth and various other gadgets.

ElementalistAnother secondary support, sometimes considered the alternative to scrapper. Focuses more on clearing conditions, granting superspeed, healing, and giving auras.

WarriorA bit more of a niche build that focuses on clearing conditions, granting massive amounts of barrier, moderate amounts of healing, and very conveniently, debuffing your enemies with winds of disenchantment.

RangerNot very common, but druid offers some moderate amount of healing, and some condi clear.

RevenantNot a very good healer, but can be specialized into renegade, and once equiped with boon duration runes you can easily stack two the most powerful boons in the game: resistance and alacrity. Furthermore, with dwarven stance you give your allies stability, and high damage reduction. Not so much a healer as much as a buffer, with potential to do reasonable amounts of damage if equipped with harrier or plaguedoctor.Play a druid or renegage healer and expect to be thrown out of the squad faster than a thief in pvt.

[Infusion.7149]

To expand on that , the reason you don't want to run druid is that

1. you need to build astral force to get the heal power of Celestial Avatar
2. the pet doesn't stealth properly most of the time so you ruin stealth pushes
3. most ranger weapons (especially the ones typically run on druid) are projectiles (axe/longbow/shortbow) which get reflected so the only thing you'll be doing is camping staff which is underwhelming both offensively and defensively
4. it lacks the on demand stealth/superspeed/bulk condi clear (5+ at a time) of scrapper and superspeed / raw heal and large AoE condi clears of tempest
5. it has no meaningful stability output ; the only common ally stunbreak is "Protect Me!"

Heal renegade is going to be met with major skepticism because the heal tablet is wonky , heal orbs were nerfed Feb 25 (so it's all utility skills and not much from staff itself), and generally it's run as a damage class. Heralds running dwarf or mallyx are common however, due to Rite of the Great Dwarf (50% damage reduction) / Inspiring Reinforcement (stability) and Pain Absorption (resistance output) + Banish Enchantment (boon rip).

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Heal Rev (Tablet) is a ok healer but gets tiresome after some time if you want to play it well.

Just play another healer. Its not worth the effort.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

The only viable healer left is Scrapper. That’s it. Going anything else you won’t have much of an impact and you’ll find yourself with a lot of dead allies.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Scrapper is the best healer because it offers condition conversion (not just cleanse!) and dedicated to healing, superspeed, and stealth. All of these things have a huge impact on the fight.

Tempest is also a good choice because auras are unique. However, not everyone wants it.

In general, you should not stay at range far from your squad. That is because it makes you stick out, and easily targeted/pulled. Also you will not be at the center of boons and heals. It is counterintuitive, but stacking tight is the way to survive in zerg fights. All healers also perform best when they are close to allies. This doesn't mean you should stand still of course; dodge as needed, but don't get too far away. If you see guild groups fight, you may notice it's even hard to tell how many people they have because they are all stacked very tightly.

If you ever hear anyone crying about being "focused" when they're not even the tag (sometimes even the tag), you should probably note that they do not understand this concept and probably a rallybot.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

for range healing you can play druid, ventari revenant, or staff tempest. youtube for gameplay.

[subversiontwo.7501]

This turned into a pretty good thread, good posts allround. Beyond what has already been said or alluded to, let me add a few pointers:

The game mode has seen a sharp decrease in guilds. That in turn means a sharp decrease in variety of commanders and different preferences. There are fewer leaders per followers and much more of the commanding is conducted with 1-2 people leading 48-49 rather anonymous players on many servers. This affects both what the commanders are asking for and what the players end up looking for. It has made the mode more dependent upon "meta" and more players either being directed to or getting their builds from places like Metabattle or Vabbi builds.

So, what remains the meta?

Firebrands (Guardians) still has the best access to stability and stability is more important than ever as playing WvW without stability is stupidly boring. That has kept them as the primary support class since the game's inception. There's a common confusion that the Firebrand is the best healer or cleanser or whatever but it really isn't. The stability the one thing that keeps it ontop and nothing else. That doesn't mean that it is a bad healer or has poor general utility. The healing is good and the general utility is very good, but it certainly isn't the best at everything. For raw healing it is likely fourth or something like that. I bet someone else can benchmark for you if need be.

Scrappers (Engineers) likely remain the primary choice for a secondary support class because of their ability to provide stealth, superspeed, cleanse/convert alot of conditions and has very flexible healing mechanics where you can toggle your "healing mode" on and off as you please. It makes the Scrapper adaptable and good that way. You can essentially toggle between healing and cleansing at will.

Tempests (Elementalists) remain the third option, their healing is a bit more spiky but the main attraction of the Tempest is that it excels at doing healing and whatever else at the same time the best. The Tempest will put out a number of offensive additions to whatever it does passively as it attempts to heal. It also heals itself with alot of its heals so it can be very self-sustaining while sustaining its friends at the same time. The Elementalist is also one of the most flexible classes in the game allround so it is a very powerful choice for dedicating your gameplay into one character. All of its specs are good and it has roles and a diversity of builds for every mode and style of content. It is possibly the best designed class in the game in that sense.

Shoutbreakers (Warriors) is not something I would really call a support class even if the march 2020 patch has made them more into support and less into damage. I would still say that the Shoutbreaker is primarily a damage or offensive control build (rips, CC) that does healing passively. So it is more similar to the Tempest (and certain Scrapper builds that are less potent now) but where the Tempest may be healing first and everything else second, I'd say the Shoutbreaker is everything else first and healing second, if that makes sense.

So what are the off-meta roles and appeals?

The Druid: I would say that Stand is right here. What the Druid excels at is to support ranged classes in need of less raw healing and more other forms of utility. It can also heal from range if there is nothing else that needs better attention. That makes the Druid an excellent choice for backline support or havoc support. However, as most commanders simply seeks to build balanced parties and since running in a havoc party requires a modicum of self-governance the use of Druids is rather rare. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work, it just requires less of the commander and more of you to make it work. It is going to be hard to convince other players of that and thus makes the Druid best in a party with friends that you already know.

Ed. What makes it appealing for ranged parties? It potentially has the highest- and most flexible access to stealth, it can spike-buff might (and boost damage in other ways) and it can combine spike heals with fillers to cover retaliation. It also has it's own ranged damage options for when it doesn't need to support. It is also highly mobile so it can reposition and support, switching between emergency support and general support. So there's a fair amount of synergy between the Druid, Staff Elementalists and Hammer Revs for example. Befriend Eles and let them see what you can do for/with them.

The Revenant: Has traditionally had the highest raw healing output and can like the Druid heal from range or like the Tempest/Shoutbreaker heal "passively" while doing other things. I have not looked at its healing values since the march patch but before it used to have both some of the best spikes and a generous amount of overall volume as well. The reason that more players have not yet discovered it I would say is twofold: It is rather taxing to play (not very fun unless you are specifically into it) and the Revenant has been so strong allround with powerful roles both as ranged damage and as melee damage (as well as powerful builds for both condi and power) that the healing potential has simply taken a backseat. The Revenant, like the Elementalist, is very powerful in a very broad amount of roles but perhaps unlike the Elementalist a little more clunky and an aquired taste to play.

The Mesmer: Is perhaps the only option that has been a bit overlooked so far and it isn't without reason. The Mesmer used to be a better support before but has been hit by waves of nerfs to its healing so it has fallen sharply behind as a healer (it has seen waves of nerfs to everything so the healing aspect isn't necessarily alone), however the Mesmer still is a passable secondary support or off-support because it still has an array of tools at its disposal and it doesn't necessarily excel in any other role anymore. It mainly has an appeal in it's selection of many good utility skills so you can adapt to what is needed. It sort of cruises under the radar in that sense since the mantras are all pretty good, the glamours are pretty good and so forth. It is a pretty decent cleanser, it has pretty good mechanics for stability (less uptime but good accessability so it has good overall management once you learn how to use it properly) and it has a bunch of good squad-level utilities that few other classes have. It has the worst raw healing out of all the support though so expect it to both be treated and used accordingly. So it's the worst healer but still good allround support with some healing thrown into the mix and it excels at nothing else right now so if you want a Mesmer's squad-utility, why not?

[Lahm.7056]

Just to add some more info on Druid after playing it as a pure support:

A full minstrels Druid probably has the highest raw healing numbers given you are in range of your allies so that they get affected by your heal glyph and utility glyph that also heals, these two will put out around 16-17k heal in around 2 seconds.

Building celestial gauge is a breeze if you are in a group of 2 or more players, specially if using traited warhorn, the regeneration alone will top it quite easily. Most of the fights I had celestial avatar ready before the CD was up due to the sheer amount healing you can put out and it was constantly available before the CD was up.

Druid also excels in mobility, this is a big advantage that other supports lack, it will be very hard to pin you down. Adding to staff, running sword/warhorn as a secondary set will make nigh uncatchable and very mobile during fights.

The weakest link of playing Druid is definitely the pet, choices for pure support pets are very few and do not feel impactful, the pet related traits for support can also feel lackluster so that makes the pet feel more as a bonus rather than a mechanic. I recommend the Red and Blue Moas.

[Sugar Min.5834]

The top three healing/support classes in WvW are Firebrand, Scrapper and Tempest.

Firebrand : decent healing, decent condi cleanses, provides lots of Stability and Aegis > needs to be on the frontline to be more effective, so Melee preferred.

Scrapper : decent healing, lots of condi cleanses, provides some stability, stealth, gives lots of boons (condi conversions) and super speed, and can be played in Melee or Mid range.

Tempest : high burst and sustainable heals, decent condi cleanse, provides some instant super speed and 10 ppl might and boon shaing (if traited).Scepter + Warhorn as mid range Auramancer.Staff for long range play.

So i think Staff Tempest is the way to go for OP. My opinion.

[Jski.6180]

Scraper by far is the best healer as well as clearing class. Gurds is the stab support class that all it needs to be. Tempest has auras that about it.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@subversiontwo.7501 said:snips

mes heal output is half decent if you spam pain mantra.

[aaron.7850]

well so far i have tried firebrand and druid, but both of them didnt click with me that well... but i do love the aesthetics of both those classes. Gonna try Renegade next as the tablet looks kinda fun

[Infusion.7149]

The tablet gets annoying to move constantly and ventari has no stunbreak, you should probably play aura tempest next (IMO)

When you play heal scrapper you barely tag anything if you camp med kit so participation and wxp are rather poor.

[Sovereign.1093]

Fb rev tempest scrapper spell breaker

[Dawdler.8521]

@Sovereign.1093 said:Fb rev tempest scrapper spell breakerSpell and breaker are definetly the 2 best.

[Aeolus.3615]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:Fb rev tempest scrapper spell breakerSpell and breaker are definetly the 2 best.

I still prefer the Rave Nant with He Rald and Vent Ari :bleep_bloop: its 6 classes in one!

Poor Sov. :dizzy:

@aaron.7850J/k asside some classes dont need to go full minitrel for decent support and still provide damageShout Spellbreaker and Hearld support can go cleric or zealots, for example if u have both on cleric(pleb stats i know and not meta... screw meta babies that cant think for themselves :D ) herald can provide 1k regen for the warrior other big heals and cleanses while warrior will also provide cleanses and heals, both provide medium«ish damage since rev suports party wtih fury and might if needed(still Rev sided needs to choose well when to play on Ventari or herald and its eneergy management can be somewhat dificult at first...)

Theres also monk and dwayna runes:

Monk Runes : increases direct heal output.Dwayna Runes : increase regen ticks ouput.

Sigil of Life to gain healing stats will also be better than the one that provides healing ouput (sigil of benevolence), since Sigil of Life will increase both of yourself healing and ouput healing.Note: in this build with sigil of benevolence output heal will be lesser than Life.

This is the wvw healing build i have been using and imnproving for quite some years of try n error´http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmxAw6ZllQKMKyiNRXsKCjFSisBqgn/UVrF-zxQYvohHGRQhEUBkYEUdKIys43mF-e

[ArlAlt.1630]

Not sure if it was mentioned above, but your options are as follows:

1. Firebrand
2. Firebrand
3. Firebrand
4. Firebrand
5. Firebrand

Feel free to pick any of the 5 listed. Good luck.

[Sovereign.1093]

Apparently there's a healing theif build. @.@

[aaron.7850]

Tried Ventari healer and I loved it, it with druid or firebrand i always felt lost and i never got the "flow" of it, but Ventari clicked with me almost instantly.Whether I was actually helping my team is another question lol, but I love the mechanics and I am exited to continue playing it.

[Sovereign.1093]

@"aaron.7850" said:Tried Ventari healer and I loved it, it with druid or firebrand i always felt lost and i never got the "flow" of it, but Ventari clicked with me almost instantly.Whether I was actually helping my team is another question lol, but I love the mechanics and I am exited to continue playing it.

There's the cleric ventari herald for that build or the minstrel renegade for alacrity and heals centaur. It's really fun <3

[aaron.7850]

I tried Renegade healer, but I really missed the facets and draconic echo.I can definitely see myself switching to renegade healer if running with 6 or less players.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

For large groups Scrapper is your best bet since since the skill floor is low, making it easy to learn. To be effective all you are need to do is run around with Medi-Kit equipped, and activate Purge Gyro and Sneak Gyro when the commander calls for it.

For smaller scale groups, Scrapper is still very effective, but you need to be more familiar with your total kit as your group needs you for more than just a healbot. In any case Id say Firebrand or Ele would be a better choice for small groups.