Is there a Healer in Gw2 ??

Hi, now I know every class can heal but Is there a spec in the game that can properly like not a heal that if it does not heal it Aoe's like a real type of healing spec ?? Ok thanks for reading hope you can highlight on my questions. Thanks from tirean :) 

Currently there are three strong heal/support specs that I am aware of There is the water-specced Elementalist, which can do quite well with direct healing, has a lot of AE heals, a lot of passive hots and regen as well. There is the support-specced Gaurdian which is more of a front line healer/buffer which has a fair amount of hots/regen as well as giving protection to a lot of people. There is the shout-specced Warrior that has a lot of big AE heals, little to no HoTs. EDIT: Those three particular specs are the most similar to traditional healing roles.

» Edited on: 2012-08-16 14:37:33

Sorry having trouble trying to figure out what you really want to know. You wanting to know about healing others? There are group type healings in the game, but a lot more boons to help as well. There was a discussion somewhere I saw about this, but can't remember where, about classes closest to being a healer. There are ways to be better at healing and one of the five trait chains you can put points in will help with that, but I don't know of mainly healing spec on any character, just some seem to have more helpful things for a group than others. And now that I see Q's those were some of the ideas I was thinking of but it is support more than healer in the end.

» Edited on: 2012-08-16 14:36:34

There is no real Holy Trinity of Healer, Tank, Dps. All the classes can have similar aspects spread out. There are some very good articles out there on some of this aspect. ill have to try to go find one. I know I was thinking of doing a Norn Elementalist with Air and Water. Water gives some good healing abilities.

They say there isn't a trinity, and I admit it's been deemphasized. But I believe that there's still a trinity in essence. It's still going to be important to have durable people who are specced for victory beyond damage. It's going to be important to have people specced for damage alone. There is also going to be a need for healers who mainly do that and little else. Right now all the classes can perform the roles of damage, not all of the classes are the best for durability or healing.

There is also Engineers.. Elixir guns, heal turrets, med kits, elixir throwing etc etc. But as has been stated, the devs have aimed for no real true healing role. How that plays out is be seen though... players can be tenacious! Regardless, a heal minded player has options to support by helping take the edge off damage to be healed and to mainly use non-direct heal damage mitigation. IE: Boons, Crowd Control, Condition cleansing. I don't know much about the support minded rangers, but have read that healing spring (I think) is actually quite good for a heal others ability. But that could just be talk... you know rangers. ;-P -niri

» Edited on: 2012-08-16 14:57:27

The most apt classes for healing allies are Guardian, Elementalist, and Engineer. The Guardian is focused on protecting allies, so it has a lot of skills and traits that heal himself and allies. The Elementalist has many skills and traits in the Water element line that are focused on healing or buffing allies. And the Engineer has a few kits (healing turret, elixir gun, med kit, etc.) focused on healing allies and removing conditions from them. All in all, the closest thing to a healer in GW2 is the Guardian (many of the names of the Guardian skills are "inherited" from Monk skills in Guild Wars 1), though the Guardian is much more than that.

Warrior: You can spec to have 3 shouts that each shout heals around 2k to everyone around them for about 600 range. These shouts are on a roughly 20 second timer, they also throw a lot of buffs out there as well as a big debuff. You can then get runes that give him an AE HoT that heals about 350-400 a tick everytime he uses his self heal ability (ideally on a 20 second timer as well). He also can have lots of passive regens/buffs, making him a beast of a support character and very durable. Elementalist: The elementalist can throw around a lot of fields and AE heals that require ground targetting. Also their baseline attack hits a target and heals everyone near that target for about 500 a splash. They're the superior at range healer, and when they shift 'stances' they cast buffs around them as well as having a lot of passive buffs that they simply emit and people get from being around them. With this spec they can be surprisingly durable, but still suffer from having around 13k hits at level 80. Guardians: They can heal as well, primarily through regen and a few buffs. With their support elite ability they can become a monster for heals directly, but their best aspect is the ease with which they can provide protection and regen as well as strip debuffs. This one is a point blank front range fighter and mostly has to be hitting people to be fully effective. Engineer: With heal pack and elixir gun and the like they can do decently one thing at a time usually. The heal pack can spam its heals but they're very small heals. Also the medpacks they throw out heal decently but they require cooperation from the target player to move and pick them up, which could be the difference between life and death. In my opinion it can't heal well enough to be considered a main-line healer. It can augment healing while doing other duties, but can't do just healing. Ranger: Ranger can probably be the best support class for pure amount of buffs on uptime and the amount of craziness they can throw around. Again, though, not best for healing in a group or even really single target. Not that they won't be an asset, since really their buffs are insano. Mesmer: No healing to speak of. Thief: No healing to speak of. Necromancer: Heals himself mainly. I think that about covers it.

I am like you in the sense I like support classes. I have usually played a tank / healer or puller in MMOs. I am actually trying to decide between support guardian or shout warrior for my main at the moment. I think guardian is slightly better at healing, protection and condition removal, but the warrior is better at offensive buffing + speed. Being able to run fast is a huge asset for my first character (since I will be able to gather easier). The ranger can be pretty insane with ranged spirits and Moa's for AOE heals. That being said, I think the best support ranger right now is a hybrid condition dps class that forgoes its healing.

» Edited on: 2012-08-16 15:21:28

Crazy thing is, although Q is spot on with warriors/guardians/rangers/engineers/ele's, he's a bit off for the others. EVERY single class can spec to be support. It's just the matter of flavor of support. How much healing, buffing, condition removal, cc, etc each class would provide given they're support spec'd. For instance, necro's have an aoe hp regen well if I remember right. And thieves have aoe stealth buffs. If you can't see your enemy you can't hit them with conditions or direct damage (though you still can do aoe). Mesmer also does have group healing as well as some bubbles fairly similar to the guardian. They just don't have wards that prevent physical movement like the Guardian. So honestly, pick the class you want to play first, then spec them to be support. Now if you want to get into the REAL nitty gritty of what does class #1 have as far as unique skills that class #2 doesn't? I can help a little in that regard, but Spartan is king of that kind of knowledge. But the big ones are the following: Guardian: movement restriction wards, tome of courage (one of the best elite support skills in the game imo); has the only MELEE aoe pull (up to 5 players). Mesmer: Illusion and clones that help take damage in pve and make pvp opponents drop the mesmer as their target (very similar to WoW hunter's feint death); has the only RANGED aoe pull (probably also 5 players). Also has a few damage reflection/absorption spells like the guardian. Like the thief has multiple skills that provide stealth to party and self. Warrior: Best self defense hands down (imo). Specifically mace/shield combo. Highest hp and armor as well. Pair that with the fact they get vengeance as skill #3 as a downed skill that can be spec'd to keep them alive if they kill someone, they can be almost immortal. Ranger: Spirits and traps. No one else has spirits (and possibly traps). Don't know much about them, but should provide skills to rangers no one else has access to. Engineer/Ele: I don't know much about them, but they do hold the trophies for most flexible class with most skills at their disposal at any one time. Thief: Probably one of the hardest hitting classes around (if spec'd right). Has multiple skills that provide stealth to party and self. Necro: Can give the warrior and guardian a run for their money as far as hardest to kill profession because of lich form. Big into having minions, putting conditions on players, or casting wells (aoe spells that help the team or hurt the enemy). Has the longest single target pull of 1200 range.

» Edited on: 2012-08-17 06:16:47

Oh I wasn't saying the other classes couldn't go support. I was more meaning dedicated healing. Sure they can do some support elements and there's no denying that group stealthis HUGE. I just mean if you want to fill the niche of a traditional healer then Warrior/Guardian/Elementalist look to be strong contenders for it.

Yup you're right Q. Thief has some aoe/group heals, but they're fairly limited. There's a single aoe direct heal (shadow refuge) and they also have a few other regens, but it's a lot harder for them to support a group using direct heals than say a warrior/guardian. But stealth can help prevent damage better than a lot of what warriors/guardians can do in certain instances.

Yah my point of view is coming from a 'what will be useful in our group setting.' and so my view is pretty narrow. Like right now we're thinking of running 2 warriors, 2 guardians, thief, elementalist. Think that may be optimal for a melee group meant to press the attack and cause disruption similar to how we played in warhammer. We'll see. Though I am going to use at least one element of ae stealth simply because it's too good to pass up.

Q, the engineer has some powerful healing skills. The healing turret gives you a powerful area heal on deploy, and then pulses regen. The bandages in the med kit provide moderate healing, and although they need coordination, there's a trait that allows you to ground target them before deployment, which makes them quite feasible in actual combat. The Elixir Gun has a skill called Super Elixir that provides reasonable healing over 10 seconds in a large area. All that without considering the traits - there are a trait that makes every bomb also heal allies when it explodes, and when coupled with a skill that drops bombs every time you dodge, and a trait that increases the regeneration of stamina... it makes for very mobile, in-combat healing abilities for the Engineer. Not to mention his condition removal abilities, which are only surpassed by the Guardian. What I mean is that the Engineer is a very versatile class. It's not the best healer, but it's a pretty good one. The Engineer is the true "jack of all trades" in GW2 (which means it's master of none), and its flexibility is by far its greatest strength.

I think my problem with the engineer is that yes it can do those things, but to be able to do all of them it has to go through more steps to execute. To get some abilities it needs one particular kit, wants to use the elixir gun must swap to that, want to use bombs to heal gotta whip out that kit. Combine that with some of the other aspects of people having to run over the packs to get the heals, even if they're thrown near them, and it accumulates into delay. Not that it's that /much/ of a delay, but it'd still be a delay over some of the other classes which can end up costing lives. My impression, though it wasn't exhaustive just fiddling with one in the mists, was that the engineer could do things well. Just couldn't easily do all of them at all times.

What I feel Q is saying about kits, it's the same as World of Warcraft Holy Priest's "Lightwell". It's the best HPS skill in the whole game, yet it's the least used by the fact that the player needs to "click it" to get the heal. So I'm with Q on that part. Although I've seen really good Engineers on pvp and dungeons I was able to run. So I just think it's a "great utility class when played on the right hands" kind of class :P Just my two cents on the topic. BTW: I'll be playing an Guardian as my main because of the support it brings XD

» Edited on: 2012-08-16 20:42:23

Oh, that's definitely true. The Engineer can be very powerful, but in the hands of someone who knows how to play it, and how to use the kit switching and all. It's a bit like the Ritualist in GW1. The Ritualist was a true jack-of-all-trades. He was able to heal, protect, do armor-ignoring spikes, pressure, AoE, and in the right circumstances, even tanking. However, you had to know his limitations and the "flow" of his abilities to truly make it shine. The Engineer in GW2 is pretty much like that, in many senses, which is partly why I'm so excited about the possibilities of playing an Engineer. So yeah, for healing support, the "specialist" class would be the Guardian. It's a class mostly built around support, so it's definitely easier to play in that role than any other classes, water-attuned Elementalist included. But I can see Elementalists and Engineers taking that role on occasion, when it's needed. And don't forget the element of surprise - when someone sees a Guardian, they know what to expect. When they see an Engineer, they'll lose some health/time finding out what he's up to. ;)

Hi, I am sure that I saw a ranger do like 5k heal on himself like every 20-30 seconds :O not see aoe if it is there

» Edited on: 2012-08-17 05:02:56

The ranger has a great healing move in healing spring. It provides regen(which you can trait for) to players that run through it, condition removal, and it is a combo field. I use it exclusively as a condition clear and to let my group mates gain the benefits. I'll shoot arrows through it to provide regen to the melee guys up front. Also Rangers can chose healing pets like the white moa and the fern hound that grant regen, and they can run a spirit that provides protection. I've built my character around DPS, so I don't know hot to build an effective Ranger healer, but it would be a good class to do it with.

I will preface this by saying that I am NOT a GW2 expert. I am horrible about not knowing every micro-detail about a game before it comes out and I play it. That being said as a caveat: I think we need to be very careful about trying to make a "trinity" that doesn't exist. Could it be if we try to mold a trinity we could miss some very powerful things each class has that will help them stay alive on their own and then they get a bit of assistance here and there? Like I said, not sure about this but what bits I have read about the class strengths is that each class has survival skills if the player really learns the class, much more so than other typical MMOs? I am not naysaying anything, just wondering since I am not the GW2 guru.

I do not know if you all have taken these changes into your ideas. The following is a link to changes made to all professions after the August 15th stress test by Arena Net http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/720-stress-test-changes-skills-traits-recipes-achievements/

Kirleen, while there is no true trinity in GW2, there are classes that are better in some areas than others. Elementalist has the best AoE, Guardian the best healing/support, and so on (at least in theory). For instance, if you want to do some area denial, there's no class more capable than the Guardian and skills like Sanctuary. If you want to provide quick movement for your allies in WvW, nothing can beat the Mesmer and her portals. And so on. Asenina, the changes made in the August 15th stress test are fine-tunings mostly. No class has been deeply modified by those changes, so I'd say the points demonstrated in this thread still apply.

Wolfox, Okie Dokie Cool. I wanted to help with healing and was going to go Guardian at one point. I am pretty set now on Elementalist and will just help out where I can in whatever way I can if I dare venture into WvWvW. It's all cool, forget that post up there from me. =)

It was a great post. I don't see why I should forget it. ;-) The Water-focused Elementalist is a very good healer, nearly as good or perhaps just as good as the Guardian - not only because of skills like Healing Rain, but because of so many options in Combos. Water combo fields, when coupled with Blast (or projectile) finishers, can be excellent sources of healing, and no one does that better than the Elementalist (the Ele has two Staff skills that create Water combo fields, and one of them has a 20 second cooldown, which is the smallest amongst all possible water combo field generating skills in the game).