View Full Version : Question: Can Water Magic Eles be dedicated healers?
Hello, I am new to this forum. I played couple of MMOs, and in all of them I played mainly healers, so I was little sad to see the "trinity" go but i am also excited to try something new.
In guild wars 2 I am mostly drawn to elementalist, I always liked classes with lots of options and so far, ele seems to have the most :D. I noticed that he even has some few healing skills, so I thought that I might be able to play healer after all.
However, I watched a few videos and while I understand that they don't want strong heals which can keep group up indefinately, I think they went a little overboard. If we look at staff water attunement, those heals seem to heal for less than 10% of your life in their duration. In fact, they don't seem to be worth casting.
So what do you think, will these heals be useful or are they just way too weak? Maybe with some points in water line they might be better but I still don't see them as force to be reckoned with, in my opinion, they should be able to heal at least 30% of life.
Welcome to the forum Poplik
(I have re-named the thread title to be more precise to what you want to know)
To see the "trinity go" is a very good thing in my opinion and that's what you have to keep in mind when you look at professions in Guild Wars 2: There is no dedicated "healer", "tank" & "damage dealer" in this game. As all classes have a fixed healing slot and the ability to "rezz" fallen allies (it is called revive & you can even rally out of that downed state alone by defeating a foe), the classic healer is not needed. Almost all professions have a trait line that offers direct healing or similar support. The Elementalist has Water Magic for that.
You observed correctly, the healing skills of the staff (Geyser & Healing Rain) don't fill up a complete health globe. The dedicated healing slot is much better suited for that. The emphasis lies on the "support" component. If you drop a Geyser on a non-moving ally in melee, he will be able to kill his foe easier, as he might not have to trigger his healing skill during the exchange of blows. Therefore he can dispose of the enemy.
Another thing is the ability to apply boons by swapping attunements (especially the Water Magic line), which grant a constant regeneration to allies and yourself.
Will the Elementalist profession be for you?
That depends on your preferred play style. The skills of the Elementalist are pretty much "locked in range", but you can change attunements towards different roles depending on the situation. If you like to plan ahead and set up encounters, the Engineer might be a better class, as he sets up his healing and support turrets where the fight will take place. The Guardian has to observe his allies, so he can see when to drop protective barriers or sacrifice his virtues for the benefit of his friends.
Take a look at the sticky "Introduction to the profession" thread for a small insight on the Elementalist.
Thanks Gorani for answer, and also what seems to be the best class forum here :D.
I already have pretty good idea about what each class, and mainly ele, does from beta footage and your sum ups.
I was originaly thinking about engineer, but they just don't appeal to me visually.
Also, I knew that there will be no dedicated healers, my issue was, that while pursuing this, it seems to me they made all heals apart from your own healing skill so weak, that it's basicaly useless.
edit: for example you wrote about using this on my ally, so he doesn't have to use his heal. But my geyser will be so weak, that he will have to use his heal anyway, and it just feels I am better off helping him by killing his target, or aiding him in other way.
You will be able to both heal him and support him as the fight is going down. On a wild presumption here, I'm going to assume that once you place your heal on your team-mate, you can also throw some damage/debuff at the enemy, and together you're going to make quick work of the target - quicker that if you were just healing and he was just attacking.
Much like GW1, GW2 appears to favour damage mitigation - stopping the damage from landing, over just soaking up the damage or healing through it. It's more pro-active than reactive, and I think you will find the ability to support your allies in more ways than just healing very rewarding.
I was very critical of the decision to exclude dedicated healers (I quite like playing healer in most games too), but I've come to see that actually, it's probably going to work out just fine. There's plenty to do, and more variety than just filling up redbars/redglobes on recharge. Also, don't forget there will probably be traits that increase your healing strength (at least... I'm sure I saw something along those lines).
One of my problems is that so far it was hard to test how much difference "numbers" really mean in actual game play. Only a few more trial round of beta will show that.
e.g. My beta Elementalist from March (see the youtube video on the GWOnlinenet channel or GWOnline TV) got kicked down from lvl 18 to 15, which meant a reduction of total health point by 300 or about 15%. My vitality attribute got scaled down by around 15% too from 189 to 158. As each trait point you can add will add +10 to vitality you could, at least mathematically, equalize that downgrade with just 3 trait points (out of a possible 30 points). If compassion works similar (as it is liked to Water Magic), your healing should increase also.
That's a lot of "theory crafting", but I expect the trait points to make a difference. People playing the last beta, when they played PvE, did not have a lot of trait points available, even less Major traits.
You will be able to both heal him and support him as the fight is going down. On a wild presumption here, I'm going to assume that once you place your heal on your team-mate, you can also throw some damage/debuff at the enemy, and together you're going to make quick work of the target - quicker that if you were just healing and he was just attacking.
Also, don't forget there will probably be traits that increase your healing strength (at least... I'm sure I saw something along those lines).
Vulnerability is a condition that is very prominent in the Water magic line. Vapor Blade (Dagger Main-hand) was able to stack six times if you hit continuously. In the beta, each stack reduced the armour level by 50 points. This would mean my beta Ele with her OK armour, fitting her level (AL => 280), would be reduced to zero!
There are no traits in the Water Magic line, that increase baseline heals (= gives your higher numbers), but quite a few that add condition removal and regeneration boon.
Maleficia
15-04-2012, 18:37
Much like GW1, GW2 appears to favour damage mitigation - stopping the damage from landing, over just soaking up the damage or healing through it. It's more pro-active than reactive, and I think you will find the ability to support your allies in more ways than just healing very rewarding.
^This.
I, too, mainly played healers in MMOs. I loved helping out my team and being supportive. Though, with all of the interviews, gameplay footage, and articles I've been reading, I quickly realized: what I thought was support was actually reliance. Yes, I was helping my team, but on the terms dictated by the game. Without a tank to gain aggro and take damage; without a healer to keep that health up; without the dps to down the boss before he enraged, you were left with NOTHING. This is the reason it's called the trinity: all elements were not just important, but required.
I say, if you were there as a healer to support your team and to aid them in engaging in difficult content, GW2 will not let you down. Every class can offer support through boons, damage mitigation, and kiting so that everyone can do a little bit of everything and support one another, not simply rely.
aceofspadesjr
16-04-2012, 03:16
I'm sorry but I don't mean to be rude. If you love the "holy trinity" play style and you love to be a healer, then I don't think guild wars 2 is able to feed your hunger for such needs. Try playing WoW or Aion, they are one of the better MMO's out there with a solid "holy trinity system". I mean, why force yourself to play a beautiful game if you don't appreciate what the game has for you.
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I wrote an article on healing in GW2 after trying the game, I think it might be of interest to you.
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/comments/playing-healer-in-a-healer-less-game
Basically, healing is less important than in other games, yes, but more in the sense that you can function as a group without one. You can still be a healer and be an asset to the group. Also, even as a healer you'll be expected to do damage. Water does not just heal you know, it also damages and slows foes.
I'm sorry but I don't mean to be rude. If you love the "holy trinity" play style and you love to be a healer, then I don't think guild wars 2 is able to feed your hunger for such needs. Try playing WoW or Aion, they are one of the better MMO's out there with a solid "holy trinity system". I mean, why force yourself to play a beautiful game if you don't appreciate what the game has for you.
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While I do like playing healer, I don't really NEED to play it, I am ok with any support character. And if that's not possible hey, I might try to do some damage :D. I want to play guild wars because of it's PvP, mainly WvW. It finaly looks like something little similar to DAoC, which I think still has unrivaled PvP content.
So far, my biggest concern with GW2 is when I look at some dungeons, it's kind of a mess. And on paper, when you have healing, tanking and DPS and you remove healing and tanking... that seems to leave you with DPS. And it kind of looks that way to me, people are taking turns at getting hit and the little support they have seems to be used to survive long enough to throw the "hot potato" (aggro) to the next guy. And I am really concerned how this will translate to PvP.
However mind you, these are my impression from beta videos, played by people who spent maybe two day in game, I surely don't want to draw any conclusions, after all, I already prepurchased the game and hopefuly will be able to see for myself in upcoming betas :D
aceofspadesjr
16-04-2012, 08:14
Since everyone can heal and support and dps. I assume that if someone can heal for 10% then 5 man group would be able to pop a 50% heal when needed. Support works the same way when 1 player can cc, the rest can stack too! (:
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And on paper, when you have healing, tanking and DPS and you remove healing and tanking... that seems to leave you with DPS.
They seem to have redistributed the roles rather than nuke them. I think they probably decided that for a healing role to be optional, they needed a dedicated healing slot, and a way for healers to do damage etc. That way, you can bring a healing role and that will work, or you can go without one and that works too.
The usual problem is that in most games, you are forced to bring healer and tank because otherwise your team has no chance.
I assume that if someone can heal for 10% then 5 man group would be able to pop a 50% heal when needed.
Keep in mind that I had quite a few heal-oriented skills that I could use on allies on my engineer bar, and I didn't have much time playing it. I likely could have made a quite complete support bar, especially with traits. That means that if one skill heals for 10%, you can cast a few in a row to save an ally. I often popped a few heals in a row to help someone before going back to a damage role.
Keep in mind, most of the people currently recording themselves playing the dungeons are not terribly familiar with the game, and are sort of still noodling around trying to work out what goes where and how to use it.
What will happen, once people have a little confidence in themselves and an understanding of the game mechanics, is that characters will employ methods to stop damage from landing (rather than healing through it as already mentioned). For example, Guardians will drops bubbles and defensive 'walls' which a monster cannot attack through, Necromancers might apply debuffs that make the attacks a lot weaker, Elementalist might snare the monster in place so it cannot get to people to attack them, and so on. It will require a more focused attention span - the skills will need to be used at the correct time, and if they aren't, then maybe whoever is too close to the monster will have to judge when to doge-roll out of the way when a massive attack is about to land.
It really is more inspired by action games over mmorpgs in that respect. Reflexes, field awareness and good timing are what will win out, rather than trying to ensure everyone is standing in the right place at the right time and cycling through their skills on recharge. Tactics will have to be implemented on the fly and be adaptive to the situation - there probably simply will not be a guaranteed way of doing it, other than learning from mistakes and playing mindfully.
During my beta hours in March nobody ever asked for a special build, weapon or game style. People learned to adapt quickly to the current situation, because people started to support each other.
e.g. A hammer warrior was fighting some Sons of Svanir and I dropped a Geyser on the spot where his enemies stood, as they did not move a lot. As he could see my back line support, he was playing more aggressively, as he knew he could execute his attack chains without having to look at his health globe. Once the group was done he typed "good support" in local. People kind of got the feeling on how to use what support skills, e.g. two Rangers trying to revive fallen NPCs were successful, because they had the time necessary for the task, because my Healing Rain kept up their health while they revived.
But back on the original question
People playing Lvl80 PvP characters in the next Beta event for some time will probably get a glimpse of how good a concentration on "healing" compared to other types of damage mitigation really is, when traits and buffed PvP items make a difference. My prediction from PvE game play so far is, that any well played support is equally useful for your own and the allies survival.
Keep in mind that a water ele will be more useful if she uses skills from other elements as well, as the strong skills (which are usually situational) tend to have longer recharges, and you can go around that somewhat by swapping elements.
Likewise, staying in elixir gun for the engineer was not the best way to go about it imo, and swapping to grenades or guns while my heals recharged seemed a better way to go.
Fluffball
16-04-2012, 22:44
Keep in mind, most of the people currently recording themselves playing the dungeons are not terribly familiar with the game, and are sort of still noodling around trying to work out what goes where and how to use it.
This.
Poplik, check out this (http://www.gameinformer.com/games/guild_wars_2/b/pc/archive/2012/04/13/guild-wars-2-video-preview.aspx) video to see the devs playing the game properly. It's all about preventing damage. There is also some PvP at the end.
It's all about preventing damage.
People have been so concerned over the weak heals of the guardian and water ele that the strong protects of the guardian and earth ele are going unnoticed. There aren't many skills for healing your allies, but there is a metric crapton of shields, auras, protection boons, etc. That looks like a pretty strong hint to me that preventing damage is going to be much more key to gameplay than repairing it afterwards.
The Totalbiscuit video of a group struggling through Ascalon Catacombs in explorable mode is also a good clue. Time after time he remarks that "not getting hit" is the key to survival because just about everything can one- or two-shot you. He's focusing on the need to keep moving and dodging, but it looked like some good protection support would have helped enormously. I wasn't seeing much of that happening.
Good point, BrettM... but my experience with guardian suggests that while protting may also be important, a lot of those prots don't last long at all. Bubbles were short duration in my opinion. The shield buff lasts only for one hit. I think the emphasis has been shifted from someone else keeping you alive, to you having to keep yourself alive.
Heals and prots and all that is still important, but it won't save noobs who stand in the fire anymore.
True. However, if something is able to one-shot you, then having a shield that prevents that one hit is a lot more valuable than a heal after the fact, since a downed or defeated player can't be healed.
Prots are generally more efficient than heals, but imo that's partly because prots are also generally harder to use than heals. I know I wasted my share of prots on people who didn't need it in GW1, and overhealed a lot less often.
Also, some prots can be bypassed, in which case heals would be preferred.
----
Not to debate, rather to just say that each has its pros and cons... and it's generally best to have a bit of both in the team.
Fluffball
18-04-2012, 23:12
I know I wasted my share of prots on people who didn't need it in GW1, and overhealed a lot less often.
I don't know if a prot can ever be considered wasted. Even if there is no effect, the person is still protected against the possibility of damage, which could potentially come at any random moment. In GW1 having RoF on you meant you were safe if the enemy AI decided to drop a fireball on your neighbor. I mean if there is someone under attack and you prot the guy looting corpses, that's just playing badly, more than a wasted prot.
But that's just semantics and totally off topic for GW2. Carry on.
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