Pros and Cons of being a Healer

[Icemanfrost.5428]

I just tried healing on my hunter. Actually, it was a lot of fun. I like being able to help a group etc. What are some Pros and Cons of being a healer in a group?

[Kovac.4372]

pros

- you heal your buddies

 

cons

- you deal less damage?

[Icemanfrost.5428]

> @"Kovac.4372" said:

> pros

> - you heal your buddies

>

> cons

> - you deal less damage?

 

Do you also get blamed in groups when people die? and how many healers can be in one group?

[Lexi.1398]

pros:

-always accepted in groups, healer and boons almost always slots that fill last

 

cons:

-you have to rely on dps' competence because you can't do anything on your own

-everyone always blames healers and boons for aforementioned incompetent dps mistakes, which is just human nature really.

[Alimar.8760]

You can run as many healers as you want. Per team I think the limit is 50 unless you go outside of squads.

 

Outside of that stupid answer, it depends on what content you're doing. With no knowledge of what content you did it's hard to give good advice so here's some general stuff I've learned as a main healer since HoT.

 

There are plenty of healing builds out there. The main one is druid but there's also healing engineer, healing tempest, healing revenant. It's all about what you want to play. However I will probably always recommend druid healer because that is the staple in many metas and provides many versatile build changes within the bounds of healing. (Ex: Need more healing? Go Lingering Light trait. Need might? Go Grace of the Land.) etc etc.

 

Ultimately there's a lot of responsibility of healers. You gotta know the content or you drag everyone else down. You're their primary healing, so if you die, everyone dies. This is especially true in T4/CM Fractals and Raids. You gotta know the content enough to survive nearly 100% of the time. My personal experience running druid and many dps classes and supports is that generally druid is on the middling range of difficulty. But it is very easy to get a terrible druid. It tends to be obvious.

 

If healing is something you're interested in. Go to Snowcrows, or metabattle, or qt websites and look up guides on how to heal and the builds you should look into running. You don't need ascended gear right away and you can get away with exotic magi's if you're still experimenting. But the more "high end" tier gear is going to be expensive. This includes harriers and minstrel sets which are pretty expensive imo for a first timer.

 

Play what you want, how you want especially if your friends don't care. But as a healer you gotta pull your weight if you plan on doing anything with other groups that have a more discerning skill requirement.

[Icemanfrost.5428]

> @"Alimar.8760" said:

> You can run as many healers as you want. Per team I think the limit is 50 unless you go outside of squads.

>

> Outside of that stupid answer, it depends on what content you're doing. With no knowledge of what content you did it's hard to give good advice so here's some general stuff I've learned as a main healer since HoT.

>

> There are plenty of healing builds out there. The main one is druid but there's also healing engineer, healing tempest, healing revenant. It's all about what you want to play. However I will probably always recommend druid healer because that is the staple in many metas and provides many versatile build changes within the bounds of healing. (Ex: Need more healing? Go Lingering Light trait. Need might? Go Grace of the Land.) etc etc.

>

> Ultimately there's a lot of responsibility of healers. You gotta know the content or you drag everyone else down. You're their primary healing, so if you die, everyone dies. This is especially true in T4/CM Fractals and Raids. You gotta know the content enough to survive nearly 100% of the time. My personal experience running druid and many dps classes and supports is that generally druid is on the middling range of difficulty. But it is very easy to get a terrible druid. It tends to be obvious.

>

> If healing is something you're interested in. Go to Snowcrows, or metabattle, or qt websites and look up guides on how to heal and the builds you should look into running. You don't need ascended gear right away and you can get away with exotic magi's if you're still experimenting. But the more "high end" tier gear is going to be expensive. This includes harriers and minstrel sets which are pretty expensive imo for a first timer.

>

> Play what you want, how you want especially if your friends don't care. But as a healer you gotta pull your weight if you plan on doing anything with other groups that have a more discerning skill requirement.

 

I will try to play as a druid. I am really enjoying helping the team out as a hunter but druid sounds more powerful in healing. Mostly I just heal in PVP

[starlinvf.1358]

Pros:

You're required for every Raid

 

Cons:

You get blamed for every failure

You do less damage, so your ArcDPS rank is trash tier (and auto-kick for not having enough DPS)

Constantly having to babysit everyone else

Always a gamble on if your group will screw up or not, and theres nothing you can do about it

 

Points of Concern:

You called it a hunter..... which automatically means you already know all of this, but also don't understand how the dynamic in this game works. But ultimately moot, as the grand irony about Raid comp is how everyone is forced to carry everyone else, but you still pass/fail as a group. I guess you can call GW2 progressive in that raid teams are more likely to blame the DPS slots over the Healers when it comes to wipes/fails.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Icemanfrost.5428" said:

> I just tried healing on my hunter.

 

Hunter? Do you mean the Druid specialization on Ranger?

 

> @"Icemanfrost.5428" said:

> Do you also get blamed in groups when people die? and how many healers can be in one group?

 

What are we talking about? Regular PvE or raids? In regular PvE no one gets blamed for not providing enough healing as no one has set roles; you are free to play whatever you please. In raids, however, people monitor everybody's contribution to the team constellation closely and you might get scolded for not doing your job properly. ;)

[Rhyse.8179]

Pros: It's fun to have more to do then DPS; responding to players is more dynamic then responding to AI.

 

Cons: Very little of the game needs it, basically just raids and fracs, so you're going to essentially just be a gimped build in 90% of the content.

[zombyturtle.5980]

Never seen a healer get blamed for teams failure unless they were personally failing at their job. Never seen a druid kicked for lack of dps either. Sounds like people are just commenting general steryotypes of healers without actually experiencing organized content as a healer.

 

Pros would be you are always accepted into group content and can help make up for less experienced players mistakes.

 

Cons would be you are basically useless in open world content and in PVP you are reliant on your team having a brain and making use of your support effectively.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"zombyturtle.5980" said:

> Never seen a healer get blamed for teams failure unless they were personally failing at their job. Never seen a druid kicked for lack of dps either. Sounds like people are just commenting general steryotypes of healers without actually experiencing organized content as a healer.

>

> Pros would be you are always accepted into group content and can help make up for less experienced players mistakes.

>

> Cons would be you are basically useless in open world content and in PVP you are reliant on your team having a brain and making use of your support effectively.

 

To be fair, GW2's raid culture plays into the memes just as much as they defy them....... IE: People are different. I tried healer once in VG... and got ~~scolded~~ err I mean "constructive criticism" because I wasn't doing it right.

[Wolfb.7025]

> @"Rhyse.8179" said:

> Pros: It's fun to have more to do then DPS; responding to players is more dynamic then responding to AI.

>

> Cons: Very little of the game needs it, basically just raids and fracs, so you're going to essentially just be a kitten build in 90% of the content.

 

Agree.

 

> @"zombyturtle.5980" said:

> Never seen a healer get blamed for teams failure unless they were personally failing at their job. Never seen a druid kicked for lack of dps either. Sounds like people are just commenting general steryotypes of healers without actually experiencing organized content as a healer.

Also agree.

 

 

Pros: Its very rewarding, because the Support role is essential on any high level content and you feel like you're contributing a lot. I mean see how many T4 groups ask for a healer/chrono, compare the clear time between a group with said 2 support and one without them.

I'm a teamplayer, and I like to play the support role (as long as I like the character/class i'm playing), I dont want or need to get thanked because of it, just saying this because some players thinks Support is a thankless job.

 

Cons: If there is already 1 healer in a group you will be redundant and unnecessary, unlike dps oriented roles where there can be 3 on a party (or even all 5, i've done fracs T4 with full DPS comps, although not as fast as one group with with supports obviously).

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"zombyturtle.5980" said:

> Never seen a healer get blamed for teams failure unless they were personally failing at their job. Never seen a druid kicked for lack of dps either. Sounds like people are just commenting general steryotypes of healers without actually experiencing organized content as a healer.

>

> Pros would be you are always accepted into group content and can help make up for less experienced players mistakes.

>

> Cons would be you are basically useless in open world content and in PVP you are reliant on your team having a brain and making use of your support effectively.

 

Well not all open world. Bounty Trains are the only time I bother with bringing a healer because I just can't count on people keeping themselves alive for those ...

[zombyturtle.5980]

>

> To be fair, GW2's raid culture plays into the memes just as much as they defy them....... IE: People are different. I tried healer once in VG... and got ~~scolded~~ err I mean "constructive criticism" because I wasn't doing it right.

 

well no offense but maybe you just werent playing it correctly if it was your first time. healers have a pretty challenging job on vg compared to most bosses with controlling seekers and timing heals if using no green strat. unlike other games in gw2 99% of the time if you die in a raid its your own fault for failing a mechanic or not dodging so blaming the healer almost never happens.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"zombyturtle.5980" said:

> >

> > To be fair, GW2's raid culture plays into the memes just as much as they defy them....... IE: People are different. I tried healer once in VG... and got ~~scolded~~ err I mean "constructive criticism" because I wasn't doing it right.

>

> well no offense but maybe you just werent playing it correctly if it was your first time. healers have a pretty challenging job on vg compared to most bosses with controlling seekers and timing heals if using no green strat. unlike other games in gw2 99% of the time if you die in a raid its your own fault for failing a mechanic or not dodging so blaming the healer almost never happens.

 

No duh I was doing it wrong, because I had no practice. But I'm assuming because I didn't explicit state I was in a practice raid that you just assumed I was pugging it. I knew what I was getting into, the group knew what it was getting into, but no since no one else wanted to go Druid, I decided to take a crack at it.

 

But this exactly what I was pointing out earlier about technically everyone has to carry everyone, but the group is somehow convinced everything is personal performance, because thats the only method they know how to read. And the group comp has enough wiggle room to build a second safety net, but it rarely happens because groups typically optimize for DPS, and push it as the ideal solution to a smooth fight. But its perfectly ok for the group to call me out as a single point of failure, because optimal strategy demands I carry the group with my personal performance, despite the group being an aggregate. Savvy?

[Knighthonor.4061]

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > @"Icemanfrost.5428" said:

> > I just tried healing on my hunter.

>

> Hunter? Do you mean the Druid specialization on Ranger?

>

> > @"Icemanfrost.5428" said:

> > Do you also get blamed in groups when people die? and how many healers can be in one group?

>

> What are we talking about? Regular PvE or raids? In regular PvE no one gets blamed for not providing enough healing as no one has set roles; you are free to play whatever you please. In raids, however, people monitor everybody's contribution to the team constellation closely and you might get scolded for not doing your job properly. ;)

 

Hunter is one of the Ranger's meta build names..

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> Hunter is one of the Ranger's meta build names..

 

Ah, interesting. Sorry, only know the names from MetaBattle, and never seen a "hunter" there. ;)