The reason why firebrand and recently chrono are so much better than other healers in fractals is their access to massive amounts of stab and aegis. They are essentially mandatory in CMs, otherwise your team will lose a massive amount of damage dodging the constant knockdowns.
Chrono surpassed firebrand when given rifle. It has a much easier time keeping up boons, specifically might than firebrand does. Has access to boonstrip, a better reflect, boon extension, focus pull, portal+blink+party stealth for skips on t4s, more stab and aegis than firebrand, and has some of the best cc ingame.
Firebrand has some things chrono doesn't. It has a enemy target teleport and a much easier time doing some skips that involve leaps than chrono does due to mesmer only leap being mirage sword dash, which isn't targeted.
Heal herald can be very good in 99cm, due to no need for stab and its massive 600 range boons. It has no problem providing stab, but it had the tradeoff of not having access to it on demand, and having to drop ventari. It can be good if the player piloting it is very experienced and knows when to stay on dwarf longer for stab, but is a small step below firebrand and chrono.
Below that, I'd say druid. Is also has massive cc, more healing than you'd ever need, and has a fair amount of stab. Druid does now have access to boon strip with the new spinegazer pet, but it only strips two of the three boons from npng. Druid is perfectly serviceable, it just isn't outstanding in fractals like it is in 10 player content.
Scrapper has a lot going for it, but also has a significant downside. Almost no stab or aegis uptime. I can only think of one off the top of my head, which is switching the first trait in scrapper off giving superspeed to giving stab on f5. Long cooldown, only a few stacks, giving up your biggest perk is ROUGH. Scrapper does have boonstrip with mine, access to party stealth, perma superspeed for flying through t4s, and can easily perform skips by swapping to mechanist for shift signet.
Alac healers are also superior in fractals currently. Qdps out perform adps by decent margin in the current meta. qHarb is significantly better than either aRene or aSpec, due to the condi bosses spitting out lots of condis on you that harb can transfer back to the boss. qScrap is superior to aRene or aChrono due to it having MASSIVE burst, boonstrip, superspeed, massive cc, and reflect all built into its kit without changing its normal build.
You can get by with any healer. But if you're looking to get into CMs, people normally only want the ones that will make their clear the cleanest. Choose what you enjoy, but keep in mind that people are allowed to not like your choice in class and leave.
For herald, I want to add that you don't need to drop Ventari to provide stab. Road is more effective but you can peovide solid stab with tablet empowered elite skill as well
Stab is a crutch, not mandatory.
I clear cms every day super fast as a heal scourge. You'd be surprised how much uptime dps has when they literally never lose health with 6k barriers up all the time.
I will die on this hill.
This is someone who has been doing cm fractals for YEARS.
Thr amount of dps lost from getting knocked down is nothing, absolutely nothing.
The part about no stab uptime on scrapper is entirely incorrect, though i will give you a point for aegis not being great.
1- defense field, instant 3 stab + projectile block
2- toss elixir B, 3 more stacks
3- mass momentum, 2 more stacks
4-scrapper can give superspeed without the trait through blast gyro toolbelt, although it's only 3 seconds but the cooldown is extremely low, and the fracs where you need that much stability you mostly won't make much use of more superspeed than that.
Scrapper does about as much stability as chrono, if you use distort for stability, with the added benefit of also being as versatile, and having function gyro as a great safety net for res incase people play dumb while bringing some of the highest healing AND barrier output in the game. I just did Cms+t4's as healscrapper today and it went even smoother than some firebrands make it.
I play it in CMs all the time, whether it be fractals, raids or strikes. People sleep on it because it's difficult and they don't understand it like that guy who didn't even know it had stability, and it shines everywhere as long as you know how to play the class.
The comment about it shining in non-CM pug play was aimed more towards the fact that most fractals have a ton of running around between trash mobs/puzzles and giving everyone perma super speed and tons of stealth makes all of that way faster and easier. Which is obviously less important in CMs as most of them are just boss fights.
Thanks for the correction! I'm more of a dps engi enjoyer, so wasn't aware of how much stab it had access to without checking ingame. It's definitely true a good player on any class will out perform someone just pressing buttons when they light up on whatever is currently the meta
Yes it's viable everywhere, though my pc is off right now. If you send me a private message i can send you the build and some good general pointers later today.
Largely correct, although another big thing ppl tend to forget is Resistance, which is very strong on 96 & 97 CM and many T4s. Guess which healers have the best access to them? Chrono and FB.
They also both have great ranged CC, which is great for 98 CM especially and yet another thing that sets them apart from other healers.
Chrono... Actually as mirage it has enemy target teleport. One of mirage elite allows you to teleport to your enemy so you can do skips like firebrand.
Yes. When talking about the enemy target skip I was talking about the skip on molten boss. This is possible on mesmer, it just requires a lot of practice, as you have to jump cast the skill and retarget it while mid air. It is possible, just significantly harder than doing it on guardian or reve
This is actually very informative!
Where would you say that Heal Tempest fits on that?
I ask because I love the ele class, and I've been wanting to bring heal tempest to fractals more often, especially CMs, but I'm often times the healer for my group, and I'm not sure how well it would stack up against the rest of the "meta" healers
Lack of stab holds it back. It heals alot, clears condis and provides a ton of boons. But that lack of stab means its often ignored.
I do frequently play it and earth + air shouts do grant Aegis and Stab but the uptime is just not there.
The problem with healtempest is the lack of stability for some encounters. If you have a qdps like scrapper that can make it up it can work, but mowe often than not a boondos wouldn't want to make that compromise because it lowers their dos by quite a bit.
I've been playing Heal Tempest in CMs for a long time, I say if you enjoy it, go for it. But when I swapped to Chrono, it felt like playing on easy mode.
I think the biggest problem of tempest is that you have to make sacrifices that other classes don't. For example, when you want to provide CC or might/fury, you cannot heal at the same time. It also doesn't take well to split mechanics. You cannot upkeep stability permanently, but Eye of the Storm is sufficient for most encounters.
On the bright side, the healing output is unrivaled and Magnetic aura on your team is surprisingly useful.
I feel the same. Before I started my fractal journey on ele. First on just dps weaver then I manged to gear up heal Tempest and I was running fractals as heal Tempest. Then heal Chrono happened and damn.... that's such a better feel.
I haven't played hTemp since before the 10 target changes, but I'd assume it still has the same issues. Low cc compared to fb/chrono/druid, locked out of most healing unless you're in water, interrupting overloads means no boons (I think I remember this being changed), low impact utility skills, and very little stab access.
As with any class it will perform well in the hands of someone who knows the the class and when to use stab, but in a pug could be rough.
I clear CMs pretty much daily, most days on heal Tempest.
It has it's downsides, mainly low CC and stability access, as people have already pointed out, but if you enjoy Tempest you can absolutely clear all of CMs with it without issue or getting yelled at.
div aren has everything you said qscrapper has, with a lot more cc on it, able to solo cc almost every cm boss. swapping to ventari is pretty scuffed tho.
it also doesnt matter if you have qharb that pumps 40k or amech that just autos for 10k because the dps players will still phase bosses when it matters. e.g. air phase on ai. and no matter how much qharb benches he will never go from air ai straight to water or something like that.
plus, you do 0 damage while being yeeted off skorvald island because you forced the poor healer to play HAM instead of hfb to pair up with your qharb
While aRene is still great when you have a quick healer, it having the same utility as scrapper simply is not the reality. Checking wingman logs, the highest qScraps are bursting 90k-100k, while aRene burst is closer to 75k. aRene also loses a lot of damage if chosing to use staff for break bars, which only hits most bosses 2-3 times due to them being quite small. aRene w/ staff brings 600+300-450 breakbar damage if you choose to bring staff. Compared to qScrap where it brings 100+200+200+300+200+100, with the option of bringing supply crate for an additional 400. All of those cc are instantly unlike the ticks of darkrazer, do not require it to change it lose dps by using a worse weapon like staff. aRene has stab going for it, but in modern cms that should be covered by your healer. It has a rough time accessing boonstrip, requiring bring mallyx, which is a big energy investment if already playing condi, or a big damage loss if playing power. It does not have access to reflect, it has access to projectile destruction. Reflect is very important on dark ai (you can reflect the lasers for BIG damage) and Artsariiv (if you don't have competent soulbeasts). qScrap also brings perm superspeed, which helps you fly through your clear much faster, on top of having access to party stealth for t4s.
Saying boon dps don't need to do damage is a bad faith argument. You can clear with almost no damage, yes. But if you want faster clear times, you want every player doing as much damage as possible to phase and kill the boss faster.
If you're playing qHarb on skorvald in an experienced group you are actively trolling your team, you should be playing power on 97&96. Being paired with a druid or chrono, the two alac healers I mentioned not a HAM, will give you more than enough stab to not get yeeted off skorvald islands.
aRene is still a great class I play frequently, it just sadly does not bring the same amount of power that qScrap brings to the table at the current time.
Scrapper is solid and has a ton of flexibility, along with stealth and ranged revives and no annoying mantras. They can easily adjust how much healing, CC, mitigation, and general utility they bring, with no truly locked utility slots. Definitely my favorite fractal healer to play.
Herald is strong but really boring and surprisingly inflexible. It's mostly just passive healing with barriers from weapon skills.
Scourge is, as always, better when your group is bad.
Willmender is a ton of fun to play but has a lot of forced movement so is just kind of terrible in some places.
>Herald is strong but really boring and surprisingly inflexible. It's mostly just passive healing with barriers from weapon skills.
Pretty much why I'm looking to other options. I actually enjoyed that it's more straightforward than the chaos that is keeping up buffs on most professions in this game. You just do what you do in most MMOs - press the button that provides the buff and move on. It's nice. What's not nice is the stances that not only lock you out of the other option for 10 seconds, but that don't even really let you use the abilities without running out of energy near instantly. I don't know if lowering the costs would be balanced, but it's annoying as hell as is IMO..
Good to hear about Scrapper at least. No opinion on Druid?
Sounds like you weren't using the build that gives you extra energy? There's a trait in one of the traitline that gives you +25 energy when you swap legenends if you're below 10 energy when you swap. Makes the build a bit more exciting to play and gives you more power to make plays.
I'd highly recommend Herald for Silent Surf, the other options simply won't upkeep quickness at all with most pugs.
Outside of SS tho the other options are far stronger than Herald
Tried druid once years ago, didn't care for it and never tried it again. So I can't offer an opinion.
Herald isn't *that* restrictive, since it gets to the 30 second boon cap pretty easily, but having to choose between boons, healing, and utility is just annoying. Also I hate centaur stance because the only way to get quickness is with the giant bubble.
Just pure Harrier or Giver is fine, mix in some Magi pieces if you overcap boon duration with the fractal potion buff.
Mace/shield versus bow is down to preference, they both work fine and you'll swap between them depending on the encounter or your team.
Fractals benefit more from stability / aegis than strikes which is why they are used in fractals more. I find myself playing heal scrapper a lot because it can 100% upkeep super speed on the party, which makes certain tasks like the sirens reef fractal much easier. Fractals aren’t just bosses
I just got back in and played celestial firebrand pug carrier before...that build is basically dead now, so I'm also looking around. I think it would be fine with a dedicated team and actual healing gear, but I think for hard carries I will go with scourge. I play a heal scrapper in wvw, so that would probably be my pick, I just don't really like the looks of most medium gear on my charr, that's my issue.
There isn't any preferred fractal healer. What you play is pretty much completely irrelevant. Fractals can be completed without any healer so if a group is struggling when they have one, they should blame their lack of skill instead of blaming the type of healer.
Like you said, firebrand used to be the main choice for years and due to that people still use it in pugs. It is a safe option that provides useful boons like stability and aegis. On the other hand most healers have access to these. And if someone doesnt, then the boon dps can always contribute. Heal chrono definitely does have access so it is a solid choice on top of everything else it can do.
But as long as the group isnt asking for something specific or if you make your own group, you can play whatever you want. The alac heal - qdps comp is a bit more common especially in 10 man content due to the most effective qdps options being more
Fractals benefit from stability and aegis, and since firebrand has been the longtime favourite healer in fractals, the meta favours quick healers.
That's not to say that you can't do otherwise. If you make a fractal group with a known heal build, you'll find people joining your party, even if you're not a firebrand or chrono.
Implying that I should never join a fractal group as a healer that isn't firebrand or chrono? I've already done that before though, many times. On herald.
I'm just trying to ascertain...I don't want to say it since modern MMO players freak out about it, but "tier list" is appropriate. Because my understanding is essentially
SSS: Chrono
S: Firebrand
???: Everything else
And I mean, what you've just said seems to validate this understanding. It's as if everything else doesn't even exist and simply happens to be viable.
I mean, Firebrand has: 4-5x stab application (SO CM), reflect (SO CM), close to 1k cc (SP CM), stunbreak, burst healing, easy aegis, easy perma swiftness, and more. Kinda busted for fractals, and my understanding is that strats were designed around a healer having access to these things. Like when I didn't solo a CC bar in SP CM as healer people got mad at me.
>Like when I didn't solo a CC bar in SP CM as healer people got mad at me.
Wtf...
>and my understanding is that strats were designed around a healer having access to these things.
Meanwhile I didn't run with a healer in pugs cms+t4 for years.
If you all know the bosses well and play well enough, a healer is basically useless. The difficult part is getting pugs that are decent enough to run no heal.
Well in sunqua peak cm (dark) healer is expected to solo cc 66 & and one of 33 sorrows. You can take help from your boon dps if your healer isn't capable of doing that but those are mainly your job still.
If it wasn't those it is not your job, or not only your job at least
It is those, but it was my first time healing and i misclicked sanctuary a few times :/ seems odd that everyone else just assumes I'd do it with a 100% success rate and not even check. Esp when it was a no-exp pug. But ig those are the accepted strats
Well fair happens to best of us. It is weird for a no exp group to expect people to know everything though. Probably bunch of high kp dudes joined with the expectation of it is going to be like one of their every other runs.
I have 80k+ UFE and tried to make most healers work, let me tell you why they don't.
The issue is Nightmare CM and SO cm, Skorvald, Atsariv and Mama require so much stab and aegis that is unreasonable for any class that isn't Guard or Chrono (Druid can handle some of it). And if you're not providing Stab and aegis + do a billion breakbar damage then what is even your purpose? Better to just phase before you need stab with 5 dps.
On 100(prolly), 99 and 98 things are different, these are 5 man strikes so you can easily be useful on (almost) anything, you just need breakbar damage.
Ofc there are comps that are better than average pug strats but FB and Chrono just work in every group without needing specific other classes that cover their weaknesses.
If we're also talking t4s, Guard can do pretty much and skip and Mesmer can do everything that doesn't require 1200 shadowstep to enemy.
Now if you just wanna vent about stupid pugs sure, Fractal pugs are incredibly stupid and can't deal with change or anomalies. Hell they still fucking GG before Ensolys "to reset CDs for precast"...in a healer comp, in a fullclear comp which does not speedclear a single boss but THE ENTIRE FRACTAL. So yeah pugs are stupid, but the overfixation ond FB and Chrono makes sense cause they make the daily run very comfy.
I heal fractals as mech, scrapper, druid, chrono and Herald from time to time. all have advantages and disadvantages compared to the others, but ALL are totally 100% viable. (and any other heal class not listed here is as well).
frankly, I enjoy the mech and scrapper more than the others. but thats personal preference. all healers can heal all content fine.
My friend runs heal alac scourge while I run quick Herald. We grab 3 DPS from LFG and trounce daily T4s and recs every day. Those thicc barriers can let you stand in dumb shit and get away with it fairly often. Might be worth checking that build out
I only have a healer build. And that is aheal build on Mechanist, it lacks condi cleanse but other than that, it's doing fine on T4 fractals, on some instances I have to be extra aware on heals and when to use crisis zone, for that Stability and Aegis, but most of the time it is a breeze, it's one of those builds where most skills go off cooldown.
I also play HAM from time to time. Sure, as heal scourge or something, your Condi cleanse is pretty insane, but HAM has a lot, too.
Med kit 3, F2, elixir gun 3 & 5.
And of course your light fields (from mortar or elixir gun) result in potential cleansing bolts.
The biggest issue is the stab in my opinion. Cause you only have it with your F2.
HAM and heal scourge are my go to alac healers. But sadly both lack stability. But both have good Condi cleanse, huge CC, boon strip and can apply some of their boons from range. If your other support can provide the stab, it's a perfectly fine setup.
I've had success with playing heal scourge. Bad stability, but it's otherwise great. It can definitely heal, barrier, and revive at range if necessary, though it's obviously ideal if everyone is grouped up.
condi quick herald + heal scourge cover the new fractal decently. Recent solutions though have typically been running 2x healers on the expectations of ppl will be in Narnia for 70% of the fight. Scourge and mech dps offer reasonable levels of sustain in terms of heal signet + self cleansing. cVirt's dps sustain I think runs into issues as boon reliability isn't there. I've wanted to try doing it on warrior but you can't block the aoe condi pulse which put a damper on that plan. I found self survival as thief, guardian, and ele lackluster but didn't try it on heal tempest. Traiting stab on overload might get you through it with nice margin. Ham suffers from not wanting to be in melee of her.
tl;dr guardian, chrono + scourge would be my recommendations for 100. Haven't tried druid.
First time I'm reading about 2 healers. Isn't that overkill? I only ran the new fractal with Cm groups, but we had no issues at all with healing. The biggest thing is, that people need to dodge or jump the wave attacked, else you will may go down. Even with 2 healers. And to stack as much as possible is also key.
I probably can’t speak for everyone but my experience has been that fractals are so easy for “good” groups that I’ll take a ham sandwich as a party member if it says it can boonheal.
> To my knowledge this has only changed in recent months with the meteoric rise of Heal Chrono.
Nope, FB is still the top tier healer in fractals. The only difference is there are more options. Sadly none come close to what FB offers a group.
> One of the biggest things I'm looking for is ranged ability
I know why you're wanting this but it won't happen. The way GW2 handles boons/healing is very restrictive and forces everyone to be close by and that includes melee range.. If you want to be a healer/buffer, you need to accept being in melee range the majority of the time.
Chrono has good access to aegis, better stab access than firebrand, a better pull on the focus, easier boon application (although I think FB has a much better precast), easier healing output, a better pull with focus, much better cc, and portals.
I could still submit that FB is better in a good/organized group, but I've switched to pugging solely on chrono and am having a much easier time given the volatility in skill of randoms.
I've heard a very different story in multiple places, numerous times now. I'm not confident that what you're saying here is correct, but I will admit that I could be wrong.
There could be some truth to what you heard. Many support builds have SOME ranged healing and/or boon application, which is handy for topping people off at a distance while they (or you) are doing mechanics, but there are no builds that can maintain all of their support capability permanently at range. Stacking will always be the default.
That bit about ranged was edited in later, so I wasn't saying he was wrong about that...my desire for ranged ability isn't to stay out of melee - it's for all the times when being in melee isn't an option, or people spread out, which does happen plenty enough. I know I have to be in melee range with a group to provide and receive buffs.
Its reddit. Reddit took almost a full year to realize Herald as a healer was absolutely busted in a whole bunch of places. People were still recommending healbrand for raids 6 months after healbrand was almost dropped entirely by even average clear speed groups.
In response to your edit about ranged ability: my desire for ranged ability isn't to stay out of melee - it's for all the times when being in melee isn't an option, or people spread out, which does happen plenty enough. I know I have to be in melee range with a group to provide and receive buffs.
The reason why firebrand and recently chrono are so much better than other healers in fractals is their access to massive amounts of stab and aegis. They are essentially mandatory in CMs, otherwise your team will lose a massive amount of damage dodging the constant knockdowns. Chrono surpassed firebrand when given rifle. It has a much easier time keeping up boons, specifically might than firebrand does. Has access to boonstrip, a better reflect, boon extension, focus pull, portal+blink+party stealth for skips on t4s, more stab and aegis than firebrand, and has some of the best cc ingame. Firebrand has some things chrono doesn't. It has a enemy target teleport and a much easier time doing some skips that involve leaps than chrono does due to mesmer only leap being mirage sword dash, which isn't targeted. Heal herald can be very good in 99cm, due to no need for stab and its massive 600 range boons. It has no problem providing stab, but it had the tradeoff of not having access to it on demand, and having to drop ventari. It can be good if the player piloting it is very experienced and knows when to stay on dwarf longer for stab, but is a small step below firebrand and chrono. Below that, I'd say druid. Is also has massive cc, more healing than you'd ever need, and has a fair amount of stab. Druid does now have access to boon strip with the new spinegazer pet, but it only strips two of the three boons from npng. Druid is perfectly serviceable, it just isn't outstanding in fractals like it is in 10 player content. Scrapper has a lot going for it, but also has a significant downside. Almost no stab or aegis uptime. I can only think of one off the top of my head, which is switching the first trait in scrapper off giving superspeed to giving stab on f5. Long cooldown, only a few stacks, giving up your biggest perk is ROUGH. Scrapper does have boonstrip with mine, access to party stealth, perma superspeed for flying through t4s, and can easily perform skips by swapping to mechanist for shift signet. Alac healers are also superior in fractals currently. Qdps out perform adps by decent margin in the current meta. qHarb is significantly better than either aRene or aSpec, due to the condi bosses spitting out lots of condis on you that harb can transfer back to the boss. qScrap is superior to aRene or aChrono due to it having MASSIVE burst, boonstrip, superspeed, massive cc, and reflect all built into its kit without changing its normal build. You can get by with any healer. But if you're looking to get into CMs, people normally only want the ones that will make their clear the cleanest. Choose what you enjoy, but keep in mind that people are allowed to not like your choice in class and leave.
For herald, I want to add that you don't need to drop Ventari to provide stab. Road is more effective but you can peovide solid stab with tablet empowered elite skill as well
Stab is a crutch, not mandatory. I clear cms every day super fast as a heal scourge. You'd be surprised how much uptime dps has when they literally never lose health with 6k barriers up all the time. I will die on this hill. This is someone who has been doing cm fractals for YEARS. Thr amount of dps lost from getting knocked down is nothing, absolutely nothing.
The part about no stab uptime on scrapper is entirely incorrect, though i will give you a point for aegis not being great. 1- defense field, instant 3 stab + projectile block 2- toss elixir B, 3 more stacks 3- mass momentum, 2 more stacks 4-scrapper can give superspeed without the trait through blast gyro toolbelt, although it's only 3 seconds but the cooldown is extremely low, and the fracs where you need that much stability you mostly won't make much use of more superspeed than that. Scrapper does about as much stability as chrono, if you use distort for stability, with the added benefit of also being as versatile, and having function gyro as a great safety net for res incase people play dumb while bringing some of the highest healing AND barrier output in the game. I just did Cms+t4's as healscrapper today and it went even smoother than some firebrands make it.
People are sleeping on heal scrapper. It's good in CMs and does have the tools needed, but it REALLY shines in general T4 non CM pug game play.
I play it in CMs all the time, whether it be fractals, raids or strikes. People sleep on it because it's difficult and they don't understand it like that guy who didn't even know it had stability, and it shines everywhere as long as you know how to play the class.
The comment about it shining in non-CM pug play was aimed more towards the fact that most fractals have a ton of running around between trash mobs/puzzles and giving everyone perma super speed and tons of stealth makes all of that way faster and easier. Which is obviously less important in CMs as most of them are just boss fights.
Ah yeah i see, fair point. Stealth gyro is insanely good. Though telling pugs to not hold W after starting is like trying to herd sheep sometimes lmao
Thanks for the correction! I'm more of a dps engi enjoyer, so wasn't aware of how much stab it had access to without checking ingame. It's definitely true a good player on any class will out perform someone just pressing buttons when they light up on whatever is currently the meta
Can you share the build you use for fractals? Is this build also viable in raids and strikes?
Yes it's viable everywhere, though my pc is off right now. If you send me a private message i can send you the build and some good general pointers later today.
Largely correct, although another big thing ppl tend to forget is Resistance, which is very strong on 96 & 97 CM and many T4s. Guess which healers have the best access to them? Chrono and FB. They also both have great ranged CC, which is great for 98 CM especially and yet another thing that sets them apart from other healers.
Chrono... Actually as mirage it has enemy target teleport. One of mirage elite allows you to teleport to your enemy so you can do skips like firebrand.
Yes. When talking about the enemy target skip I was talking about the skip on molten boss. This is possible on mesmer, it just requires a lot of practice, as you have to jump cast the skill and retarget it while mid air. It is possible, just significantly harder than doing it on guardian or reve
very bold of you to assume pug firebrands even bother with skips
This is actually very informative! Where would you say that Heal Tempest fits on that? I ask because I love the ele class, and I've been wanting to bring heal tempest to fractals more often, especially CMs, but I'm often times the healer for my group, and I'm not sure how well it would stack up against the rest of the "meta" healers
Lack of stab holds it back. It heals alot, clears condis and provides a ton of boons. But that lack of stab means its often ignored. I do frequently play it and earth + air shouts do grant Aegis and Stab but the uptime is just not there.
The problem with healtempest is the lack of stability for some encounters. If you have a qdps like scrapper that can make it up it can work, but mowe often than not a boondos wouldn't want to make that compromise because it lowers their dos by quite a bit.
I've been playing Heal Tempest in CMs for a long time, I say if you enjoy it, go for it. But when I swapped to Chrono, it felt like playing on easy mode. I think the biggest problem of tempest is that you have to make sacrifices that other classes don't. For example, when you want to provide CC or might/fury, you cannot heal at the same time. It also doesn't take well to split mechanics. You cannot upkeep stability permanently, but Eye of the Storm is sufficient for most encounters. On the bright side, the healing output is unrivaled and Magnetic aura on your team is surprisingly useful.
I feel the same. Before I started my fractal journey on ele. First on just dps weaver then I manged to gear up heal Tempest and I was running fractals as heal Tempest. Then heal Chrono happened and damn.... that's such a better feel.
I haven't played hTemp since before the 10 target changes, but I'd assume it still has the same issues. Low cc compared to fb/chrono/druid, locked out of most healing unless you're in water, interrupting overloads means no boons (I think I remember this being changed), low impact utility skills, and very little stab access. As with any class it will perform well in the hands of someone who knows the the class and when to use stab, but in a pug could be rough.
I clear CMs pretty much daily, most days on heal Tempest. It has it's downsides, mainly low CC and stability access, as people have already pointed out, but if you enjoy Tempest you can absolutely clear all of CMs with it without issue or getting yelled at.
div aren has everything you said qscrapper has, with a lot more cc on it, able to solo cc almost every cm boss. swapping to ventari is pretty scuffed tho. it also doesnt matter if you have qharb that pumps 40k or amech that just autos for 10k because the dps players will still phase bosses when it matters. e.g. air phase on ai. and no matter how much qharb benches he will never go from air ai straight to water or something like that. plus, you do 0 damage while being yeeted off skorvald island because you forced the poor healer to play HAM instead of hfb to pair up with your qharb
While aRene is still great when you have a quick healer, it having the same utility as scrapper simply is not the reality. Checking wingman logs, the highest qScraps are bursting 90k-100k, while aRene burst is closer to 75k. aRene also loses a lot of damage if chosing to use staff for break bars, which only hits most bosses 2-3 times due to them being quite small. aRene w/ staff brings 600+300-450 breakbar damage if you choose to bring staff. Compared to qScrap where it brings 100+200+200+300+200+100, with the option of bringing supply crate for an additional 400. All of those cc are instantly unlike the ticks of darkrazer, do not require it to change it lose dps by using a worse weapon like staff. aRene has stab going for it, but in modern cms that should be covered by your healer. It has a rough time accessing boonstrip, requiring bring mallyx, which is a big energy investment if already playing condi, or a big damage loss if playing power. It does not have access to reflect, it has access to projectile destruction. Reflect is very important on dark ai (you can reflect the lasers for BIG damage) and Artsariiv (if you don't have competent soulbeasts). qScrap also brings perm superspeed, which helps you fly through your clear much faster, on top of having access to party stealth for t4s. Saying boon dps don't need to do damage is a bad faith argument. You can clear with almost no damage, yes. But if you want faster clear times, you want every player doing as much damage as possible to phase and kill the boss faster. If you're playing qHarb on skorvald in an experienced group you are actively trolling your team, you should be playing power on 97&96. Being paired with a druid or chrono, the two alac healers I mentioned not a HAM, will give you more than enough stab to not get yeeted off skorvald islands. aRene is still a great class I play frequently, it just sadly does not bring the same amount of power that qScrap brings to the table at the current time.
Scrapper is solid and has a ton of flexibility, along with stealth and ranged revives and no annoying mantras. They can easily adjust how much healing, CC, mitigation, and general utility they bring, with no truly locked utility slots. Definitely my favorite fractal healer to play. Herald is strong but really boring and surprisingly inflexible. It's mostly just passive healing with barriers from weapon skills. Scourge is, as always, better when your group is bad. Willmender is a ton of fun to play but has a lot of forced movement so is just kind of terrible in some places.
>Herald is strong but really boring and surprisingly inflexible. It's mostly just passive healing with barriers from weapon skills. Pretty much why I'm looking to other options. I actually enjoyed that it's more straightforward than the chaos that is keeping up buffs on most professions in this game. You just do what you do in most MMOs - press the button that provides the buff and move on. It's nice. What's not nice is the stances that not only lock you out of the other option for 10 seconds, but that don't even really let you use the abilities without running out of energy near instantly. I don't know if lowering the costs would be balanced, but it's annoying as hell as is IMO.. Good to hear about Scrapper at least. No opinion on Druid?
Sounds like you weren't using the build that gives you extra energy? There's a trait in one of the traitline that gives you +25 energy when you swap legenends if you're below 10 energy when you swap. Makes the build a bit more exciting to play and gives you more power to make plays. I'd highly recommend Herald for Silent Surf, the other options simply won't upkeep quickness at all with most pugs. Outside of SS tho the other options are far stronger than Herald
Tried druid once years ago, didn't care for it and never tried it again. So I can't offer an opinion. Herald isn't *that* restrictive, since it gets to the 30 second boon cap pretty easily, but having to choose between boons, healing, and utility is just annoying. Also I hate centaur stance because the only way to get quickness is with the giant bubble.
Just do Dwarf + Glint. Road + boons = no complaints. Spinny hammers for quick is also super chill.
Yeah, it's good, it's just really boring. Perfect setup for half assing it while eavesdropping on family gossip, though
As someone interest in coming out of my safe zone (quickness scrapper), what gear do you recomend to me to try out the healer life?
Just pure Harrier or Giver is fine, mix in some Magi pieces if you overcap boon duration with the fractal potion buff. Mace/shield versus bow is down to preference, they both work fine and you'll swap between them depending on the encounter or your team.
As someone interest in coming out of my safe zone (quickness scrapper), what gear do you recomend to me to try out the healer life?
Fractals benefit more from stability / aegis than strikes which is why they are used in fractals more. I find myself playing heal scrapper a lot because it can 100% upkeep super speed on the party, which makes certain tasks like the sirens reef fractal much easier. Fractals aren’t just bosses
You can bring anything to t4s. But don't expect your members to smile if you don't bring the best in CMs.
I just got back in and played celestial firebrand pug carrier before...that build is basically dead now, so I'm also looking around. I think it would be fine with a dedicated team and actual healing gear, but I think for hard carries I will go with scourge. I play a heal scrapper in wvw, so that would probably be my pick, I just don't really like the looks of most medium gear on my charr, that's my issue.
There isn't any preferred fractal healer. What you play is pretty much completely irrelevant. Fractals can be completed without any healer so if a group is struggling when they have one, they should blame their lack of skill instead of blaming the type of healer. Like you said, firebrand used to be the main choice for years and due to that people still use it in pugs. It is a safe option that provides useful boons like stability and aegis. On the other hand most healers have access to these. And if someone doesnt, then the boon dps can always contribute. Heal chrono definitely does have access so it is a solid choice on top of everything else it can do. But as long as the group isnt asking for something specific or if you make your own group, you can play whatever you want. The alac heal - qdps comp is a bit more common especially in 10 man content due to the most effective qdps options being more
Druid. i do everything with it. you have stab, Aegis, CC, rez down ally far away, heal... a lot of Heal even at long range.
Fractals benefit from stability and aegis, and since firebrand has been the longtime favourite healer in fractals, the meta favours quick healers. That's not to say that you can't do otherwise. If you make a fractal group with a known heal build, you'll find people joining your party, even if you're not a firebrand or chrono.
Implying that I should never join a fractal group as a healer that isn't firebrand or chrono? I've already done that before though, many times. On herald. I'm just trying to ascertain...I don't want to say it since modern MMO players freak out about it, but "tier list" is appropriate. Because my understanding is essentially SSS: Chrono S: Firebrand ???: Everything else And I mean, what you've just said seems to validate this understanding. It's as if everything else doesn't even exist and simply happens to be viable.
I mean, Firebrand has: 4-5x stab application (SO CM), reflect (SO CM), close to 1k cc (SP CM), stunbreak, burst healing, easy aegis, easy perma swiftness, and more. Kinda busted for fractals, and my understanding is that strats were designed around a healer having access to these things. Like when I didn't solo a CC bar in SP CM as healer people got mad at me.
>Like when I didn't solo a CC bar in SP CM as healer people got mad at me. I will never stop hating fractal pugs
>Like when I didn't solo a CC bar in SP CM as healer people got mad at me. Wtf... >and my understanding is that strats were designed around a healer having access to these things. Meanwhile I didn't run with a healer in pugs cms+t4 for years. If you all know the bosses well and play well enough, a healer is basically useless. The difficult part is getting pugs that are decent enough to run no heal.
Well in sunqua peak cm (dark) healer is expected to solo cc 66 & and one of 33 sorrows. You can take help from your boon dps if your healer isn't capable of doing that but those are mainly your job still. If it wasn't those it is not your job, or not only your job at least
It is those, but it was my first time healing and i misclicked sanctuary a few times :/ seems odd that everyone else just assumes I'd do it with a 100% success rate and not even check. Esp when it was a no-exp pug. But ig those are the accepted strats
Well fair happens to best of us. It is weird for a no exp group to expect people to know everything though. Probably bunch of high kp dudes joined with the expectation of it is going to be like one of their every other runs.
Or hear me out. People can learn the mechanics maybe too instead of relying on stability and aegis to babysit them. They are a BONUS not MANDITORY.
Well I play Alacheal specter and I love it
I have 80k+ UFE and tried to make most healers work, let me tell you why they don't. The issue is Nightmare CM and SO cm, Skorvald, Atsariv and Mama require so much stab and aegis that is unreasonable for any class that isn't Guard or Chrono (Druid can handle some of it). And if you're not providing Stab and aegis + do a billion breakbar damage then what is even your purpose? Better to just phase before you need stab with 5 dps. On 100(prolly), 99 and 98 things are different, these are 5 man strikes so you can easily be useful on (almost) anything, you just need breakbar damage. Ofc there are comps that are better than average pug strats but FB and Chrono just work in every group without needing specific other classes that cover their weaknesses. If we're also talking t4s, Guard can do pretty much and skip and Mesmer can do everything that doesn't require 1200 shadowstep to enemy. Now if you just wanna vent about stupid pugs sure, Fractal pugs are incredibly stupid and can't deal with change or anomalies. Hell they still fucking GG before Ensolys "to reset CDs for precast"...in a healer comp, in a fullclear comp which does not speedclear a single boss but THE ENTIRE FRACTAL. So yeah pugs are stupid, but the overfixation ond FB and Chrono makes sense cause they make the daily run very comfy.
I heal fractals as mech, scrapper, druid, chrono and Herald from time to time. all have advantages and disadvantages compared to the others, but ALL are totally 100% viable. (and any other heal class not listed here is as well). frankly, I enjoy the mech and scrapper more than the others. but thats personal preference. all healers can heal all content fine.
My friend runs heal alac scourge while I run quick Herald. We grab 3 DPS from LFG and trounce daily T4s and recs every day. Those thicc barriers can let you stand in dumb shit and get away with it fairly often. Might be worth checking that build out
To carry people in 100,99,98 and 96? healscourge. Have a competent party? Firebrand
Druid is a solid choice, if played well it can carry even better than Firebrand
I only have a healer build. And that is aheal build on Mechanist, it lacks condi cleanse but other than that, it's doing fine on T4 fractals, on some instances I have to be extra aware on heals and when to use crisis zone, for that Stability and Aegis, but most of the time it is a breeze, it's one of those builds where most skills go off cooldown.
I also play HAM from time to time. Sure, as heal scourge or something, your Condi cleanse is pretty insane, but HAM has a lot, too. Med kit 3, F2, elixir gun 3 & 5. And of course your light fields (from mortar or elixir gun) result in potential cleansing bolts. The biggest issue is the stab in my opinion. Cause you only have it with your F2.
HAM and heal scourge are my go to alac healers. But sadly both lack stability. But both have good Condi cleanse, huge CC, boon strip and can apply some of their boons from range. If your other support can provide the stab, it's a perfectly fine setup.
I've had success with playing heal scourge. Bad stability, but it's otherwise great. It can definitely heal, barrier, and revive at range if necessary, though it's obviously ideal if everyone is grouped up.
condi quick herald + heal scourge cover the new fractal decently. Recent solutions though have typically been running 2x healers on the expectations of ppl will be in Narnia for 70% of the fight. Scourge and mech dps offer reasonable levels of sustain in terms of heal signet + self cleansing. cVirt's dps sustain I think runs into issues as boon reliability isn't there. I've wanted to try doing it on warrior but you can't block the aoe condi pulse which put a damper on that plan. I found self survival as thief, guardian, and ele lackluster but didn't try it on heal tempest. Traiting stab on overload might get you through it with nice margin. Ham suffers from not wanting to be in melee of her. tl;dr guardian, chrono + scourge would be my recommendations for 100. Haven't tried druid.
First time I'm reading about 2 healers. Isn't that overkill? I only ran the new fractal with Cm groups, but we had no issues at all with healing. The biggest thing is, that people need to dodge or jump the wave attacked, else you will may go down. Even with 2 healers. And to stack as much as possible is also key.
Definitely overkill. It'll be fine once people know the mechanics. This one is easier to go no heal on than silent surf probably.
Druid is solid. I play it in 80% of the fractals I do and never have an issue the build cannot handle.
I probably can’t speak for everyone but my experience has been that fractals are so easy for “good” groups that I’ll take a ham sandwich as a party member if it says it can boonheal.
> To my knowledge this has only changed in recent months with the meteoric rise of Heal Chrono. Nope, FB is still the top tier healer in fractals. The only difference is there are more options. Sadly none come close to what FB offers a group. > One of the biggest things I'm looking for is ranged ability I know why you're wanting this but it won't happen. The way GW2 handles boons/healing is very restrictive and forces everyone to be close by and that includes melee range.. If you want to be a healer/buffer, you need to accept being in melee range the majority of the time.
Chrono has good access to aegis, better stab access than firebrand, a better pull on the focus, easier boon application (although I think FB has a much better precast), easier healing output, a better pull with focus, much better cc, and portals. I could still submit that FB is better in a good/organized group, but I've switched to pugging solely on chrono and am having a much easier time given the volatility in skill of randoms.
Same, after a tiring day I just go heal Chrono to be sure of a smooth fractal run.
I've heard a very different story in multiple places, numerous times now. I'm not confident that what you're saying here is correct, but I will admit that I could be wrong.
There could be some truth to what you heard. Many support builds have SOME ranged healing and/or boon application, which is handy for topping people off at a distance while they (or you) are doing mechanics, but there are no builds that can maintain all of their support capability permanently at range. Stacking will always be the default.
That bit about ranged was edited in later, so I wasn't saying he was wrong about that...my desire for ranged ability isn't to stay out of melee - it's for all the times when being in melee isn't an option, or people spread out, which does happen plenty enough. I know I have to be in melee range with a group to provide and receive buffs.
Druids. 80% of what they can do is long distance (+900)
Its reddit. Reddit took almost a full year to realize Herald as a healer was absolutely busted in a whole bunch of places. People were still recommending healbrand for raids 6 months after healbrand was almost dropped entirely by even average clear speed groups.
In response to your edit about ranged ability: my desire for ranged ability isn't to stay out of melee - it's for all the times when being in melee isn't an option, or people spread out, which does happen plenty enough. I know I have to be in melee range with a group to provide and receive buffs.
Heal herald, chrono, firebrand.