Strange thought

Given the incompetence of AI (monks in particular) has the thought ever crossed anyone's mind to turn to the sturdier classes (besides the semi-obvious Paragon) as healing Heroes? As dumb as it sounds, I'm beginning to wonder how bad an idea it would be to take, say, a Ranger, and turn them into a ghetto healer. Obviously, the heals aren't going to be high caliber, but their defenses will be superior. I know it sounds like trying to turn a dumptruck into a dragster, but given the incompetent hero monk AI and the big flashing KILL ME signs the hench monks have over their heads, I wonder if it doesn't merit a little experimentation?

i think the low-quality heals would frustrate you.

a paragon or rit is prolly the only alternative. and they can do an awesome job at it.

Since GWen came out, I have been changing all of my heroes around to do various odd things. I like some, detest others more than I detest Lina's AI, but its a good plan. With 2 years waiting for GW2, its a good time to try completely crazy and whacky stuff with heroes. Just don't give them an elite that isn't in the skill line with the highest #! I gave Koss a strength-based elite, but he had a hammer skill of 16. He would NOT touch that strength elite. I slid in a hammer elite and he 'hammered' the mobs with it. Same deal with other heroes - odd!
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Storytelling by the Fire at Gunnar's Hold!

Eh, I've also ran with N/Rt and N/Mo healers in HM, and it did a -very- good job. Not the stuff I'd play myself, but it works .

Oh and BTW, not just the monks that have a "KILL ME!" mentality (referring to OP). I've seen Zhed run in a mob to hard-cast MS on a boss... just that the mob was about 20 enemies. Had a good laugh out of it, but at the same time, it's annoying. Countless times I've seen Vekk or Tahlkora take point...

I've had a go at setting up paragon heroes to be the primary healers of the party... It isn't all that bad, although as they don't quite have the same raw healing power as monks or ritualists I've had to bring along a protection monk for damage control. A communing rit could theoretically take the place of party protector, although I've yet to test that possibility's effectiveness in the field.

i think paramedic builds are great, but only as a support to a good healing setup.

One pug (me and my friend were bored) in Nundu Bay had no monks in its outpost and no one wanted me to bring a hero monk "because they're stupid". We had a guy bring Zhed to go E/Mo and heal us and the Mesmer offered to fill have his bar with healing skills. To top this off, Melonni was level 3.

Masters, one death, and it wasn't Melonni.

Amazing. Especially since Melonni has a terrible habit at any level of committing suicide-by-proxy in most serious engagements in my experience (she must be Catholic.)

Did Melonni's "owner" flag her somewhere out of harm's way or something?

Pretty neat trick! Especially since Melonni starts at 8th level...

How was it that you got her to lose five levels? Maybe I could run my characters back in time, and get that missing Survivor title!!

Try it. I think its more a problem in the AI than in the class though. One thing I do for my monk heroes is have them wear Survivor insignias (usually) and use only minor runes and +hp mods. They usually have more HP than anyone else, unless I am monking also, as I sometimes run a similar sort of setup. Helps take the heat off them. Mind you, it does not help them make any better choices.

Don't give your hero monks superior runes (except vigor), give them survivor insignias, give them weapons with +health. This basically ensures your monks are targetted after the rest of the henchmen in the group.

No, but wow we probably should have. He just set her to passive.

You're new here, aren't you?

Or, not use healing at all, and focus on monk protection, passive and active defense.

Turning paras into healers is a waste - they do others things they are made for.

But healing? No matter which class you use, they won't last long.

Or, just bring 8 warriors, give them mending and Healing Breeze, and you're all set.

Monk AI's aren't that bad, they just aren't flexible, so you have to find a build that suits their AI.

Tahlkora: Tahlkora is not a healing monk. 60% of the time when I hear someone talking about their monks failing they ping their monk builds and they have Tahlkora set as heal. I don't care if you think she's cute or just think Dunkoro is really ugly; Tahlkora fails hardcore at healing. Don't use her to heal. In fact, I have "Gift of Health" on my Tahlkora's otherwise active prot skill bar and even though I put it as skill #1, I'm still not sure if she ever even uses it. Tahlkora does not like the Healing Prayers.

Dunkoro: Dunkoro isn't that great. I think he does well with Healer's Boon but really nothing else other than that. Dunkoro will never use LoD correctly.

Ogden: Ogden will always use LoD correctly. Despite being an ugly Dwarf, he's a beautiful heal monk. Once you get Ogden, you should take all of your runes off Dunkoro, give them to Ogden, and never use Dunkoro again.

Seriously: Don't give Tahlkora a healer's build.

BONUS POST

Though for quite some time I have been successfully using a standard equation of 2 Hench monks, 2 Hero monks, 2 eles and 2 melee, I recently found this paragon support build that works pretty much exactly as described on it's PvXwiki site.

For those of you who don't like running 4 monks try out this para or some variation of it, it works nicely.

I wouldn't recommend 4 monks, unless you have a smite monk or something. Lots of healing seems good, but if you're losing damage then you're not killing quick enough so you need more healing. If your party has enough damage to kill stuff, then you won't need that much healing anyway. At most, I'd take one healer and 2 prot (para's and rits included). More than that and you're just drawing out the battles.

4 monks? my. not every class can be a healer (i'd like to see jora try), but many classes can support healing to a certain extent.

a) elementalists -> bring wards or high energy skills like aegis which is disabled and self-activated by players
b) rangers -> healing spring. pretty effective to heal the backline characters.
c) bring along a spirit or two if you have a rit. vital weapon works nicely as well. rest of skills can be channeling.
d) necro -> wells. or MM to diffuse the damage done to party.

etc etc

this doesn't detract much from the class's main job, but provide some sort of secondary healing to take some pressure off your monks. i've never much of a problem with 2 monks. all my hero monks are a mix of heal/ prot/ divine with a elite heal, although i usually won't bring more than 1 LOD since it does horribly against single target spike damage.

sums up thread ty gg

if you want ranger defense's on your healers, it's better to go Mo/R - so you still have the healing boost from devine favor and can give them the dodges.

honestly, i run 2 monks - one pure monk healer, and one Mo/El set protect, with wards against melee and harm. and i don't have any problems with them.

if you want to look at out of the box healing, set olias up as a blood healer... some of the skills to look at would be

[skill]blood bond[/skill][skill]order of the vampire[/skill][skill]well of blood[/skill]

also bring along [skill]awaken the blood[/skill] and i would also take [skill]strip enchantment[/skill] for enchant removal and self heal.

i'd still make his secondary monk and stack the rest with orsion of healing and healing breaze along with a hard res.... the bonus to a necro healer is that he'll gain energy with things die, so energy shouldn't be a problem for him (even though most heals are only 5e anyway and monks shouldn't have e problems unless their useing rebirth in the middle of fights).

useing major or supperior runes of blood and soul reaping will allow you to put more points in healing, and reduce how much health he sac's with the spells - but he'll be the first target in a fight with the lower health - so you will have to work out a ballence that works for you.

TheMoses, that build works extremely well, I use it too.

Was having problems with Tahlikora tonight, running protect. First time, not sure why. Serious enough to repeatedly get our party wiped.

H&H, I always take the General with the build linked in the post by TheMoses above, and Mhenlo and Lina hench monks. Solid as a rock, no problems.