Building a Better Healer

I enjoy the healer role, but play a healer exclusively in PvE—please consider that this is not PvP if you have any suggestions. The reason I am posting is that I suspect I could have more effective skills but I do not know how to determine this other than, ‘gee, this seems to work pretty well.’ Any advice would be great!

I always take the following 5 skills. I have played with a lot of other combinations, but can never tell if they work any better so I usually end up with these staples.

Party Healing Skills
Dwayna’s Kiss
Orison of Healing
Healing Seed

Self Healing Skill
Healing Touch

Ressurect Skill
Rebirth

Notes on above: I use Orison and Dwayna’s as main party heals. When I start getting attacked, I use Healing Touch and Orison to keep me alive. I always end up with Rebirth because of the teleportation aspect of the skill: it has saved my party on occasion because I could pull them out of danger. Healing Seed seems to work really well, but I am not always sure: supposedly it was changed a while back?

Utility Healing Skill
Heal Party

I usually add this as a sixth. It is an energy hog but gives me some utility that has been incredibly helpful in the past. The range is huge and this gives me some flexibility. I miss this skill when it is not in my bar. This brings me to energy management, which is vital when I use this skill occasionally.

Energy Management
Mesmer: Inspired Hex and Channeling
Necromancer: Offering of Blood

I alternate between Mesmer and Necromancer secondaries. I have tried many ways to manage energy with the Mesmer with different degrees of success. The big issue for me comes down to focus: I find that skills requiring me to target an enemy are inconvenient and even dangerous for my healing duties. So I like spells that let me keep party targets like Channeling and Inspired Hex. With Mesmer I can choose a Monk elite to play with (Healing Hands, Word of Healing). Offering of Blood is nice for when I change to Necromancer and I never seem to miss the Monk elite much.

Monk/Mesmer: 14 Healing, 13 Divine Favor (Major Healing, Minor Divine Favor)
Monk/Necromancer: 12 Healing, 12 Divine Favor, 10 Blood (Major Divine Favor, Minor Healing)

Attributes okay? Can anyone help me make this more effective? Thank you.

That is pretty close to what I use, and I've tried mo/el, mo/me and mo/ne and have stuck with /ne. I use:

Healing 13
Divine 12
Blood 9
Prot = any leftovers

Orisons
Dwaynas
Heal other
Healing Touch
Mend ailment / heal party / healing seed
Well of blood
Offering of blood
Rez

Since I'm sinking 9 points into Blood I want to get more out of it than just OoB and the well is a good area heal. If there are enemy necros raising minions, like the dwarves in Thunderhead, if you hit Well right when a critter dies you will get the well before they get the bone fiend raised and rob them of the corpse.

I like to have Heal Other for the big heals when needed, but just like you try to use Orisons and Dwaynas most. Mend ailment is good to remove conditions from the warriors as they are worthless if blind.

What my build lacks is a good defense, so it is self-healing and running for my life when focused on. Too many rangers or bone fiends make life hard as they often focus on me it seems.

Defense is a huge issue for me as well. Usually I am okay, but there are missions that I am constantly focused on healing myself, just to survive. And if I get the slightest death penalty, staying alive becomes a huge hassle.

Great idea on Well of Blood! I will play with that some as well; are there any other Necromancer healing spells to try? I just looked and at 10 Blood it is a 16 second +4 Health Regeneration; not too shabby. I will see how it plays out.

Thank you for the reply

When I go pure healer, I tend to go with the following build:

Divine 13
Healing 14

The spells I usually take are:
1) Vigerous Spirit
2) Healing Seed
3) Variable (sprint, Heal Area, Divine Healing, Healing Breeze)
4) Heal Other
5) Orison of Healing
6) Dwayna's Kiss
7) Spell Breaker or Word of Healing
8) Rebirth

This build is predicated on a simple principle: I won't do anything that will draw aggro to myself. If I do, I either pick play myself out of it or just suck up the damage. Also, energy is rarely a problem when working with a smart group. So I skip energy management and am just more judicious in casting my spells.

Vigerous Spirit is often overlooked, but can counter DoT spells in PvE and is a wonderful spell to use on a barrage ranger. Cast and forget on your support people.

Healing Seed is a Warrior's best friend. Combined with high Healing and a good staff (Yakslapper is fine), you can usually keep your warriors going with a spell only every 30 seconds.

My variable slot depends on the group and location. Sprint as a M/W is good for PUG's where people might be stupid. Heal Area is good if you're with a Minion Master. Breeze for areas with lots of DoT spells.

I tend to use Word of Healing less and less nowadays when I'm with an experienced group in PvE. Spell Breaker is much more effective. Cast vigerous spirit and then Spell Breaker on a warrior and let them run in and draw aggro. All of the baddies will waste most of their energy trying to cast spells and will resort to simple attacks. Healing seed is then good enough to keep the warriors standing.

No monk has enough energy to keep a stupid party alive; one that doesn't understand how to manage aggro. Therefore I take small healing spells and count on the party to be intelligent. Heal Other is rarely used, and then only to counter spike damage.

Your build looks good. The only advice is to stick with your general plan and change up one or two spells depending on the circumstances. Also, if you're having energy problems, then pay more attention to when you cast spells. Cast less of them on people who don't need them (or are stupid and energy sinks), and you'll find your energy rarely drops below 25.

Hope this helps a bit. The best Monk build doesn't exist. It depends on the person, the team, and the circumstances.

If ever I am using a Heal Party spell...which is rare. I will use Divine Healing...it heals much better then Heal Party....doesn't have the range, however it recharges quicker too.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/skill/221-divine-healing

Ginny, your build looks fine...if you're really confidant in that you don't think anyone will die in your party, just replace Rebirth with Holy Viel as a failsafe for Hex Removal...in regards to you keeping yourself alive when you're focused on, a Warder, or Protection Monk or Lina :P would help you with that, since you're a pure healer....also, you can always switch things around by bringing Heal Other or Word of Healing rather than Healing Seed and even play around with Infuse Health just so you won't be bored.

One last tidbit:
I know you might not have means, but the general rule of thumb is to not run with Major Runes...it's either all Minors or 1 Superior Rune...so I would go Sup Healing or Sup Divine Favor depending on your build...or all Minors.

Very similar to what I use, though depending on the area im in, I may add healing breeze, especially in areas of DoT mobs. If you're worried about defense, bring a Mark of Protection as an elite. The disabling of prot spells wont affect you since you're a healer and a just pump any left over attributes into protection.

Oh and healing seed is a good spell when the warrior knows what hes doing but it really shines during these Sorrows Furnace keg runs

I can't seem to get any efficiency out of Healing Seed with my Monk/Mesmer.

In theory it looks great for healing the melee frontline, but in practice I rarely see the +XX blue text that indicates any healing being done.

I know you're asking for a "better HEALER" but have you tried something like a boon/prot? You can effectly heal a party while still addressing the situations happening to your party (i.e. conditions/hexes etc.)

Energy management - regardless of PvE or PvP is typically a cruical aspect (especially when ppl over aggro etc.) and you hit it on the head with OoB.

so with that said - you might want to consider:

15 DF (11 +1/+3)
11 Prot (10 +1)
10 Blood

Reversal of Foturne
Guardian
Mend Ailment
Smite hex/ Holy veil (depends on how comfortable you are with applying/removing veil)
Divine Boon
Contemplation of Purity (self heal/ removal of conditions & hexes)
OoB
Rebirth (or other utility skill)

It gives you the chance to deal with a wide array of problems while still healing your party in the process.

just my suggestion


elk

For PvE monking I've found that at lower level mobs you can heal over thier damage and at higher level mobs vigorous spirit and healing seed just doesn't do enough, so I just leave them out.

I run Healing Breeze, Word of Healing, Heal Other, Orison, Healing Touch, Heal Party, Mend Ailment, Rebirth.

Basically just spam that Word of Healing and get Breeze on early. Heal Other and Heal Party are last resorts. Energy is never a problem either.

I don't know what you're doing wrong. If everyone is doing their job, the warriors are taking care of the enemy melee. Unless they don't even have forge armor, Healing Seed is waaay more than enough to keep them alive. Sometimes for fun I put Vigorous Spirit on everyone. That's when I'm feeling lazy.
Back in the day, before Healing Seed was balanced, I used to run healing/protection/divine, and team up with my brother. I'd bond everyone, and he'd keep a permanent seed on me. Then I'd run up to the tanks, and seed the one taking the most hits. The screen would look like this.


+30+25+30+30+30+25+30+30+25+30+30+30+30+25+25+30+2 5+30+25+30+30+30



Good times. As for not getting Healing Seed to work, you need to make sure that your target is actually getting hit by physical attacks. For one, if they're a stance tank, Healing Seed won't do much.

I hate playing a monk and devoting my elite to energy management, but I've been messing with a nice build that Ensign put up:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0&postcount=14

ive had good luck with glyph of lesser nrg + heal party in a tightspot

Quote: Originally Posted by ecirbaf

this is my standard build when entering FoW and most of the explorable areas:

16 healing, 10 divine, 10 protection
dwayna's kiss, heal party, healing touch, healing hands [e], shielding hands, healing seed, holy veil, rebirth

notice there's no energy management skills. i found out that with paying attention and using skills correctly i don't have energy issues. dwayna's kiss is my primary healing skill. holy veil is used to remove hexes nd give extra healing with dwayna's. seed is used on a teammate that gets attacked first, HH and shielding hands on others and myself if i get attacked. healing touch is here for myself and a battery necro if there is one on the team.

the build works great in Fow. i seed the tank, he gets hexed, i put veil on him , (cast dwyna's kiss on him he's getting hammered) and take the veil off to remove the hex.

(slightly off topic) i really wish people knew how to control aggro better, it would make healing 90% easier (this means you casters who charge into enemies .\/.)

Quote: Originally Posted by cataphract

I'm up to Lion's Arch / Beetletun, with regards to skills. Level 18, Droknar's Armor, 38 energy.

This is the skillset I created that worked EXCEPTIONALLY well during the Villainy of Galrath quest: Heal Other, Healing Breeze, Heal Area, Signet of Devotion, Restore Life, Divine Boon, Glyph of Lesser Energy, and Heal Party.

Healing: 13
Divine: 11

Heal Other and Healing Breeze: self-explanatory
Heal Area: self-healing
Signet of Devotion: for when you don't need a 250 point heal
Restore Life: self-explanatory
Divine Boon: I think this is the deal breaker with this build
Glyph of Lesser Energy: for emergencies or to bam out a Heal Party
Heal Party: for emergencies or when you have a lull in the action and are lazy