Healer

A healer is a character who focuses on restoring and/or preventing health loss in others. Additionally, healers are expected to deal with other maladies affecting teammates, such as conditions and hexes.

As such, it's a basic concept not only in Guild Wars, but in most CRPGs.

Philosophy
Most combats come down to a contest between a team's ability to deal damage and their opponents' ability to heal or prevent it. Because winning usually requires a team to kill the opposing team, attempting to simply out-heal the opponents' damage will result in failure. In addition, sometimes it pays greater to protect key targets, rather than simply heal them. Thus, good healing relies on preventing damage as well as restoring health; allies can also help mitigate damage against themselves with techniques such as kiting and the use of defensive stances, and help to heal themselves via self heal skills.

Professions
Most commonly, healing is done via effects in the Restoration Magic (Ritualist) and Healing Prayers (Monk) lines, although some effects in Protection Prayers (Monk), Wind Prayers (Dervish) and Motivation (Paragon) also heal. All classes have additional self-only healing effects.

Tools
While there are no general equipment dedicated to this, there are a large number of skills dedicated to this purpose. Most Monk skills and almost all Restoration Magic skills fit here, making Ritualists and Monks seen as healer professions. Paragons have a large selection of suitable skills too, but can only fulfill some aspects of the role. Dervishes, and Rangers also have skills related to healing, but they are not considered healer professions. Mesmers don't have effective heals, but have good hex removal.

Techniques
Various healing skills and tactics have different advantages, and a well-designed backline should cover them all.


 * Spike healing skills (such as Heal Other) typically deliver poor efficiency (health gain per energy), but can heal a large amount very quickly and are used to catch spikes, making it the best choice when you expect intermittent, but massive damage.
 * Party healing skills (such as Heal Party) provide very good efficiency if many people in the party need healing, but are often slow and do not deliver much health to any one target. A team lacking this is vulnerable to party-wide pressure from degeneration or massive AoE.
 * Spot healing skills (such as Orison of Healing) provide efficient yet spammable healing on a single target, and are used in conjunction with prots to save single targets under sustained attack.
 * Burst healing skills (such as Seed of Life) utilize variable "burst effects"; ranging from "wasteful healing" to insanely "massive healing" in terms of cost-effectiveness.
 * Self-healing skills (such as Healing Touch) are the fastest and most cost-effective; but are primarily for restores Healer's health and cannot be spammed.

Keep in mind that many healing skills (such as Feast of Souls and Avatar of Dwayna) can fullfill at least 2 of the above functions; it is the healer's job to maximize their effectiveness.

List of staple healing skills

 * Monk
 * (also removes a hex)
 * (also removes a condition)
 * (also removes all conditions)
 * (also removes a condition)
 * Ritualist
 * (also removes a condition)
 * (also removes a condition)
 * (steals life)
 * (steals life)
 * (steals life)
 * Paragon
 * (usually used with Remedy Signet)//
 * (adrenaline shout for energy)
 * (echo--keep up with shouts)
 * (heals self)
 * note: the Paragon has few staple skills due to the fact that the build must be constructed to match the team it is playing in.
 * (also removes a condition)
 * (also removes a condition)
 * (steals life)
 * (steals life)
 * (steals life)
 * Paragon
 * (usually used with Remedy Signet)//
 * (adrenaline shout for energy)
 * (echo--keep up with shouts)
 * (heals self)
 * note: the Paragon has few staple skills due to the fact that the build must be constructed to match the team it is playing in.
 * (steals life)
 * Paragon
 * (usually used with Remedy Signet)//
 * (adrenaline shout for energy)
 * (echo--keep up with shouts)
 * (heals self)
 * note: the Paragon has few staple skills due to the fact that the build must be constructed to match the team it is playing in.
 * (heals self)
 * note: the Paragon has few staple skills due to the fact that the build must be constructed to match the team it is playing in.

Healer skills in nonstandard professions

 * Dervish
 * Ranger
 * Necromancer
 * Ranger
 * Necromancer
 * Ranger
 * Necromancer
 * Ranger
 * Necromancer
 * Necromancer