Talk:Healer

Update

I've left out the ritualist for now, I haven't played them in a long time. I'll try to update it soon with ritualist skills added in, but if anyone else wants to do this, be my guest :) Btw, I hope this is a good update, lol -- Mini Me 13:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

CRPGS?

I've heard of JRPG, MMORPG, and RPG, but never CRPGS. What is it?

Cooperative role-playing games, although GW is technically a CORPG. Kokuou 21:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Paragon

Out of all the professions I have never met one to heal as well as the paragon... Give them more credit.Zeph 21:13, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Build?

I'm trying to setup a Healer Hero and I was wondering if I should stick with a Healing/Prot' Monk or building a Monk/Rit? RandwulfX 06:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Para?

Im sure that there are some descent paragon healers, but still... If I say GLF healer, I would be lynched when I accept a paragon. I think we should add them to the non standard professions, for the average gw-player (me :)) still sees monk and rit as the only true healer professions (not to speak of necro and ele "healers", which are basically monks/rits with different primary attributes).--Markisbeest 13:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree, they do fine to help against pressure damage, or can throw something on a player expected to take agro, but against a spike paragons don't cut the mustard... MrPaladin † talk 13:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Soldier198‎ vs. Steve1  ;)

"I believe you've missed the point on this article. We're supposed to gear it toward new players, and I'm pretty sure the entire article is written from the perspective of PvE. And as this page is essentially a player guide, we shouldn't assume the player has a hero comp similar to what we would use. Let's talk it out on the talk page if you disagrer"

I disagree. Please discuss.

Kidding. "We're supposed to gear it toward new players" I concur.

"and I'm pretty sure the entire article is written from the perspective of PvE" I have a different perspective: IMO the article is / should be written from both PvPvE perspectives. But that doesn't really matter that much.

"And as this page is essentially a player guide, we shouldn't assume the player has a hero comp similar to what we would use" I can live with that / good point. So my edits need to be brushed up. :)

Let's assume we have a new player. Telling him that "Should a party member's death then follow, the healer is typically expected to have brought with them a resurrection skill." is plain wrong. Both for PvP and PvE. Both for players and for heroes. Look at backline builds at PvXwiki. Look at the HA or GvG henchmen which are based on old players bars. Sorry, that info is wrong (exception: UA healers) and I will remove it, especially since the article is targeted at new players and they shouldn't get wrong info. Steve1 (talk) 11:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Monks don't res. Monks monk. - Infinite - talk 11:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

So, the perspective from which I am coming from regarding this article is that I am imagining the player is new to the game, is playing mostly PvE, and at some point will be playing with other players. PvP is such a different beast that it is worthy of a wholly separate article.

When I write that a healer is expected to bring a resurrection skill, I write it from the perspective that our player has grouped up with other players to complete some sort of content, maybe a mission or a quest. And in that situation, the healer is more or less always expected to have a resurrection skill, with maybe a backup res carried by a second backliner or someone else. Whenever I pug content, typically in the form of zquests nowadays, this stands true, and if someone dies without any member of the team having a resurrection skill, fingers are usually pointed at the backliners. And because heros do not have any expectations from a player, we shouldn't really be mentioning them in the article... Otherwise we may as well rewrite a lot of it.

So, I think the point on resurrection is valid when we look at it from that perspective. Soldier198 (talk) 15:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Except it's wrong. Guild Wars meta says resurrects go on optional slots in Mesmer bars in PvE (you're not going to not bring one to meaningful non-speedclear content, ever). Healers cannot afford three to six seconds off healing in the average PUG, because everyone else will be dead by the time you manage to resurrect one player. The only exception, as per Steve, is Unyielding Aura which will instantly resurrect a fallen party member within range and can be recast right away in most cases.

Healers in PvP are no different; they don't carry a res, they focus on preventing the need for one. Healers have one job and should never be expected to do a different job. Plenty of other party members are better suited to revive dead party members. - Infinite - talk 16:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

What Infinite said.

And I don't think PUGs have ever been the gold standard we should base guides on.

(If you find out that noone brought a rez after someone died, that means you folks didn't ping your bars prior to starting. That's even worse than PUGing 10 years ago. We're not basing guides on this.) Steve1 (talk) 16:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Infinite, I understand what you are saying, and I along with perhaps everyone else on this wiki follows the meta playstyle. But that exact line of thinking defeats the entire purpose of this article.

Meta tactics are advanced tactics. A team with multiple esurge heros, a BiP healer and an ST is an advanced team, capable of clearing endgame and hard mode content. I didn't create this article, but the format it follows is that of a new player guide. What's further is that if we write this article from the perspective of playing with heros, everything about it needs to be changed. In fact, we could even just get rid of the article in that case because you really shouldn't be playing as a healer while leading your hero comp to begin with. Speedclears also have no reason to be on this page because those too are advanced tactics.

This guide discusses things such as expectations and team roles. That's only valid if we are discussing playing with other players. Heros have no expectations of the player, and team roles fall rather flat when a team is composed of mostly Mesmer and Necromancer heros. Additionally, hero comps rarely use dedicated healers, as the healing duties are are generally split between utility characters such as a BiP.

On the PvP side of things, I added some adjustments to the page. Soldier198 (talk) 17:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know why there is a new players tag on this page (only saw it just now). This article should not be a guide on how to be a healer. It should only be describing the concept of a healer. And as is in the name; healers focus on healing. Also, in the team build you linked, the BiP is considered a dedicated healer. It is also a BiP, because that team tole takes literally one elite skill to run and the elite on a healer necro is optional, though that hero will never prioritise BiP over necessary heals.

The only new player articles that should be such are "guide to playing..." articles. Frankly I am not a strong supporter of those pages, either, but eh. - Infinite - talk 17:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I would agree that some bits of this article are weird and currently wrong. Nuts and bolts the article needs to cover:

• Surviving damage is either about being reactive (healing) or proactive (protection prayers, blocks). Realistically in general PvE with heroes, mitigation of damage is so prevalent you barely need any healing in hard mode with the right protection.
  • This article focusses on the healing aspect.
• PvE vs PvP have different requirements, and cast time matters a bit more in PvP where you're likely to be interrupted (this is the only reason Infuse Health is taken instead of Word of Healing).
• Spike/Party/Spot/Burst - these categories feel contrived and I've certainly never seen them ingame apart from Party and Spike (the latter being PvP only). I would rather see a two column table with prime examples of single target heals and party/area heals.
• Resurrection skills: Not brought by a healer in organized groups, due to the reasons stated above by Infinite, exception being for Unyielding Aura which has zero cast time.

-Chieftain Alex 17:51, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Well I'm seeing a different philosophy regarding this page, with most our disagreements stemming from the new player tag at the top of the page. You guys should establish a goal for what this page should provide, and then rewrite it from there. But also consider other pages that follow the same parameters. Look at the page for protection for example. Very little of that page is applicable to current day PvE standards, where protection is either guaranteed through a Soul Twister, an Imbagon, or some combination of both, enhanced further by the shutdown capabilities of domination magic Mesmers.

Calling UA the only resurrection skill used in PvE is also a rather narrow viewpoint. Sure, in speedclears you would never use anything except UA, but that's only one aspect of the game. Resurrection skills I've seen in the past month while pugging PvE content with full player comps include FoMF, Resurrection Chant, Renew Life, UA, We Will Return, and Signet of Return, and in all of these instances we successfully completed whatever content we were attempting to beat. Using blanket statements isn't really proper because it implies we have near omnipotent knowledge regarding how the game is played.

Well, I'm not going to debate any further. As this website is community driven, the community should decide the fate of this page, and as my voice is one against many, it seems the community has spoken. Soldier198 (talk) 18:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I think you also misinterpreted the mention of UA. I don't think anyone actually said it's the only res skill used in PvE (it's definitely not). It is however largely the only res skill used on player Monks these days. Other professions won't be using UA due to attribute line, but also those that carry a res skill will not be healers (they will be midliners). As for the tag and purpose of article(s), I re-raised an old argument today; [1]. You were right in your arguments considering the tag was up on the page, but also that tag should never have been on this page to begin with. I think moving forward we should go back to an article covering the actual mechanics of healers, instead of intending this article as a guide on how to be one. - Infinite - talk 18:18, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Alex, you bring infuse over WoH in order to catch spikes. And for many years, people brought both skills.

The rest has been covered by Alex and Infinite. Steve1 (talk) 19:31, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Well I've rewritten the article a fair bit. Any further comments? Chieftain Alex 19:51, 29 April 2020 (UTC)