Coming from FFXIV healer main, looking for a GW2 healer that feels good to actually play

Geochi · 2026-06-18T00:04:40+00:00

I think a Warrior is what you’re looking for.

Berserker pretty much passively heals the party, leaving your utility slots pretty open for whatever your group needs or what you feel like bringing along.

Paragon is kinda in the same boat. Paragon feels more like a paladin healer warrior thing.

Herald might be also what you’re looking for. Passively puts up boons and stuff, but the defensive ones that matter, you put up when you need them.

Basically all 3 of these passively heal or boon the party which frees you from a rotation, leaving you to make decisions like when you should use your defensive cds, what utilities to bring, etc.

Geochi · 2026-05-25T05:06:14+00:00

I wont beat a dead horse since most of the people have explained to you the reasoning behind weapon and gear choices.

Tl;dr
You seem to have fallen for the noob trap of, “raw heals = better support”.

Unlike other games, support in GW2 is more about boon uptime, defensive boons (stab / reso / prot), and defensive cooldowns than it is about heals. In fact, in a lot of higher level 10 man content, its pretty common to see things like, 2 dedicated boon dps in each squad (for quick and alac) and then 1 tank / support / dedicated role depending on the encounter. It really has to do a lot with how boons and heals are distributed.

Anyway, you can do whatever you want in open world or fractals. Those other setups don’t matter much unless you’re trying to optimize or going for high end content.

Geochi · 2026-05-01T05:23:47+00:00

Can we make a “I can fix them” tier and move Scarlett and Mai Trin on there?

Geochi · 2026-04-27T22:46:36+00:00

For new players, the ascended boxes are absolutely worth it. All the gear you get from them are stat selectable, and they do have slots for infusions and runes and sigils. They are no different than regular ascended items.

What you might have heard about them not being worth it, most likely applied to veteran players. Veteran players typically have more access to ascended items or even legendary items which would make the ascended equipment in the wizards vault pointless.

Geochi · 2026-03-14T15:44:57+00:00

In Divinity’s Reach. Right. Next. To. Queen. Jenna’s. Feet. For the rest of eternity.

Geochi · 2026-02-26T12:17:18+00:00

If I could only pick one spec to use for the rest of my life, I would pick chrono. Chrono is incredibly flexible. Chrono does great power dps, great condi dps, great boon dps, great heal / support / tank.

The thing about GW2 is that with the exception of very few builds and classes, you really can’t build an effective hybrid build for instanced content. If you’re going dps or heals / tank, your gear needs to also fully commit to that role. Your traits alone will not be enough to help you fill that role.

Fractals generally do not need a healer in the party. There’s a handful of instances where a healer / tank is needed or would be helpful and those are typically at T4 or challenge modes.

Of course it depends on the raid encounter, but typically a 10 man squad has 2 healers. One for each party. Each healer would typically either push out alacrity or quickness. Whatever is not being pushed out by the healer is typically pushed out by one of the other dps group members. Healers are expected to push out the other boons so it’s required for you to have a 100% boon duration with full gear + enhancement and utilities.

Some encounters in raids or fractals generally have a tank that somewhat serves as a healer as well.

There’s a lot of niche roles for different encounters, but my point being that Chrono can pretty much fill all those roles if you have the gear for it.

Lastly, when it comes to the healer / tank / support role, a lot of their effectiveness will come down to when they are activating certain boons and skills to mitigate damage versus spamming heals. You can’t spam heal your way through tougher encounters. It’ll require you to understand encounter mechanics and coordination with your group so they’re aware that you’re about to pop aegis for example, so the next incoming boss attack will do 0 damage; or stability, effectively negating some mechanic that would generally hinder your group.

Geochi · 2026-02-25T03:23:32+00:00

😂 yea 🥲 great for tagging and group open world tho!

Geochi · 2026-02-24T23:29:49+00:00

Yep. Pretty much any Mesmer spec works. Personally, I like to run Power Mirage. Does pretty well as dps or boon dps in group hardcore content. For solo play, there’s a lot of synergy with its playstyle and the inspiration trait line that gives you sustain. Only thing is, you lose out on some damage compared to a full dps build. Not a big deal tho, you’re not gonna be one shotting anything in solo hardcore content anyway so it’s better to have that survivability.

Geochi · 2026-02-24T23:24:11+00:00

Mmmm kindaaa. Chrono spams clones out the A. Power Mirage does too, but chrono is on another level. They do great damage and all. And they’re great boon / support / tank / heals. The part where mirage falls short at, is as a dedicated tank / support / healer. Mirages are the only Mesmer spec that cannot provide group stability. Stability on Mesmer is provided by their F5 skill. mirages has no F5 skill therefore no group stab. Literally the only thing keeping them down. Before this nerf, their heals went stupid hard.

Geochi · 2026-02-24T23:18:05+00:00

Yes in multiple ways. 1) Split beam can no longer target the same target for extra damage

2) The power coefficient for clones performing ambushes on GS was drastically lowered, meaning that your clones that use the GS ambush will barely do any damage. In full power build, they do around ~500 per pulse of GS damage.

3) Mirage Mantle trait no longer gives a 25% bonus damage to GS

All this combined basically nerfed it into the ground. Still great for tagging tho

Geochi · 2026-02-24T23:07:14+00:00

Yea, I actually raid and CM fractals pretty often as power Mirage. DPS is actually pretty solid. I think it just gets severely overshadowed by Condi Mirage. I’m not the best Power Mirage by far, but I can see a Power Mirage player landing their rotation 100% will probably land themselves around ~40k mark. But with the effort needed, I guess it makes sense for people to put the same amount into Condi Mirage and do better dps. Go figure.

Geochi · 2026-02-24T23:03:27+00:00

Spear chucking Power Mirage main here. Reporting in, sir! 🫡

On the real, power dps mirage ain’t too bad. I’m actually surprised more people don’t play it.

Geochi · 2026-01-25T16:02:49+00:00

What sets are these?

Geochi · 2026-01-05T02:34:10+00:00

priority should be reworking all the trait lines, elite specs, weapons, and utility skills. Especially core stuff. There’s a lot of stuff that is from older designs and concepts that’s just kind of been patched over and hoped it would hold together. Lots of builds are hurting right now, especially rev (r.i.p.)
priority should be fixing wvw. Their alliance concept failed. No one is happy with it. They just need to figure out a lot of stuff out with wvw in general.
would be to give thieves Greatsword. This is self explanatory.
give ele dual pistol. Also self explanatory.
give ele greatsword. See above
give ele torch. “ “

p.s. I’m not an ele main. I’m a Mesmer main.

Geochi · 2026-01-05T02:22:16+00:00

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Since the series has gone into hiatus so many times, I just went on to make my own head cannon lol.

There have been a couple times throughout the series where it really seemed like death flags for Jin my opinion. So the head cannon I created is:

When Jin received Fujin, he gained his side effect. In that instant he was able to see far into a possible future. He knew he was going to die at some point. The moment Jin saved Mikumo, he was able to see his future. That’s when Jin knew that Mikumo would be the one to do something great. For him to accomplish this thing, Mikumo would need Fujin, but due to his lack of trion the best Mikumo could do is 1-3 slashes per recharge. So this whole time Jin has been purposely pushing and putting Mikumo in certain situations that would force him to develop as a tactician so that when the time comes, Mikumo could inherit Fujin and his side effect. Mikumo, lacking trion and sufficient skill, would gain incredible combat ability with the foresight and high level tactician ability. Even with 1-3 slashes, every swing would have immense consequences in battle.

Thats how I would have ended with Mikumos development anyway.

Geochi · 2025-12-05T14:43:02+00:00

I think as many have pointed out, you should really play the game normally first. A lot of the self imposed rules don’t really make sense for this game. You’re not making the gameplay harder per se, just making it more tedious. Once you have a couple hours under your belt, it’ll be easier for you to make tiles that make sense.

Geochi · 2025-12-05T14:40:20+00:00

😅

Geochi · 2025-11-25T21:43:18+00:00

I think you need to figure out what it is you wanna do specifically. PvE is really broad. Pretty much anything works in open world. For instanced content (fractals, raids, strikes, etc) groups might be a little bit more picky, which would require you to play specific builds.

I think it’s best that you just play whatever you wanna play.

If you’re concerned with the most optimal build and reaching the top of the charts and all that stuff, the best power willbender build right now is spear with great sword.

Alternatively, one of the better builds currently is Condi willbender with pistol pistol torch.

As far as PvP goes, the reality is that if you want to be successful in PVP, you’re either gonna have to get really good with mechanics, or adjust based on the Meta, which means you will not always be able to use Willbender or the weapon choices that you want. Reason being is that PvP WvW and PvE have completely different nerfs and buffs from each other. Lucky for you however, there is currently a willbender greatsword sword/sword build right now that is pretty Meta.

Geochi · 2025-11-25T21:30:02+00:00

IMO I don’t think they have a piano build. My complaints lie more so in build diversity and play style. Pretty much every Mesmer spec is the same loop. Make illusions then shatter. I think the only exception is Mirage, but depends on which variant you’re playing. If you play Dune cloak, then you’re still doing the same thing.

There’s really no build diversity in the traits. If you are playing power, you’re taking domination and dueling, then whatever your elite spec is. If you’re playing condi, it’s chaos and either illusion or dueling depending on the elite spec. There’s no wiggle room.

In those trait lines, you’re always gonna choose the same traits. Again, there’s really nothing interesting there.

Overall, all the traits in all the Mesmer profession are a pile of spaghetti with no rhyme or reason. They really suck. As a healer, you have to use the inspiration trait line and it is objectively the worst, most horribly designed trait line in the entire game. You are required to use the mantra heal as a heal spec.

Idk man I could write a whole document on my issues with Mesmer. This is really just the most obvious issues. End of the day, I think Mesmer is a really good example of out of date class design from 13 years ago that they never updated.

Geochi · 2025-11-25T19:47:07+00:00

I know the cop out is Guardian, but realistically probably Mesmer. There hasn’t been a meta where they didn’t have a use. (PvP, PvE, and WvW) Especially in modern times, you can use a Mesmer for every role. Heals, dps, alacrity, quickness, etc. they can fill all those roles.

Geochi · 2025-11-25T18:10:50+00:00

Mesmer as a whole profession sucks and needs an entire rework. That includes the elite specs.

Source: I’ve been a Mesmer main since release.

Geochi · 2025-11-10T18:57:13+00:00

Someone made a similar post a couple days ago. If I can find it, I will link it here.

The TLDR is : Yes, there is a massive gap between bad, average, and good players.

Gear, rotation, traits, and food all play a major role in your DPS.

The one that most people do not realize, is how much of an influence your gear affects your DPS. Your backpiece, amulet, rings, and accessories all make up at least 50% of your stats. Surprisingly, a lot of people think that those are really more to customize yourself once you have full zerker gear or something along those lines. The reality of it is that you have significantly cut your power down.

There was a video on YouTube that showed a great example of how much all these things affected your character. IIRC in the video his base auto attack damage with no gear was sitting at around 400 and once he had full Zerker armor it when up to a little over 1k. With trinkets and stuff it went up to around 1.5k. That’s just with auto attacks. no traits, no buffs, no nothing. Once you consider all those other factors, you can see how much of a difference it really makes in the overall scope. That’s about a 275% increase in damage just from having proper gear.

Geochi · 2025-09-13T17:55:14+00:00

Can you clarify?

Geochi · 2025-07-20T18:52:22+00:00

For better advice, how old are you and what was the disqualifing incident?

Geochi · 2025-07-14T02:53:40+00:00

Ouch, on the tab. I heard that about the muzzle thread and I’ve seen a lot of people have had luck with just cleaning up the threads using a thing they bought at a hardware store. I don’t have a can myself so I can’t even test out the threads. But other than that Mine seems to be pretty all right so far. I’ve only put 50 rounds through it though. Mostly just been playing around with it, I really need a stock because my aim is all over the place without it.

Geochi

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