How to Make a Healer FUN | Guild Wars 2 Specter Retrospective 

I just started playing and I picked up the necromancer, I really like the idea of being a healer but since I'm new I don't know how to find a group. I decided to put some of the talent points I gots so far into the minions tree to make me feel like I have friends 😢

The new heal Specter is good, but the awkwardness of using it in instanced content is still there. Offhand dagger lets you stay stacked with the group but doesn't provide a lot of heal. Offhand pistol shadowsteps you away from the group if you make the first shot targeted at enemy. What you are supposed to do is targetting an ally for the first shot, then switch target to enemy to deal damage. You technically can target allies in the entire fight and deal damage through Dark Sentry trait, Venom skills, Well of Corruption and Dagger Storms - all of which are damage sources that don't require targeting an enemy, but in clutch fights like Fractal CMs, every bit of damage counts. And then if you're also providing Alacrity, the Shroud autoattack skill is gonna automatically pick an enemy, so that breaks your ally-targeting rotation. Where the new heal Specter really shines is in WvW group fights. Target an ally in the group the entire fight and still get kill credits thanks to Dark Sentry trait and the revamped reward system that grants credits to even pure healing builds like heal Scrapper.

Thanks for sharing this! I enjoy your candid thoughts about boons (Quickness/Alacrity). Anet has put themselves into a corner - the whole meta revolves around using boons, but I don't think they know how to balance them with all classes. It feels like they're just shooting balance changes from the hip, and hoping it works out. I'd love to see you create an in-depth video on the subject of boons and what to do with them.

Started playing it last week and I'm having a blast in strikes and meta events^^ I can finally play a healer and it's super fun :)

Both Druid and Tempest staffs have ally targeting and both have indirect ally targeting with great flexible utility and reactive gameplay

Oh lordy, tackle Support Vindi!

I was like, who is this cause this video is so enjoyable. I scrolled down and saw it was you and said "Of course it's enjoyable, it's KROOF!!!"

Hey KROOF! Another great video as always. You've peaked my interest in playing thief which I didn't think would ever happen. I don't have time to make and play new professions dammit... xD

Great vid Kroof!! I think I'll have to gear another alt now... or maybe wait until legendary OW armor? In any case, I'd really like you tackling a Heal Scourge weapon redesign, since that's where I think Scourge c(and Necro in general, of course) could get some more direct healing abilities. Thanks for your hard work!

Unpopular opinion or not, I really like how specter plays right now and has become my main healing character. I miss the rez on siphon or the possibility to grant quickness to one person only with scepter 3 as I enjoyed doing some content with a friend of mine. We had those 5 seconds in shroud where we stacked up that trait to give heals based on our remaining shroud meter, but we did nothing during those seconds. Now we finally can use this downtime to provide alacrity, then leave shroud to heal. And it's never wasted heals even if we spam it, as it grants barrier if allies are full life. So now using shroud often is not at all a problem and should be done. It is okay, now, to me at least. Also protects you if you get hit, nice to be greedy sometimes and keep the shroud for yourself haha! I enjoy the mechanic as it is now, especially with the positive effect on shroud skills on multiple allies with the trait. I like the shroud and leave shroud dynamic, I also like how you use your shroud to heal allies, kinda like sacrificing self sustain to help others, kind of a sacrificial gameplay.

Thanks for this, so many professions i've tried and loved because of your insights!

thanks for this Explanations .. my english is bad so may i ask for that build in all?

Every alac/quickness class except for harbinger and mechanist:man these boon changes are quite clunky, inconsistent and downright unreasonable. Harbinger and mechanist: yeah unreasonable..... 👀

5:10 this annoys me with the 2nd scepter skill too. I wish we had a DPS reason to use it since the animation is so nice, like if it increased the damage of your next 3rd skill.

Once Heal Scrapper gets Mace I'll be playing it since its gonna be mostly camping med kit.

Just remove alacrity and quickness. Best thing for the game at this point.

whats that scepter skin pls :)

Are Healers boring? Depends! Join me on my ramble or just skip. What makes a build fun or boring? a Fun build is something that is flexible and reactive while being challenging and good. Heal Alac Mechanist (HAM) is boring class because most of the time you will just spam Mace 2 and nothing else. Your only decisions is when you need to heal and if you need to heal you can use barrier signet, mortar kit 5 to shield 44, elixirt gun 5 and Med kit abilities. You can also condition cleanse the party with Med kit 3 and Elixir Gun 3+5 Other than that you pretty much are afk bot spamming mace 2 when commands are on auto-cast. Heal Quickness Firebrand (HFB) is fun class because as you have a lot of flexibility and reactive gameplay with the choice of when to heal how much to heal how much to heal and other decisions including how to deal damage and what gear to run. It is not as strong as it used to be but it is still one of the Meta Healers. Heal Alac Tempet (HAT) is probably the most flexible build in the game but it comes with the cost that you can't have all that choice unlike Firebrand. You can choose to do more damage or heal more or give better boons or bring more reviving or invest full on condition cleansing? What do you want to do is up to you and there are multiple different ways to handling situations. The FUN comes from reactive gameplay and ability to adjust the build to fit the needs of the group. 🤤 HAT Build variations: Condition Cleansing? Fire 321, Water 322, Tempest 332 using Dagger/Horn and all souths. You share auras you get and any time you give aura you condition cleanse. You also condition cleanse when you attune to water and dodging removes burning and chill. Finishing overload, using souths or few weapon skills become condition cleansing on this build 👍 extremely good when you know how to play this build but you lose some healing, some boons and reviving in order to condition cleanse. Full heal? Arcane 311, Water 223, Tempest 232 using Staff and you camp water. Alacrity uptime is 95% with Vigor and Regen with access to some other boons. You also have best revives using Glyph of Renewal with this setup 👍 as you can use F to revive people dropping a reviving Geyser 20s cooldown and your staff 3 is 1200 range 16s reviving Geyser and Glyph of Renewal is 600 range 72s best reviving ability in the game if you know how to use it and is reactive and what it does depends on element 😏 so chancing to Earth to revive 3 or Air to pull the target when you revive while over healing the party is fun 🤤 Works best with Herald extending the boons by 10% to get you to 100% alac and giving proteciton. Best Boons? Arcane 311, Water 223, Tempest 232 using Dagger/Horn allows you to permanently give 25might, Alacrity, Regeneration, Protection, Regeneration, Vigor, Swiftness and access to Aegis and Stability and you share you fury but don't generate your own fury while extending all boons by 10% paired with Herald is super good as it also extends all boons by 10% with 600 ranged boons. -Air could be used for better CC and to give Fury if no one is giving Fury but you might lose protection uptime, you lose reviving well from F reviving and your dodge no longer heals in water. -Earth could be used to lower damage taken on self while giving easier protection but you lose reviving well from F reviving and your dodge no longer heals in water. You can also run mix of these 🤔 Using the "Full Heal" you can overload Fire to give 25might and enter Earth to give Protection and Air to give Swiftness and Staff Earth 33 gives Stability 😁 but when you overload Fire and tip to Earth & Air you can't use Water Healing skills -> The gameplay becomes Reactive and you decided if you want to upkeep Boons or camp Healing based on the situation going on 🤤 but your Might will be limited to 180 range 😱 so people better stack up for boons. Horn Fire 4 shares your might 600 range which is why Dagger/Horn is best boons 😉 But you will miss out Staff's healing potential and double reviving well. If you run raid trining you can just camp water tempest in order to be able to range revive with Staff 3 and Glyph of Renewal and pair that with any Scrapper and they too can use Function Gyro to revive people with 20s cooldown which is fun. Firebrand, Druid and Scourge can also revive in Raid Training so don't sweat about not running Tempest 😂 It is just one of the many options you have. HAT is probably the most fun healer I have played and I'm Tempest lover and Bias towards the Heal Tempest.

The game keeps nerfing thief, im not bully any further expansions for this reason

Honestly. I cannot stand how they butchered some specs to give apac or quickness. Specifically scourge. Scourge used to be the king of resurrections, now it barely can do that. It sucks. I wish they'd either do away with alac and quick or just put it on top of how specs work normally. I also think healers having alac and supports having quick is stupid.

i really enjoy your videos but excuse me, i had this question in my mind for long time, i dont wanna be rude, are you a trans?