Hmmm. I could continously heal max damage at the training golem. As a Harrier Rifle Chrono. Though it was stressful and pretty close sometimes. Heal Mantra not for mantra heal but for clone generation was a twist I did not expect. Pretty clone starved.
Aura trait is useless without staff and there are no alternatives. Does Anet really expect us to swap back and forth? Nonsense, I’m not going to lock myself out of my heal skills for nine seconds.
Boons were fine. Regen, prot, alac or quick. All permanently up.
Got the rezz trait up as well. Might as well take Feedback since utilities are kind of free. Soooo…Feedback, MI, Aegis-well whatever it’s called?
If you’re playing heal mesmer instead of other healers, it’s for one of two reasons.
1: fun/roleplay, in which case carry on
2: because it does something actually better than just taking druid, scourge, firebrand, or herald. In Mesmer’s case, that’d likely be its insane mobility and 100% unique ten-man two-way Portal. It’d also be the only alac heal with a reflect skill that doesn’t suck ass to actually use on Matthias (I don’t think any other raid/strike boss cares about the difference between projectile negation and projectile reflection). So yeah, having at least one (ideally two) utility slots open is pretty vital to make heal mesmer not a complete joke / roleplay class. It’ll probably be automatically best in slot at Qadim since groups heavily rely on portals (plural) to maximize boss dps uptime, and will probably replace the heal mechanist + portalbitch virtuoso duo on HTCM. Ignoring the aura trait, having the build be rifle camp is excellent - it means you can have the other set be Mesmer’s excellent utility weapons. Focus for the best add-pull in the game, shield for one of the best channeled blocks, Pistol for turbo CC, Greatsword for the push on things like Rigom or KC’s orbs… Can you manage full Might on boon heal rifle chrono without taking Well of Action, or are you just relying on the rest of the subgroup to contribute some?
While I do not agree with your binary choice in the slightest, I did give it a test. 25 Might with rifle is no issue (not using Abstraction), Might with staff requires more than facerolling. 20+ WITH facerolling. Rifle gets smoother with Mirror Images, staff uses Mantra of Pain. Both use Mantra of Recovery for heal and clone generation. Rifle only uses one stack on recharge, staff spams the entire skill on cooldown.
I’d say that Rifle/Staff is probably going to be the support monster of choice. With staff you can trait Feedback for easy long-range rezzes and chill faceroll healspam, with rifle being your oh shit button for additional burst heal, ranged portal, extra CC. No focus then, but there’s always something.
Problem with rife is the spam of all skills on cooldown, that leaves very little room for a ranged portal or anything else. Also, much of rifle’s healing comes from 3, and that’s either boons OR burst heal.
Rifle has 0 damage potential, staff is condi. Rifle leaves two free utility slots, maybe three. Staff two. Maybe staff & mainhand/offhand. No ranged portal, but next to everything else. Even boon strip via Null Field or Disenchanter.
If one can live without focus, staff/rifle is probably the full package.
Edit: rifle has definitely more heal, I can withstand the ticks significantly longer. Staff has me die pretty fast. Having rifle either main heal or as a backup is what you want once your group takes 5k DPS damage because a timer has ran out or something.
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