Guild Wars 2

[Icepaw]

So... I kinda figured this needs to be it's own post as otherwise it'll be maybe unseen but does the stat of healing power effect healing one does to their self? I know it benefits healing of allies but does it also effect any healing the player's move does to their own character? Been noticing it on a lot of items lately and I've never really looked into it as I figured it was for healing others

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

So... I kinda figured this needs to be it's own post as otherwise it'll be maybe unseen but does the stat of healing power effect healing one does to their self? I know it benefits healing of allies but does it also effect any healing the player's move does to their own character? Been noticing it on a lot of items lately and I've never really looked into it as I figured it was for healing others

According to wiki...

Healing Power - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)

wiki.guildwars2.com

It improves healing performed by the character, so it does affect the healing you do to yourself too, including the passive healing from Warrior's Healing Signet, for example.

Almorra (my Guardian) has a set with stats of vitality, healing and toughness, which allows her to heal both herself and the teammates much better than her DPS set.

 

[Icepaw]

Ah alright so then the knives I got can still be of use as I didn't realize they got healing power on them and I can't change that. Honestly could just use the skin but not the weapon but... idk about that honestly. Thought was to make dual knives I think elementalist off set but... not really wanting to give up the sword and if I cave and do the EoD spec with them the sword gets replaced by hammer but we'll see. I mean I could honestly use them on my ranger as one elite spec uses daggers but I forget if they can dual wield them.. way they look it'd be fitting as well. On another note Vindicator is so odd as my dodge rolls become jump slams

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Rangers' daggers are mostly condition damage. Normally they can only use daggers off-hand, but with the Soulbeast elite specialization or with the expanded weapon from Secrets of the Obscure, they can use daggers main-hand too.

 

[Icepaw]

Condition damage huh? Hmm... neither of them got that...I may need to just use the image instead after all. Without revealing what they are, as they're from janthir, I'll just say that one of them has toughness, Vitality, and healing power as well as doing ice damage. The other has Precision, Vitality, Healing power... and they both look real nice but the thing is it's hard to figure out who to have use them as my thief was going to dual wield pistols and main rifle so unless I made another thief I couldn't have them use them. Although does virtuoso have some kind of healing whether it be self healing or not?

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

The classes that can use daggers (assuming you have the expanded weapon from Secrets of Obscure) are...

• Warrior : strike and critical damage
• Ranger : condition damage
• Thief : strike damage
• Elementalist : depends on the elements used
• Mesmer : strike damage
• Necromancer : strike damage, with health-siphon damage

So, daggers with healing power are best for Necromancer, as it works with the specialization "Blood Magic".

my thief was going to dual wield pistols and main rifle so unless I made another thief I couldn't have them use them

I would recommend keeping one weapon set as melee, in case the enemy has projectile-reflection, so either dual-pistol or rifle, don't try both. There has been an embarrassing number of times the enemy reflected ALL 8 SHOTS of my Thief's dual pistol back at me, to the point I just straight up killed myself by accident. It was not fun.

Although does virtuoso have some kind of healing whether it be self healing or not?

There's the trait "Jagged Mind" that heals you by 3% of the condition damage you do, and make your blade-based attacks cause bleeding on critical hits. I'm using axe/pistol, though I may try dagger to see how it goes...

 

[Icepaw]

daggers with healing power are best for Necromancer, as it works with the specialization "Blood Magic".

I'll need to remember to hold onto one of them for when my necromancer tries out the elite spec that uses a pistol then, I'd imagine bonus healing for that one might be wild. As for my thief I've got time to experiment but I'll most likely try to figure out some kind of melee set as the rifle doesn't fire as fast as the pistols or well not yet... nice i can try it early thanks to restrictions being lifted but it does feel like deadeye makes the rifle more fun. Going to need a close range set as rifle is better when they're not looking my way or charging at me. My Mesmer could always use daggers though later as it sounds like the healing boost would work well

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

The elite specialization for Necromancer that uses pistols is Harbinger, and I have a lot of fun with it. I pair it with the specializations Blood Magic and Curses, using the health-siphon damage/healing from Blood Magic with healing based on condition damage from Curses, and I can confidently solo a good number of champions. I use pistol or scepter for main hand, and only torch for off hand, for as much condition damage as I want ; scepter is slower, but a big middle finger for enemies that try to reflect projectiles because the attacks are auto-aim, hehe~

I don't have much experience with Thief, but I think staff or sword/dagger is a good pick. With expanded weapon, Thief can throw axes too, but I haven't really got the hang of it yet...

Almost all of Virtuoso's healing, utility and elite skills are attacks that do damage (and have the "blade" type), so I highly recommend using them to keep the DPS going. Trust me, the number is crazy. Pair them with the trait "Infinite Forge", so that you stock a blade every 3 seconds in combat, and you can quite literally spam F1 on the way too, it's absolutely nuts. Though, a quick tip for Virtuoso's F1-F5 skills...

• F1 : strike damage and can pierce through enemies, long range
• F2 : condition damage, long range
• F3 : crowd-control, long range
• F4 : make yourself invulnerable
• F5 : strike damage, around yourself (good for melee)

 

[Icepaw]

Nothing against it but I'm not even going to touch staff with my thief, they got staves from Daredevil and yeah idk about it. Already got them using sword and knife so I'll just make sure to keep that set around.

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Aye, well I only have one character for each profession (1 Warriro, 1 Guardian, 1 Revenant, etc) because I can freely change specializations, so I like to keep all of them prepared for whatever I feel like doing at the spur of the moment.

 

[Icepaw]

Right and I got one charr of every class but there's always that one elite spec that I just try to avoid (but some I may try on other characters but that's to be seen). Lets see for warrior I'm not touching spellbreaker as I can't see my warrior using daggers, Firebrand was the one I avoided on Guardian, Herald on Revenant (although I will plug the points in to master it as I want the shoulder item just didn't want to use a shield), for Necromancer I'm avoiding the one they got from PoF who's name escapes me sometimes, for Elementalist I think it was tempest I was avoiding, Avoiding druid for my ranger (idk if I'll grab the armor item from them or not but just not play the spec), holosmith for engineer (although I did make an asura engineer who's going to brave that one later on), I..think it was chronomancy for mesmer that I might avoid or... was it mirage...idk for sure with them I just know they were going to do Virtuoso at 80, Thief is avoiding Daredevil and not even going to bother with it as the helm is ugly as hell to me. Honestly only my engineer charr and guardian are the oens who may wear the armor of all three elite specs..although..I may change my mind on the firebrand one as it's a very weird helm (and I say this despite having my revenant wearing the renegade helm) although of the elite specs the necromancer shoulders that have fingers growing out of them is quite a look.

I made an Asura engineer mainly to experiment with other builds for engineer to help fine tune my charr engineer, and a Norn ranger that I made as I was curious about them.... sleep deprived mind one night wondering what all on them I could upsize besides height, The Norn is being used to help me test other loadouts as well but I'm not touching Sylvari or human as neither appeal to me. Norn are the only passable human like people..and that's because they turn into were creatures or can at one point

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Ironically, I find Spellbreaker to be my Warrior's best choice for doing damage ; the Full Counter can be great when I'm surrounded. I don't use daggers though, I use greatsword instead ; the burst skill is AOE and much faster than all other weapon.

And, although the armor pieces might be ugly as heck, I'd still fully train the specializations, because, who knows ? Maybe I'll suddenly come up with something to try in the spur of the moment. Not to mention, I don't think I have the time to play so many character ; 9 is already quite a lot for my time anyway.

Also, you only get the weapons and armors once anyway. Let's say, your charr Warrior is the first one to start training the Berserker elite specialization, then only that charr Warrior receives the torch ; anyone else that starts the specialization afterwards don't receive the torch. However, later on, your asura Warrior finishes the Berserker elite specialization, then only that asura Warrior receives the helmet ; anyone else that finishes the specialization afterwards don't receive the helmet.

The PoF elite specialization for Necromancer is Scourge. I'll admit, I'm not a fan of it either. Reaper (HoT) and Harbinger (EoD) are far better.

 

[Icepaw]

I recall hearing Scourge was themed after Joko or like having to do with using undeath and the sands against him or whatever...it just never appealed to me. Reaper sounded cool and it's fun to play and Harbinger has its appeal as well, more so after getting to know how Harbinger actually works. It..was still funny revenants can for one moment and one moment only channel Joko's power and you hear him freak out demanding to be released but all you do with it is bust open a door. As for the weapons and armor, yeah I know those are one time only and that's also why unless I'm going to use them I don't bind them. Got the beam sword waiting in my bank for the asura to hit 80 for example, as for armor I'm not sure I'd want the armor on others of the same class as there are other items that look nicer and the armor items are more like bragging rights for the one who got them first. Although I might..save the holosmith shoulders too for the asura as they clip like crazy with my other items on my charr and I don't feel like buying new sigils to replace any I got. Better to let the one actually being holo smith use the holosmith stuff. I'm not going to make a second character for all specs though... just ones I felt I needed an alt to experiment with. I've had my mesmer longer than my ranger and got an idea how to go about thief so only ranger and engineer I felt I needed some work fine tuning.

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

I ended up just letting my characters wear outfits rather than armor skins. Yeah the outfits are pretty limited, but I'm a bit low on transmutation charges, and I might change up my equipment to test out builds, so I'm just going to stick to one outfit for each of them. I'm only gonna change weapon skins, and that's only if the ones I'm using are too ugly for my taste. But, then again, more often than not I literally change them to the skin of the common-rarity weapons anyway (lol).

That, or the mithril skin (for metal weapons like hammers and swords), and equivalent tier for other weapons.