So You Want To Play Support - The Ultimate Guild Wars 2 Support Guide

[@MuklukYoutube]

My 2nd channel: kzbin.info Guide on Boons: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hp_UfqKVf610n7s Thumbnail art by ko-fi.com/drewcake 0:00 Intro 0:51 Group Compositions 2:04 Boons 3:49 Your Priorities 6:44 When to Revive 7:51 Stability & Aegis 8:37 Learn Encounters 8:51 Was that your fault? 9:19 Different Ranges 9:59 Heal the One or the Many 10:51 Barrier vs Healing 11:36 Utility Skills/Traits 12:09 Gearing 13:02 Online Resources 14:04 Communication

[@Jmvars]

3:51 "There isn't a set rotation" **cries in Tempest**

[@xezzee]

Mean while me playing Water Staff Tempest with Quick Scrapper pressing F2 to overload Water while spamming eveyr other ability except Water Staff 4 ❣ ... because the resent buffs made this possible and all you give up pretty much is 25 Might so it pairs well with Quick Scrapper and Herald who can give the missing Might.

[@thorgrin7680]

right after that: you dont really need to do anything if they arent in immediate threat of dying. as a heal scourge, if i see them actively dying we are essentially screwed.

[@dezmodium]

New Player and this video has been more informative to me about endgame PvE than any other video I've seen. Really explains the important elements of how things work.

[@bridgetboyle687]

Reply to push engagement for the holy Algo Rhythm, bless its mystic calculations. Also I love that you have so many patrons I can’t see my name right off. Great group to be a part of. We need more peeps.

[@Chijiko]

All hail the mighty Al Go Rythm

[@nydeht1]

Al hail AlGo Rhythm

[@Chiaros]

> "But I'm a ranged DPS, I sit at range" - "Come here and I'll feed you buffs" > "Oooh, coming!"

[@MuklukYoutube]

😆Thanks!

[@aquapendulum]

An addition to revive rules: Heralds and Revenants can also semi-get away with doing revive duty due to the various ways they can continue healing during the revive action. Specters also get semi-get away with doing revive duty because their 900-range revive skills (scepter stealth attack and scepter/pistol skill 3) also heal nearby allies.

[@kaltaron1284]

On some raid bosses thief is one of the best revive classes. Being able to port downed people and giviing them health is pretty nice. Not cool if someone else rezzes thgem faster though.

[@peacefull25]

Love Fractalts at 1:00

[@MuklukYoutube]

Woopst

[@Nienna_Asyare]

XD that’st great lol

[@kaltaron1284]

Very good guide. Very good examples for all your points. When some "Billy" is supposed to stand outside the group it's usually called a kiter. You've mentioned Dhuum. Other examples are hand kiter at Deimos, bomb/fire kite at Sabetha, pylon kiter at Qadim 2 and boss kiter at Qadim 1. Some groups also have a bit of a kiter on one of the Largos twins to prevent the boon steal teleport attack from hitting anyone. To their credit snow crows actually mentions in most support builds I've seen that you should match your utility skills and traits with the fight and what they are for. Keeping track of which attacks ignore aegis and which stability or neither is a bit of a chore though. Healing Well is very useful in fights with lots of conditions like Slothasor and Matthias. It's also noteworthy that you should make sure that you have the trap trait if you use it. Edit: Kiters are usually supposed to be fine on their own but if someone makes a mistake, nobody will complain if someone throws them an emergency heal or rez.

[@embreis2257]

14:04 'lastly, communication. I know, I know. talking to people. yuck!' 😱LOL, what a poignant remark. love you, Muk! 🤟

[@MsSilentH]

I used to be a bit scared to try support/healing and even tanking, but I kind of jumped right into it, trying a heal tank in raids and LOVED it. It just clicks for me over DPS rotations I find. Glad to see a great guide like this, and especially the situational info to keep in mind. I also liked that you talked a little bit about pre-made builds and how sometimes the upkeep might not work for someone, and I would actually really love to hear a lot more on this. Especially with your LI builds you've made (which helped me get super into quickness herald!), I'm very curious about what decisions you made to get those kinds of builds to work with the amount of input required. I still find it very hard to deviate from builds from the more "meta" builds, not because of the numbers or anything, but because I lack the knowledge to adapt them in a way that doesn't entirely sabotage what it's trying to bring in the first place.

[@mr_mike_z]

This video should be pinned on the subreddit. Easy to understand and incredibly valuable information for structured group content. Great guide, thank you Mukluk. I love you, you are my friend.

[@iUUkk]

7:27 lmao i laughed so hard at the squeek-squeek-squeek

[@ShimiChuu]

i replayed it so many times, the editting sparks joy 😆

[@KotMatroskin]

Amazing guide! I love how it's not too long but packed with useful advice and especially the examples, ty!

[@captaincrapface7337]

09:00 fake news, I can heal myself anytime i want, i checked.

[@GamblingDedicated]

True, real and same.

[@cattysplat]

The best support is Mukluk making these videos to educate us into better players.

[@agaaga7748]

Amazing guide! Hopefully many newer (and existing) players will learn from it!

[@Reddotzebra]

THANK YOU! I have never played druid myself, and when I last tried to PUG Silent Surf on my necromancer I ended up in a party of three rangers, they explained in no uncertain terms that they already had alacrity and healing down, so I swapped from AlacScourge to condition Harbinger so I could give them some quickness, and the fight rapidly devolved into an absolute slaughter because they kept (very visibly) getting overburdened by the constant condition application of the boss. Now I know I should suggest that they swap to spring, because I honestly had no idea which of their skills were even attempted cleanses.

[@ByGm3]

As someone back from the game after 4 years and completely confused with the new Offensive Support role, this video helped me alot to understand that alot of my HoT/PoF builds can be used to this new roles. Thnks Muk

[@wirosky]

I started playing Heal Firebrand a few weeks ago, drastically changing my habits as I've only just been DPS-ing. You can in most cases heal everyone quite well with an appropriate gear set, but learning the mechanics and when to give other boons outside of offensive ones are for me the best thing to keep the team alive

[@kaltaron1284]

I haven't played heal brand myself but I find the cone shape of the mantras a bit annoying. For starters the game only tells you the range of the cone, not the angle. It's 45 degrees I believe. Next I've heard that the cone and circle around you have different target priorities. Haven't tested it myself but that can lead to you missing part of your subgroup and overstacking boons on someone from the other subgroup. It's also easy to miss players who aren't always directly in front of you like Daredevil.

[@wirosky]

Well best to stack in those cases. Stacking is a fantastic way for healers to actually give everything to everyone, just stay a little bit behind and enjoy seeing all your little companions full of boons aha. Here comes an additional knowledge of "where to be and when" but it's not so bad

[@matsug5704]

4:18 OR the last boss at the Chaos fractal that needs cc fast or it can wipe the party in higher tiers.

[@xAce8]

Damn it Billy!

[@mahuyo]

when it comes down to CC i would always recommend that ppl go to the wiki page Defiance Bar, as that will give you a list of all CCs that do Soft CC a long with how much dmg, as well as, all the Professions Hard CCs, broken up by how much dmg they do to the Defiance Bar, and also has all the Raid, Strikes, and i think big Legendary, and Champion Creatures Defiance Bar numbers. Also it is good to know that there are some skills that do effect downed ppl, like Firebrand's Mantra's skills, so the they will get the healed a bit from it.

[@roberts.2300]

At the moment my biggest issue when it comes to support is gearing. I have about four technical support characters all ascended gear (minus decent amount of legendaries). However we are susceptible to changing our stats overall as time marches goes on. When HoT was out we had Commanders & Minstrels. After awhile it turned into Ritualist and now back to Harriers. While the DPS role comes down to Berserk (some Assassin) gear or for Condi still technically Vipers. I am trying to get the rest of my legendary gear (to get around this problem) but it can be quite investment. Even if you can change your ascended gear via the mystic forge/toilet. Ascended trinkets can be changed for stats via few specific vendors (example: Bloodstone Fen - Scholar Rakka). EDIT: Fix my jumbled writing on my phone before I went in for a job interview.

[@Seohaila]

Good luck with the job!

[@Warcrafter4]

Gearing as a whole is a massive issue. Which is why I think the devs are pushing legendary armor so hard in all forms of content: As players having full legendary armor bypasses how awful the gearing system is with all of the new roles without having to rework the entire system. The issue is that the gearing system was made without the holy trinity in mind but hasn't been changed with its introduction. On an related note: Can we just give Tempest both a dps and a heal alac trait as currently you can dps alac tempest but not heal alac tempest making tempest one of the only healers without alac or quick.

[@dylanwarwick4429]

@@Warcrafter4 Tempest healer has alac, what are you on about? Sure that elemental bastion is a nice flat heal trait you are missing out on, would like to see that shifted, but atm it's a fine alac healer.

[@chester1882]

#2 CC the nessicary. *Flashback to Samrog fight where the blue bars were not broken when I was pounced and downed*

[@waddehaddedudedah]

awesome guides !! I just recently started "Ham" and try it from time to time in strikes and fractals

[@arkanaloth2617]

fantastic vid, as a support player this is great information!

[@myselfme767]

That’s super helpful. I made a Druid recently and I’ve been playing gw2 for like a 1, but never ever have I played in actual party, so I don’t actually know how to be in a supportive role.

[@mikokun7714]

This was a fantastic refresher for New player Supports. Everything is Very Fast Paced. If you could do a major 'support' for the community & do an updated full break down of each support & maybe keybinds or gameplay that would be a Huge 'Boon' ! Sub'd

[@fabianodorer4172]

i have played support for years and the one thing i can say to every upcomming support "dont get fancy the only thing that mathers is that the boss dies". just play it save and you will be quicker in the long runn. as a healer keep your gruppe over 90% live and they can tale some hits.

[@Warcrafter4]

When you mentioned a "Billy" moving out to do a mechanic to not wipe the group, it instantly made me think of shattered observatory's doom and bounce mechanics. Doom is the most straight forward version of it as its just have random "Doomed" player X reach point Y or wipe. Meanwhile multiple people can do the bounce mechanic but its best if one person The "Bouncer" does most of it with a second as back up. As a healer if the "Doomed" player or "Bouncer" is taking damage from the ads you have to heal them or wipe with little ambiguity.

[@Mad_Peasant_King]

Tried some healing on herald, firebrand, and druid. I personally prefer firebrand since it doesn't require you to throw out any aoe to place down, but I do find myself doing base guardian for healing, for it just feels cozy to not have three extra skillets to use on firebrand

[@nerdicusdorkum2923]

Now while I don't have a full blown dedicated defensive/healing support yet, I have most of my dps classes in a position where they can swap to offensive supports easily. In particular, my thief can be a quickness spamming deadeye, my warrior an alacrity spamming bladesworn, and if I am feeling very low intensity that day, I got a harbringer who just shrouds, press 1 to start autoing, and lets go of the keyboard while I give everyone a hug. I personally feel it's a decent stepping stone for getting a feel for support, but it also opens up your high end group content availability slots.

[@tabe2278]

Here to watch this instead of stream, cuz you told us to do so.

[@cruzi7286]

Chrono can provide both alac and quick with timewarp and streched time. it cant keep both up permanently tho solo

[@Alphenis]

Yeah, we always mean 100% uptime when we talk about alac and quick. Those buffs are that important.

[@Kinada]

The builds for quick harb are a good example where the build is mathematically capable of keeping up quickness but in practice it's going to have terrible uptime and you do want boon duration or extra shroud generation, or some of both.

[@easymode8584]

Different healers heal differently. Find the one you like most. My Necro healer feels OP but I still heal w/ Herald because I like that playstyle better.

[@avatarocing]

In regards to "when to revive". Some healers may have a trait proccing a reviving field once they start it, thus you can easily just touch someone for one tick, proccing the field and proceed healing/supporting the group. Often there will be also times when there's no immediate danger to the group, but someone might still be down, giving the healer also the freedom to revive (still make sure to break important defiance bars and provide boons). Tanks on the other hand should not revive in the most cases at all. A boss facing the group and hitting into it can often lead to more downstate peepos, thus makin it rarely a viable option at all for the tank to rezz. And one last thing to everyone: while you rezz someone ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SURROUNDINGS. People often get downed themselves while rezzing because they dont dodge important attacks or so. It barely beneficial when the people who rezz get downed themselves, plus while you rezz you cant do anything anyway (except for instant casts), so make always sure that you're safe to rezz someone.

[@NitroAimBot]

I needed this vid a year ago xD. Hopefully someone new will find this helpful.

[@broken_boomerang]

Great video. I love your point about SC builds but other than nerding up with the golem and trying everything, is there a resource for alternate skills/ builds? The closest I have come is some Metabattle or Discretize builds where they explain why and provide either alternates or a progression based on skill/ experience.

[@justjordan1300]

Hardstuck usually follows SC for builds, but they sometimes have variations. Best is to look at all and try to figure out why they choose something over another. Asking in their discords is also good if you have questions

[@karabean]

I never thought I would like a support character until I found your support scourge like a year ago. Now it's my fav role. Is there a good way to play support scourge in wvw? I would love to see a video on that.

[@isleep24]

can't scourge give alacrity and if you choose spite also give quickness. If I am not wrong

[@MuklukYoutube]

Currently harbinger necro can give quickness to party, and scourge can give alacrity to party. Reaper can give itself (but not the party) quickness.

[@isleep24]

oh ok ty over read it then

[@DorianGrey2116]

Early access gang😎

[@NaoyaYami]

I'm a somewhat experienced HFB player (completed all raids encounters as one, grinded out leggy ring and 1 armor set, plenty of fractals (with some CMs) and so on). I took a break from the game and now I finally want to learn heal mechanist (since it seems hams are more in demand in pugs) but it feels weird, clunky and unfamiliar. I'm kindly asking for suggestions on what to play to learn to play the build (for now I figured i'd play it during meta events if only to get used to skills in general).

[@rockaway149]

You should definitely not feel pressed to play Ham. Except for a couple very niche situations the ham gets outclassed by other healers. HFB, Dudu and Chrono are overall probably the best healers in terms of overall output if played properly, but there are alot of classes that can do an excellent job right now (HFB, Herald, Dudu, HAM, scrapper, Chrono, scourge and Tempest, berserker maybe after patch?) All have their strengths and weaknesses in terms of boons/heal output /cleanses/boonstrip/reflect/rezzing power/barrier. To fully optimize you'd probably want multiple classes.

[@NaoyaYami]

@@rockaway149 The last sentence is my main reason to learn HAM. I feel pretty comfortable with HFB and HAM seems like the alac healer that I would enjoy the most (after hfb of course - hfb is my top1 and top2 fav support build and I have one for 10man and one for fractals). Being very versatile is also important to me and engineer can also perform almost every other role IIRC. Support rev is also on my radar (since I already have armor for it) but it keeps being changed completely every 2nd major patch...

[@Natepot]

Usually when I'm trying out a new build (especially support) I take it to T1 or T2 fractals where I can get a feel for the class in endgame group content without too much damage pressure. One legendary ring can put you at 27 agony resistance (three +9 infusions) which is plenty for all of T1 without anything else ascended/legendary. Alternatively, or once a bit more comfortable with skill priorities, I'd take it into some of the easier strikes. Often depends on how much I feel like starting my own group / what's in LFG. When running a new build off a site like snowcrows, I keep it tabbed on a second monitor or on my phone and occasionally glance at it to check if I'm ignoring any important skills. For the kits, try to note and make use of whichever skills give healing, condi cleanse, or important boons (all listed on that site). The rest of the skills have their uses, but they're not as high priority as survival and boon uptime. You get a lot of CC from Mace 3 and Shield 4/5, but the shield skills have a lot more on top of that which is worth reading through. This might be suboptimal, but I keep my mech's skill 1 and 3 (F1/F3) on autocast (shift+right-click), using 2 (F2) off-cooldown *when the mech is nearby-* it runs away a lot. If aegis/stability/stunbreak/cleanse are needed at specific times during an encounter, save it for those times instead. Keeping the other two skills on autocast is less brain work for me and works fine for normal mode raids. gl with the build, hope it works well!

[@NaoyaYami]

@@Natepot Exactly the kind of suggestion I was hoping for. Thank you!

[@ozirus3344]

Is there an arc DPS setting that measures boon up time that is non-self?

[@Alphenis]

You can show uptime for everyone, through you can't distinguish who output the boon.

[@jasper-fox6307]

I'm thinking about getting into gw2 i've burnt out on ff14 and was considering playing either tank or healer as thats what i know best from other mmos but it seems like the classes here are alot more flexible and maybe easy to mess up how you build them?

[@MuklukYoutube]

There is a lot of flexibility which does lead to some people making bad builds, but you can always go to various build websites to copy the "standard" while you are learning, then go from there if you wish to make changes.

[@saoirs_eh]

Thanks for the video.

[@Midaspl]

As someone who plays vindi, please don't treat vigor as lies important :)

[@Eric998765]

Played both WoW and FF14 for 3k hours each, much of which as healer main (Disc Priest/AST). WoW just sucks as a game and FF14 has gotten boring as far as raiding (not enough to heal). As someone that also sometimes plays DRK in FF14, a Defensive Support sounds right up my alley. Was going to start as necro already since Reaper is apparently one of the best solo classes, but Scourge is sounding pretty hot too. Thanks for the vid

[@alexgrimm8964]

Muk we yearn for more gw2 videos!

[@AhmedAly-j2s]

awesome as usual :)

[@imadeyoureadthis1]

Pretty sure the next few days I'll encounter an unusual amount of supports running around with experimental builds.

[@ihaveaplan.ijustneedmoney.9777]

Funnily enough, I've been trying Heal Scrapper the past week, but one day I entered the LFG and quick heals and quick dps were already taken left n right... So I hit a random group with that "hi dps" The following silence made me realize I was gonna get kicked. So I was like "can aheal, but noob" I had an experimental heal mechanist build when I solo'd dungeons for monk runes. And I used that to take on Fractal 100. 😂 Happy to report that we succeeded. I really enjoyed Heal Mech, its much much easier than Healsploder Scrapper.

[@raef404]

necromancer can give quic and alac same time, tho alac is 25% upkeep just throw a potion

[@MuklukYoutube]

Then to clarify: no build in the game can currently provide 100% upkeep of quickness + alacrity to their entire party.

[@Gnipahell1r]

You forgot to mention one crucial aspect of playing support: even if some are claiming loudly, that they died because of your crappy support, then it is often times the fault of exactly this guy, who seeks out every red field possible. Nevertheless, assess the criticism and draw your own conclusions.

[@taco8512]

What’s your glove skin?

[@MuklukYoutube]

Legendary Medium armor gloves from raids (perfected envoy)

[@frankmills1917]

Fractalts? 1:00

[@MuklukYoutube]

woopst

[@lloydalvarez2819]

For when you're doing fractals with an alt

[@denisdebras2677]

Ur the best ❤

[@Snipermunki]

I would love to have the attention span to play support someday.

[@tbull1663]

Chrono: I can provide both for a brief moment, but not perma lol

[@Insig385]

"dime in a dozen dps, you can find them lying around anywhere" and immediately I imagine a group of thiefs lying in a puppy pile 😂😂😂😂 edit: ah. this must be the vid referenced in a recent short regarding the MANDANTORY. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 I see what you meant now in the short lololol

[@angeloserrano846]

Algo boost!

[@mantapjiwa16165]

why u love ranger so much? i watched alot of your video using ranger

[@Nejaa77]

Always appreciate mukluk guides. Nice lean meat.

[@SupraSav]

This comment made me double check what video I was watching.

[@Skyztamer]

I like playing supports, but I wish the boon ranges in general was larger. I also play FF14 and last year most party wide buffs and heals got their ranges increased (they were already comparatively larger than GW2's average ranges before that one patch). I like the sub group system, but having to stick so close to my group for the majority of a fight to receive buffs feels odd to me. Edit: I've only been playing GW2 midcore for about two years. Are players generally fine with the small boon ranges in this game?

[@MuklukYoutube]

Speaking for the ones I know, we would LOVE if they were larger. It's kind of like... we've accepted it for what it is. But yeah, in an ideal patch I would love if boon/healing radius's were much larger so that longbow users weren't stacked on dagger users.

[@poisenbery]

Getting good at support is legitimately harder than getting good at DPS

[@Theuubestofbuus]

Shout out heal chronomancer 2024 #healspecter 2024🎉

[@OREvilleRed]

Whomever said this is more casual than WoW must have misspoke

[@MuklukYoutube]

I'd argue that most of the game is, but this guide pertains more to end game encounters for those interested in that.

[@tekenagakun]

why is support in gw2 so confusing omg but it's actually cool cause in ffxiv where I come from you just do the same boring healing and dpsing

[@Corwin23-i7m]

Then people wonder why no one plays a support class. This is exactly why. Supports need to put in 200% more effort and energy and get the same rewards in return as a dps monkey.

[@KokoKrunchs]

my thought exactly

[@moderncomet9810]

Everywhere I go, there's DPS just lying around. Can somebody help me clean up? MY VACCUM IS BROKEN!

[@Shadaaala]

Algorythm post

[@BK-pd1sq]

Honestly, Billy is starting to get on my nerves already D:

[@mvga2687]

It's ok to play beginner's build for few weeks, but after that you should stop leeching and switch to hybrid boon-heals-dps build. There is no reason to just stand there when you can add 10k+ dps to help your team as: if things die faster there is less need for healing. Also bring CC.

[@bromgar1902]

Dont forget to prepare mentaly for the hatemail in pug beginner groups if you have a 2 second alac downtime because you ruined the rotation of the topdps dude who clearly should not be in a beginnergroup because he does 10k more dps than everybody else

[@catedoge3206]

yuh

[@mikokun7714]

-When your a pro Main Healer in FFxiv & then try Guild Wars 2 & all mechanics are sped up 500x *Keyboard smash meme* git gud

[@KokoKrunchs]

the story of my gaming life XD

[@lindseyfaelan8339]

while this is a fantastic video, I have no idea why you have that stressful music constantly playing in the background @.@ its very hard to focus on the information when it feels like I am about to be grabbed from behind.

[@WillianBusch]

Too long need the Mukluk real version

[@itsamemilo5000]

i still dont get it why the gw2 Community always tell the "DD" (Damage Dealer) "DPS"... iam asking my self... are you "Damage per second"? is it the "oh oh oh were gw2 gamers we´re special ? or from where is it comming ? #hidps ....

[@sasha9796]

every video game i play uses dps as a term for damage dealers. Just because you haven't encountered it in other places doesn't mean the term is incorrect

[@itsamemilo5000]

@@sasha9796 WoW - DD // AION - DD // ESO - DD sooooo ? hm maybe i play the wrong ones but thanks for ya info

[@xenon899]

Also even if the term is slightly different, does it matter? Don't know why there has to be a derisive slight against gw2 community with it 🤔

[@WillianBusch]

Neverwinter uses DPS.

[@---yq1ho]

Maybe to differentiate damage dealers from daredevils? Idk