A case against Healing Breeze

[build prof][Healing Breeze][/build]

Oh snap, did I just really say that? The first awesome healing spell? The closest thing to 'regen' in Guildwars? A giant Energy vacuum?

I've heard a lot of folk complain their Hero Monks aren't good at doing much aside from dieing. I bet pennies to pounds they got two main problems. One, Monks should NOT have a Rez (it stops them from Healing everyone else for that cast time, then buff the near dead rezed person, then Energy is wasted, person dies, evil cycle continues), and that the Monk still has Healing Breeze on their bar.

I understand that a lot of y'all don't have Monk skills unlocked. That is okay. The way Zaishen Farming is sweeping the Guild you can take the hit on one Z key and buy some Monk skills in order to upgrade a bit.

Let's look at the facts, though, first and foremost: For this argument, we assume 12 Healing Prayers and 12 Divine Favor. The Divine Favor bonus would be 38 Health per spell, then.

Major cons to be addressed: Healing Breeze is an Enchant. It has a bad Energy to Health ratio. It can overheal, wasting Energy. It is spammable by Heroes, therefor causing problems.

Enchants are bad because of [[Shatter Enchantment]. You can have your awesome regen removed, and slapped upside the head for 100 armor ignoring damage. There are plenty of ways to remove enchants, and you really wouldn't want to entrust a 10 Energy heal over time spell to be the one to save you from death. No. Long Enchantments for healing spells trouble.

Energy to Health will be addressed later.

Overhealing is when you cast a healing spell on someone, and they don't receive the full benefit of the spell because they cannot go over max Health. If you start getting hit and someone just spams healing spells, it won't be long before they are out of Energy and therefor useless. Overheal is the number one cause of Energyless Monks. And that means it is the most common thing to happen to Heroes, as they iz dum.

Speaking of Heroes, if that Enchant does get stripped, and you still need healing, they will just slap Breeze on you again, sucking 10 Energy. How long can a Monk cast a 10 Energy spell over and over before they are out of Energy? The two second recharge almost guarantees it will be available to cast.

Okay so here we go....

[[Healing Breeze] lasts for 10 seconds, costs 10 Energy, and heals at +8 pips, which is 16 Health per second. At the end of the Spell you've got 160 Health, plus the 38 Divine Favor bonus at the start. Grand total if all goes right, 198 Health.

[Orison of Healing]

Bletch. No one likes this spell. It is the first spell you get, it is low power, low cost, nothing else to use garbage, right? But it heals for 60+38 per shot. It takes two of these spells to almost match the healing power of Breeze. And there is no Enchant issues. No overheal. And it takes only five seconds to get to that Health amount. Half the time as Breeze.

[Healing Touch]

Sort of dangerous. Okay, so it is wicked dangerous. Touch spells for squishy Monks make little sense. But, as long as you aren't dropping Damage over Time Area of Effect spells (like [[Fire Storm], you turd), once the mobs are hitting something they will continue to hit it. Anyways, Touch gets a nice double bonus from Divine Favor, which brings the Health per spell to 51+38+38=127. Bam, 127 healed. It takes Breeze 8 seconds to match that. When someone is getting beat up, do you want 3/4 second for Health, or 8? Touch does have a long recharge, and I'm not a fan of touch spells for Monks, but wow, what a big jump from Breeze.

[Signet of Rejuvenation]

You will almost always need healing when you are attacking or casting spells. The bonus then bumps this up to 63+63+38=164. No Enery cost. Every 8 seconds, someone on your team gets a free 164 Health. In the time it costs for Breeze to be cast and run on, there can be two Signets cast for 0 Energy.

[Patient Spirit] + [Dwayna's Kiss]

The mother of all healing combos. Okay so Patient lasts for a couple seconds, and is an Enchant, BUT it heals when the Enchant ends. Even if it is removed prematurely, it'll still heal. Kiss gives a bonus if the player is Enchanted. So the healing chain is 0+38 for Patient, then 51+30+38 for Kiss, then Patient ends for 102=259 Health. Two spells, 259 Health, three seconds tops. It don't take long before the spells are recharged, letting the healing continue. And don't get me started on Kiss's bonuses from Hexes or other Enchants. Or the healing power of [[Dismiss Condition], which heals if you are Enchanted.

---

Look, Healing Breeze is a great spell in the beginning of the game when you had no Divine Favor bonuses or access to other Healing Prayers. But there is a reason it is the first spell unlocked. Just look at [Power Shot] or [Imagined Burden] or [Vampiric Gaze].

And don't even get me started on [Mending]. I mean, really? +3 Health regen = 6 Health per second. One pip of Energy is 1 Energy/2 Seconds. 10 Energy, 20 seconds, 120 Health? That is straight garbage.

Scion



Read my other guides; you'll be smarter...

Nurse's Ele Build
Zaishen Farming
Class Guide
Attribute Guide

OMG Scion, yet another encyclopeadia of knowledge post!!!


Fantastic as usual.

Gotta study it now, and read up on the others again. You know I still use that build you made me. I forgot you gave it to me...I thought I made it up myself!! And here I was SO proud....

Nicolette
(Game Nurse)

Scion.. awesome post about efficiently healing with the proper skills.

I just wanted to comment on Healing breeze.

Healing breeze is not as efficient as some other spells, and yes it does overheal in some circumstances. I wanted to make sure that everyone understands that this is not a reason to abandon it completely.. Hero's are not as smart as people.. and people can certainly use this skill efficiently and to great effect.

The area that allows this skill to be useful for me is when you are an only monk.. or in a very damage intensive area, specifically with a lot of burning and or degen. (There are several area like that in the game). This spell will still suck your energy dry if you spam it.. so don't. What it is good for is keeping yourself from getting overpowered by the damage.

When you are looking at a group of 8 that all need healing due to non spike damage, it can be useful to eliminate one of the 8 by dropping this spell on it. You r still going to be using your efficient, fast heals to negate most of the damage, but being able to drop healing breeze on your tank to keep him above 50% while you recover on the rest of the group.. even though he's still taking damage..I mean sometimes you just cant react fast enough to all the different health bars.. and so this gives you one less to worry about for a bit and can help you get the heals spread over the group without running out of time.

it also can act like an extra condition removal, simply by regening more than the condition degens, effectively stopping a poison or bleeding condition in its tracks, even though your condition removal skill is disabled or being used elsewhere...

now keep in mind, I carry condition removal, hex removal, and healing as the responsibilities of the Monk.. so perhaps it would be different if I tried to do ONLY healing.

Also.. If you are a full time healer, or your monk Hero is.. get him a healing superior rune and put it on his hat for +4 == 16 Healing attribute. no reason to be healing at attribute level 12.. for anyone.

Good luck with your monking!

Just FYI.. I dont argue with Scion about skill bars, if he says don't use it.. you should think about taking it off your bar. I think he's just saying take it off your hero's bar though.. Scion?

James

[build prof][/build]
An amendment:

Countering Burning/Poison/Bleeding with Healing Breeze is pretty alright. It does the job well enough on countering degen. Or even as a buff, of sorts, before jumping into the fray. Very valid point, James. Honestly didn't think of that pro.

Hero AI iz dum, and they don't know the smart time to use it. If you, a person, use it, then cool. Be smarter than yourself and don't go crazy. Know that there are better options for healing.

Scion

EDIT - If the Hero AI is still running out of Energy during fights, you can still help him out. Add some Mesmer skills like [Channeling] and [Drain Enchantment] or the almighty [Power Drain]. Even an unspecced [Glyph of Lesser Energy] gives essentially two free spells.

Aeternalia wrote:Scion.. awesome post about efficiently healing with the proper skills.

I just wanted to comment on Healing breeze.

Healing breeze is not as efficient as some other spells, and yes it does overheal in some circumstances. I wanted to make sure that everyone understands that this is not a reason to abandon it completely.. Hero's are not as smart as people.. and people can certainly use this skill efficiently and to great effect.

The area that allows this skill to be useful for me is when you are an only monk.. or in a very damage intensive area, specifically with a lot of burning and or degen. (There are several area like that in the game). This spell will still suck your energy dry if you spam it.. so don't. What it is good for is keeping yourself from getting overpowered by the damage.

When you are looking at a group of 8 that all need healing due to non spike damage, it can be useful to eliminate one of the 8 by dropping this spell on it. You r still going to be using your efficient, fast heals to negate most of the damage, but being able to drop healing breeze on your tank to keep him above 50% while you recover on the rest of the group.. even though he's still taking damage..I mean sometimes you just cant react fast enough to all the different health bars.. and so this gives you one less to worry about for a bit and can help you get the heals spread over the group without running out of time.

it also can act like an extra condition removal, simply by regening more than the condition degens, effectively stopping a poison or bleeding condition in its tracks, even though your condition removal skill is disabled or being used elsewhere...

now keep in mind, I carry condition removal, hex removal, and healing as the responsibilities of the Monk.. so perhaps it would be different if I tried to do ONLY healing.

Also.. If you are a full time healer, or your monk Hero is.. get him a healing superior rune and put it on his hat for +4 == 16 Healing attribute. no reason to be healing at attribute level 12.. for anyone.

Good luck with your monking!

Just FYI.. I dont argue with Scion about skill bars, if he says don't use it.. you should think about taking it off your bar. I think he's just saying take it off your hero's bar though.. Scion?

James

[build prof][/build][healing breeze] is inefficient on human monks too, they just aren't as bad at spamming it (usually). When evaluation healing spells, it is useful to think of their efficiency in "health per second" and in "health per energy". In other words, how much average health do I gain per second max from spamming this spell or from the actual cast time of the spell, and how much health does it recover per energy point I spend?

One thing first, it is generally unwise to use any superior runes on a dedicated healer. Why? Because the enemy AI typically will either go for 1) the person with the lowest AL or 2) the person with the lowest HP. Monks are much better at healing other, less squishy targets and dropping a monk's health simply increases the chance that they'll be targeted. Furthermore, there are plenty of source of damage that don't need to specifically target a monk. The extra few points of healing per spell are not worth the increased risk of death. A dead monk heals no one.

Anyways, with that in mind I'm going to use spell stats at 12 in their respective attribute for simplicity.

[healing breeze]: 16 health per second over 15 seconds (the skill popup is wrong about duration being 10 seconds, check here) plus 38 divine favor healing. That's 240 + 38 = 278. It takes 15 seconds to do this and costs 10E.

Health per Second = 278 health / 15 seconds = 18.5 HPS
Health per Energy = 278 health / 10 energy = 27.8 HPE

I should mention that a 20% Enchanting weapon increases the HPE of this spell, since it lasts longer. However, the HPS does not improve, which means it's still going to be relatively low and therefore bad at countering spikes.

Just for completion's sake, with a 20% Enchanting weapon, the duration of the enchant is 18 seconds. So healing is now 18 * 16 + 38 = 326.

Health per Second = 326 / 18 = 18.1 HPS (as you can see, the HPS actually drops)
Health per Energy = 326 / 10 = 32.6 HPE

So, with a 20% Longer Enchants weapon, the HPE rises to 32.6 HPE. However, this is only if the enchant lasts full duration and the person that is under it's effects is under max health the entire duration.

[patient spirit]: 102 healing plus 38 divine favor = 140. It can do this every 3 seconds and costs 5E.

Health per Second = 140 / 3 = 46.7 HPS
Health per Energy = 140 / 5 = 28.0 HPE

As you can see, Patient Spirit is better Health per Second and Health per Energy (excluding a 20% enchant weapon), which means it's better at countering spikes/direct damage AND more efficient as far as healing goes. If you're only facing single-target degen, you're better off waiting until the degen has dropped someone's health by about 140 and then casting this spell.

[dwayna's kiss]: At a minimum, this is 51 healing + 38 divine favor. It costs 5E and has a 3s recharge. However, as Scion pointed out, this spell is best used with other enchants or on people with hexes, which add 30 healing each. Both hexes and enchants are very common, so it is very unlikely that this spell will do it's minimum healing. I'll calculate the stats with various levels of enchants/hexes.

With 1 Ench/Hex (for example, Patient Spirit)
Health per Second = 119 / 3 = 39.7 HPS
Health per Energy = 119 / 5 = 23.8 HPE

With 2 Ench/Hex (for example, Patient Spirit + 1 Hex)
Health per Second = 149 / 3 = 49.7 HPS
Health per Energy = 149 / 5 = 29.8 HPE

With 3 Ench/Hex
Health per Second = 179 / 3 = 59.7 HPS
Health per Energy = 179 / 5 = 35.8 HPE

With 4 Ench/Hex
Health per Second = 209 / 3 = 69.7 HPS
Health per Energy = 209 / 5 = 41.8 HPE

As you can see, this spell very quickly become both incredibly efficient and a very large, fast heal. When you consider that a lot of degen pressure comes from hexes anyways, this spell quickly outpaces Healing Breeze in terms of countering degen pressure.

These are just two examples. Let's suppose you're facing party-wide degen instead, which rarely is a serious threat but does provide pressure. In this case, you want spells that will help relieve some of this pressure without breaking your energy pool.

[heal party]: 66 healing per person plus 38 divine bonus on the caster. So that's 66 * 8 + 38 = 566 healing. It can do this every 2 seconds and costs 15E.

Health per Second (Single Target) = 66 / 2 = 33 HPS
Health per Second (Total) = 566 / 2 = 283 HPS
Health per Energy = 566 / 15 = 37.7 HPE

So as you can see, even Heal Party is far more efficient and far faster healing than Healing Breeze when used properly. Moreover, it has far more uses than Healing Breeze. Not only can you use it to counter party-wide degen, but it is also useful for recovering some after a big AoE. Also, the single-target HPS of 33 means it can easily counter max degen (20 DPS) on everyone in the party simultaneously.

Though it's not entirely fair to compare an elite with a non-elite, I'd like to mention one of my favorite healing spells:

[word of healing]: 105 healing if target >50% or 105+83 healing if target <50%, both plus 38 divine favor. This is either 143 health if >50% or 226 if target <50% health. It costs 5E and can do this every 3 seconds.

Health >50%
Health per Second = 143 / 3 = 47.7 HPS
Health per Energy = 143 / 5 = 28.6 HPE

Health <50%
Health per Second = 226 / 3 = 75.3 HPS
Health per Energy = 226 / 5 = 45.2 HPE

As you can see, this spell has good HPS and HPE even if the target is >50%, but when they drop below 50% (which can happen a lot), it's HPS and HPE are phenomenal as far as single-target heals go.

Do you see the point I'm making? Healing Breeze has so-so efficiency in terms of HPE, but entirely lack-luster performance in HPS. Moreover, it relies on lasting full duration to get the most out of the spell, which often simply won't happen due to enchantment stripping or overhealing.

There are plenty of single-target direct heals that are better at countering single-target degen and plenty of party-wide heals that are better at countering party-wide degen, both in terms of HPS and HPE.

While we're on this topic, let me make one other point about Monking that I've heard discussed recently. The topic is Healing/Prot vs 2 Hybrid monks. Someone on the Guru forums makes the point better than I could, so I'll just quote them.

JoeKnowMo wrote:
Regarding Energy Efficiency:

- A well placed Prot Spirit can prevent loads of damage, oftentimes much than what you'd get from a Heal Other.
- A Spirit Bond can heal for upto 840 HP, or 420 HP if it triggers just 5 times.
- A Shield of Absorption can negate 100s of points of damage for just 5e.
- Let's say a mostly physical mob of 6 hits your team a total of 30 times in 11 seconds for an average of 40 damage. That's a total of 1200 points of damage. A 11s Aegis would have prevented 600 points of damage for a measly 10e.

If you use your prots wisely, they are far more energy efficient than healing.
Sure, a Dkiss can be extremely energy efficient and can heal for oodles on a heavily enchanted/hexed target, but they're a staple on most hybrid bars.

2 hybrid bars allow for 2 copies of Aegis that can prevent a ton of damage for relatively little energy.
2 hybrid bars allow the monks to take the best skills regardless of the attribute line they belong to.
2 hyrbrid bars allow you to take the best elites for PvE which happen to be healing related, like HBoon, WoH, and LoD (with Mindbender, imo).
2 hybrid bars prevent one monk from being overtaxed against certain types of damage. The pure prot monk will have to work overtime against a spike mob and the pure heal monk will have to work overtime against a pressure/degen mob.
2 hybrid bars allow the monks to save one another better.
2 hybrid bars work much better in HM than pure heal/prot bars.

When exactly is a pure heal/prot setup better?

The small gain in power by going 14 Heal/Prot, 13 DF is not worth the loss of having multiple copies of key skills such as Aegis and Dkiss, as well as access to an elite like WoH, HBoon, or LoD. When you run pure prot/heal monks, you are paying a much huger cost by gimping your bars.

The extra healing gained by the pure heal monk going 14 Heal, 13 DF does not come close to matching the efficiency of having a second copy of Aegis. The pure prot monk running 14 Prot, 13 DF is far less efficient that a hybrid one that has access to Dkiss and WoH.

PvE players have been doing the pure prot/heal thing forever. And frankly, they're the ones who've been blindly sticking to it. It's a relic from the early days of having a tank, a bonder, and a healer for farming groups.

It's a horrible setup in PvE. The most efficient pve monk setup (going by the skills of the average pve pug monk at protting) is for both to go hybrid with HBoon and WoH as elites. Take 2 copies of Aegis. Take 1 copy of prot spirit, mend condition, Shield of Absorption, Dkiss, Heal Party, GoLE, and fill the rest of the bar with heals, sig of rejuvenation, and maybe a hex removal.

The reason I bring this up is to make the point that it's much better to run a hybrid bar, taking just 2-3 good, spammable healing spells and fill the rest with prots. With a limitation of 2-3 healing spells, Healing Breeze does not have a good spot in the bar, since other spells such as WoH, Patient Spirit, Dwayna's Kiss, or Heal Party are simply more versatile, more consistent (not subject to enchant removal), superior in terms of HPS (for countering spikes), and comparable or better in terms of HPE.

Jonathan

Hi Jon,

Thanks for that. I like the information about using hybrid bars... I will look into that a bit more in the future.

I think your missing the point about what I was saying concerning Healing Breeze, Your right about the spell when it comes to comparing individual spells in the context of HPS and HPE it is not the most efficient spell available... granted.

The utility of the spell comes from its ability to heal over time. And its use in combination with the rest of your bar, in order to boost your overall HPS of the monk.

The spell is almost unique in that it does not place the healing on the character all at once.. allowing you to drop the spell on someone that is slightly damaged.. and is taking damage, and while that spell is working to cover that person.. focus your attention on other members of the group, where you can use the fast efficient heals..

my bar looks like this for PVE:

[build prof=MO][word of healing][patient spirit][dwaynas kiss][orison of healing][healing breeze][mend condition][remove hex][rebirth][/build]

Yes I use all of those spells that you guys are saying have great HPS or HPE, but I also use healing breeze to help manage workload.

then again Im probably not the best healer in the world.. so take that for what its worth.

I really enjoyed reading your breakdowns on the individual spells.. things I already knew from using them.. but was nice to see it validated scientifically

James

I will agree that due to it's nature as a HOT (heal over time), Healing Breeze can boost your overall HPS when combined with other direct healing spells by first casting it, and then using your spammable spells. Just to put some numbers here, if you cast Healing Breeze and then spam WoH and Patient Spirit on recharge, your overall HPS is 18.5 + 46.7 + 75.3 = 140.5 HPS.

The thing is, if you're having to spam both WoH and Patient Spirit, it's because someone is taking massive spike damage. If they're taking that much DPS consistently you're going to be burning through energy. While that 10E from Healing Breeze did boost your HPS by 18.5 to help, if someone is taking so much damage that you need to spam these heals, that 10E could be another 2 WoHs, which is up to 452 health in 6 seconds. Compare this to the the 16 * 6 = 96 healing that you get from 6 seconds of Healing Breeze. If someone is taking big spike damage, I'd rather be able to recover 452 more health quickly then 96 health over time.

More significantly, if someone is taking that much spike damage, they'll be much better off with the right prots than simply trying to heal through it all. Protective Spirit or Soul Bond are much better and far more efficient at augmenting your primary healing spells during spikes than Healing Breeze is, as the post regarding hybrid bars illustrates. Something like Shield of Absorption is better at mitigating lots of small packets of damage too.

With a limitation of 8 slots on your skill bar, I simply feel there are better options available for almost every scenario that I'd consider using Healing Breeze (aside from 55 farming :p).

By the way, this is what I currently run on my monk when I do PvE healing (mouse over class icons to see attribute points):

[build prof=Mo/E hea=10+1+1 div=10+1 pro=11+1][word of healing][patient spirit][dismiss condition][cure hex][shield of absorption][protective spirit][aegis][glyph of lesser energy][/build]

If you don't use Aegis, drop prot to 10 and raise healing to 11. With 12 prot instead of 11, Aegis lasts 10 seconds instead of 9, which is why I have it as it is.

WoH is practically the only healing spell you'll need. Patient Spirit is there for if WoH gets shutdown or for emergencies. Patient Spirit also has synergy with Dismiss Condition, since it'll qualify as the enchant needed for the extra heal from Dismiss Condition if cast first. Dismiss Condition is used because you can cure nasty conditions such as Daze on yourself, which you can't with Mend Condition. Cure Hex is basically a 102 point heal with the side effect of removing a hex. Shield of Absorption is for people getting hit a lot. :p

Protective Spirit and Aegis make great pre-prots as you enter battle and combined with Glyph of Lesser Energy (GoLE), they cost a total of 5E. That's hundreds of points of damage mitigated for 5E. Mitigation not only reduces the total healing people need, but also reduces the maximum spike they can take. On a side note, if you don't have Protective Spirit on Hard Mode, people will be taking in excess of 300 points of damage per hit from some of the bigger spells or bosses. No amount of healing alone will keep up with this.

-Jonathan

EDIT: I should mention that I use several optionals... if I'm in an area with lots of hexes, I'll swap in [Dwayna's Kiss] instead of [Patient Spirit]. If there's lots of party-wide damage in an area instead of focused damage, I'll swap out [Shield of Absorption] for something like [Heal Party].

EDIT2: I really need to stop all these edits, but I wanted to point something else out. Shield of Absorption might not sound that hot (5 damage per hit? pfft), but what might be unclear is that the damage absorption increases by 5 for each hit received. It absorbs 5 off the first hit, 10 off the second, 15 off the third, etc. This means as far as total damage prevented goes:

After 1 hit, it's absorbed 5 damage.
After 2 hits, it's absorbed 15 damage. (5+10)
After 3 hits, it's absorbed 30 damage. (5+10+15)
4 = 50
5 = 75
6 = 105
7 = 140
8 = 180
9 = 225
10 = 275

You get the idea.

Now imagine your tank is holding aggro on 4 enemies. They're hitting him once every second or so for 50 damage. SoA lasts 6 seconds at 12 Protection Prayers. 6 seconds * 4 hits a second = 24 hits. After 10 hits, SoA reduces the damage per hit by 50 (or more), which means he's taking 0 damage per hit. So not only were the first 10 hits reduced in damage (absorbing a total of 275 damage, as I showed above), but the next 14 hits do 0 damage instead of 50. That's a HUGE amount of damage prevented (275 + 14*50 = 975 damage). All of this for only 5 energy.

Okay, I realize this is my third post in a row, but I wanted to mention another build that is quite good, especially when paired with the WoH bar I linked above. The biggest weakness of the above bar is a lack of party-wide healing. That's where this comes in:

[build prof=Mo/E hea=12+1+1 div=10+1 pro=8+1][dwayna's kiss][patient spirit][dismiss condition][shield of absorption][aegis][heal party][glyph of lesser energy][healer's boon][/build]

Note: The description of Healer's Boon is wrong for our tooltip. Here's the real stats:

5E, 1/4s Cast, 10s Recharge, NO Upkeep Cost
"Elite Enchantment Spell. For 10...46...55 seconds. Healing Prayers Spells cast 50% faster and heal for 50% more Health."

Dismiss Condition can be replaced by something like Cure Hex (which is a Healing Prayers spell, and receives the healing bonus). Aegis is also an optional that is really only needed more on Hard Mode, but can be chain with the other monk for around 20s of 50% block rate. SoA is another optional that can be replaced by Protective Spirit when facing smaller groups of hard-hitting enemies.

With Healer's Boon up, all your Healing Prayers are supercharged. Dwayna's Kiss with 4 Ench/Hexes is a 300+ HP heal that takes 1/2s to cast. Heal Party heals everyone in the party for 100+ health with only a 1s cast. If you use GoLE, you can then cast 2 Heal Party spells for 200+ health on everyone at a total cost of 15E. Keeping Healer's Boon up really isn't a problem either. It's 5E, casts fast, and lasts far longer than it's recharge time.

With the stat distributions shown here, your prots are still fine too. SoA lasts one less second, as does Aegis, compared to the WoH bar I linked above.

It may seem like I've gotten off the topic of Healing Breeze, but the main reason I'm linking these build is to point out why I don't feel Healing Breeze fits into any of them as well as other skill options. Sure, it's useful for keeping someone with moderate degen near 100% health, but the point of healing is not to keep everyone at 100% health. It's to keep everyone alive and doing their maximum damage during the fight. So what if they drop to 70% health due to degen before a fight ends? Your energy is better spent keeping the people taking large damage alive and keeping people hex/condition free so their own damage isn't limited. You can cap everyone back off after the fighting is over and you are moving to the next group of guys. That's why I don't feel Healing Breeze is useful. There are other spells that are better at keeping people taking big damage alive and what it counters best (moderate single-target degen) is not a serious threat to someone's life.

By the way, if anyone needs help capturing these elites for themselves or their heroes, feel free to ask me. If you just need these skills for your heroes though, all of them are purchasable with Balthazar faction that you can easily get with Zaishen Farming (another thing I can help with :p).

-Jonathan

OK,

Obviously I've been outclassed in knowledge here, so I retract my comments and yield to the more experienced players.

Excellent posts guys, well thought out bars, with great synergy. I look forward to using them when I get Nightfall.

Scion, Jon, thanks for posting these!

James