Guild Wars 2

Anet I love your games I loved GW all through my teens and I have enjoyed GW2 off and on for a while know. So don’t think I’m second guessing you or trying to say I could do your jobs better when I say I think I have an Idea to make GW2 Better.

I have a feeling I am going to get a lot of flak for this… but here I go.

Healing Power is week and there is very little incentive to take it right know and quite honestly I don’t think any of the new traits or runes are really going to fix the issue (I could be wrong, in fact Anet you’re the game developers so you probably know a lot better than me on this subject) but while I was reading your post on ferocity I had an Idea.

What if you took Healing power out and replaced it with a new stat called (Benevolence, Empathy, Charisma) or something along those lines and changed the stat by giving it the additional functionality of making boons stronger. Not all boons obviously just the boons you felt you could give a bit more leeway on. I understand this might be hard to balance (The reason most boons have a flat bonus in the first place) but if you guys could pull it off (And I’m sure you can) It might give a bit more incentive for people to roll support and take it in dungeons.

Yes, I know this would have to come with a lot of changes. Most notably many boons having a lower base value and possibly higher max value. (Again I understand the difficulty that might be involved here) something that many players might be too happy about. However, right know the majority of Boons give the same benefit weather someone is wearing Berserker’s or Cleric’s (Some actually do better) and I (Me and hopefully some others) feel that isn’t right. People who spec support should be able to support (Not necessarily heal) better than anyone else (In my opinion).

his could mean support built characters could do a lot more than heal to they could more reliably mitigate damage (With Prot associated with this stat) or even increase the overall damage output of a party (If might where included). And I think that would be very cool.

Also it would be nice if Healing power or its successor made you able to rez allies faster. (Again I understand the issue with balance concerns)

I understand this would likely be a rather big undertaking (Balance wise if not programming wise) But It would be nice to find out you at least played with the Idea on your test servers.

Continued from above

Yes, I know this would have to come with a lot of changes. Most notably many boons having a lower base value and possibly higher max value. (Again I understand the difficulty that might be involved here) something that many players might be too happy about. However, right know the majority of Boons give the same benefit weather someone is wearing Berserker’s or Cleric’s (Some actually do better) and I (Me and hopefully some others) feel that isn’t right. People who spec support should be able to support (Not necessarily heal) better than anyone else (In my opinion).

The boons (I think) should be associated with this stat:

Might- This would allow support characters to add to their parties overall DPS increasing the speed at which content is completed, This might have to be looked at but having stacks given out by support characters do more means that this boon could be better controlled as well. (However I do know many builds rely on might to do significant damage (Particularly through combo fields) so that would have to be looked at.

Prot- I heard Wooden Potato’s once say that prot was the best boon in the game for support in his video on healing power here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnw05Boi8I&list=UUYUY9_i44IDNOs_Ja815mlA and I couldn’t say for certain as my guardian build doesn’t really give a lot of it out however I could see how the 33% damage reduction could be pretty awesome. I think tying this boon to the “Support stat” could be really nice letting people add a good bit of survivability to their team. However I am aware that Prot is stuck at 33% for a reason but like might making prot more reliant on the support stat could improve your control over it just as much as well. (I would think)

Regin- Already like this obviously (Why did I mention it, honestly I felt like it would be a good example to point out how this stat could possibly work)

Vigor- Actually I think this is probably the best one to tie it to, As it is an awesomely powerful and vary useful boon that could use a lower base bonus and really reword support builds. While I’m on this It might also be cool to see some (Week) Endurance healing abilities or (Traits tied to healing skills) affected by this stat.

(I did not include a lot of Math as I feel I am too inexperienced in this area to give good numbers and the ultimate effect would be entirely up to you after a good while of play testing.)

Boons that (I think) should be left alone:

Ret- More of a reverse Condi than anything.

Fury- Precision is pretty nasty on its own I really think this should remain on a flat rate. Also I think youd be messing around enough with a lot of builds by changing might.

Aegis- Really can’t be changed without outright nerfing it.

Stability- Like Aegis, However I do have an Idea for this as well that I think deserves to be mentioned here. Why not make Stability like defiance is on boss monster (A stack of stability would block one cc attempt and be consumed) and make all of the skills (Or at least most of them) give in 1 to 3 stacks! Making its use more skill based.

(Can’t think of anymore boons well other than swiftness)

Leave your support or concerns below.

Or they could like make healing power useful and scale decently.

This (I think) corresponds better with GW2’s original mission statement about how they would not be using the trinity. As well as the lesser known statement they made about Damage support and Control: http://www.gw2bnc.com/2012/04/the-mindset-of-roles/ . Though I guess thats just my opinion and alot has changes sense then, so maybe none of that no longer matters, and I’m clinging onto old ideas.

Healing is not vary skill based (Yes it takes skill to heal) but the truth of the matter is it takes little skill to be Healed in most games (The entire reason everyone has a self heal in GW2). When Anet originally designed the game they didn’t want healers but rather had this idea of support. Something people (Particularly people who like healing) could spec into allowing for players to aid their allies (Like a healer) But in a way that was more interesting than playing wackamole with peoples health-bar. For instance the Guardian has a alot of Damage prevention that can be used to keep allies from loosing too much health, or the Warriors ability to boost the damage of his allies. (Or at least thats what I got out of all of it).

However right know their is almost no reason to take any support gear in the game. In fact more often then not when specking support you are doing the exact opposite of aiding your team you are in fact hurting them! Why beceuse people who spec into damage can give out boons that are equally as good if not better than most anything that a support guy can dish out (with the exception of the “ok” regeneration boon) which (I think) isn’t right. Anet realizes this and is trying to solve the problem, I am just trying to make a few suggestions to help.

Also alot of this post is not just about making support more viable but also about making it more skill based. About requiring team work and group synergy. I even hope to keep altering the suggestions in order to improve the post quality along those lines.

I do think boon effectiveness should have a stat it scales with, just to make support a little more worthwhile or even necessary for speed runs.

Nice to have some support Fun Daddy.

Actually the more I think about it the more I realy believe Fury should be affected as well. Their is no reason any damage build should be so heavily reliant on a boon. Boons should be nice additional bonuses that when used properly can realy help a team not predictable gimmes that just pop up on your bar whenever you use a skill.

Also I forgot to mention that stronger boons under this stat change would always override or take priority over weaker boons.