Guild Wars 2

HERO, I completely agree with you. Completely. It’s not just that I agree, it’s actually a fact that the ANet’s experiment doesn’t work. The proof enough will be that either:

a) ANet realizes this in time and changes it in some way

or

b) ANet doesn’t acknowledge this as a problem, keeps going down the same path, GW2 finally crashes into a fail-wall. No successful MMORPG ever uses the same “system” ever again.

No trinity? Fine, cool. Give us something that WORKS and is FUN instead, then. I’m no fan of the trinity system, nor do I hate it. I’m a fan of something cool and fluent, and GW2 certainly doesn’t offer such thing. Whatever they tried to do, they failed hard.

Hughs.6549:

Forget the old WoW build. This is Guild Wars!

I’m so sick of reading this. Guild wars 2’s dungeons are… FAILURE !

- No fun
- No strategy
- No challenge
- No difficulty (except trying to figure out what the ****’s going on behind this 1000 layers of visual particles and dodge red circles on the floor all the time)
- Braindead Zerg aka DPS race
- Bosses : aren’t fun, way too simple, they’re everyting but inventive
- Rewards are useless, the carrot wont make people play for a long time
- cc’s are stupid (10h stunlock, 15s chainfear)
- Trashmobs harder than bosses
- Members of a same party DO NOT interact with each other. I’ve ran all dungeons explo many many many times with pugs and guild, people who are saying the contrary are lying to themselves. No heal needed, no tank needed, all you need is to dodge those lame red circles on the floor.
- Want a proof ? I’ve never had any reason to thank a partymate for helping me except for “res-ing” me, there’s just no interaction.
- …

Most of us “Haters” actually really appreciate ANet for trying to bring change in the MMO world, but

This
PVE
is
not
working
at all.

The idea of “getting rid of the Holy Trinity” has its own potential but you gotta be honest it’s badly designed

Finally, the only ones talking about WoW are YOU fanboys. So you can keep lying to yourself, bringing this useless false counter-argument ’WoW blahblah" and stating that the game is flawless and wonderful, but hey, this wont make the game better.

I’d rather read Hundreds of people “Hating” in a constructive way, trying to point out what’s wrong in the game than this unbelievable fanboy community.

I agree 100%

I stay away from dungeons because they are ezmode and designed for kids. They are repetitive and mind numbing for me to do. PvP is what keeps me thank god.

Just to be clear… i don’t want the holy trinity.
I want just improve healing skills and make it works.

@Dottek

Yes and no…

In PVE… me and some team mates tryed full dps party build… and it works.
Just self healing and go. Combo create condition remov.
The damage burst is so high that, if you focus the dame target, you letterally melt him.
Yes… some times you fall on the ground… but it works ad you can make basic dungeon (CM and HotW) fast.
PvP never tryed.

In the begin Anet idea was to remove the “Looking for Tank/Healer” system.
That’s why all classes can reach (more or less) all the party needs.
But, in the end, they cross the line and they created a system that penalize the healing skills.
All the healing skills, compared with the dps one, are limited and penalized.
I’m talking about the no target system, CD longer twice and not good combo.

The game, like it is now, works… just the healing and should be better.

Here you are a specular description between DPS and Healing skills
(i play guardian, thats why i’m using it for the comparison):

Judge’s Intervention:
Teleport to your target and burn nearby foes. – 45s. CD
Burning: 3 s (984 damage)
Damage: 122
Breaks stun
Range: 1,200

Merciful Intervention
Teleport to the nearest ally with the lowest health and create a healing area around them. – 80s. CD
Healing: 2,152
Range: 1,200

Both of this two skills are “Meditation”.
If you play guardian, you can notice that are specular.
Judge is dps, and Merciful is healing.

But… let see what really happen in game:

Judge’s Intervention:
I select the enemy, i jump on him. He will take damage and get burned… ofc it is aoe damage.
If I’m stunned, I can break it.
I can teleport where I want, so I can use this skill for run away (and I did it!).
45 s and I can do it again… breack stun, teleport in a better position, make aoe dmg…
If the target is far away, you teleport on your self.

Merciful Intervention
I can’t select the target… it means that if i am lucky i can teleport where i want… and it happen 30% of the time.
Some times I teleport on my self even if i got an ally close to me(!!)…
Some times I teleport on the Mesmer clone…
Some times on the engi turret…
Some times on the necro minnion…
Some times on the ranger pet…
Some times on a full life ally target (it is a bug?)…
Some times I teleport back cause another player in that moment is walking near me and I miss the main target…

So… there is no way I can control it… exept If I run close to the def target (STICK TO HIM) and I use this skill… but in this way the teleport have no sense.

No breacking stun… obviously because it is a supportive spell.
No target… obviously because it is a supportive spell.
And 80s CD (not 40 like Judge)… obviously because it is a supportive spell.

How to fix it?
Friendly Target

(ele) Drake’s Breath:
Spray a cone of fire at foes while on the move. – 5s. CD
Damage (4x): 672
Burning: 3 s (3936 damage – 4 stack)
Range: 400

Healing Breeze:
Heal yourself and allies in a cone in front of you. – 40s. CD
Healing: 6,525 (self)
Healing: 1,725 (allies)
Duration: 3 s
Range: 600

But… let see what really happen in game:

Drake’s Breath:
Select the target and cast the skill.
If the target move, my skill auto-follow him. He will take 100% of my damage…
5s. ed damage… 5s. and damage…
4 stack burning…
Yes… it is more powerful as it seems.

Healing Breeze:
I can’t select a target. I have just to spit this cone randomly.
If I have a foe selected, the cone of heal follow the foe (!!!???).
Friendly target jump, move, run and dodge… so if I’m lucky they can take half of the healing… sometimes you entirely waste it. Is very difficult run after someone. So… in the end, all the self healing are better cause are istant and HealBrz is a channel.
It heal me good… friendly healing, not so good as you think.

In this case you have a fire damage every 5 sec, and a not powerful and working heal (missing target 80%) every 40s.
Fair and balanced?

How to fix it?
Friendly Target

(ELE) Flame wall:
Create a wall of flame at the target area that burns foes. – 20s. CD
Damage: 95
Duration: 8 s
Burning: 1 s (328 damage)
Combo Field: Fire
Range: 900

Line of warding:
Create a line in front of you that foes cannot cross. – 40s. CD
Duration: 5 s
Range: 1,200

But… let see what really happen in game:

Flame Wall:
I cast the wall, 8 seconds. If someone cross it get burned.
Good combo with harrows and bullets.

Line of warding:
I place the wall.
ALL the enemy can jump and doge it. So… I just wasted time for cast a NO EFFECT skill… oh, yes, I need 40 seconds for waste again my time on it.

How to fix it?
No jump and dodge.
Remove condition if a friend cross it.

Shoulkittenep going on or is enough?
I can say a lot of things about the Staff (exp Orb of Light T_T)… and the Shield (just one traits and it suks)… and traits (like the shield one)… and ALL the healing and supportive skills…
I spent a lot of time comparing the skills… i can create a book on it.

Support and DPS should be specular and balanced.
But Anet disempowered healing…

Back to wow?
wish not… hate wow… but things here should change or the game will become a “self-sufficient, selfish dps build”… and then we can go back to Dota or Diablo.

Barghaest.3061:

Cleru.8609:

The way I see it is that ANet want something similar to the system in Monster Hunter, where mostly everyone taking care of their own health while still working together to bring down the boss.
Players are suppose to avoid/prevent damage in the first place.
The reason healing skills aren’t effective is because there to help lessen the punishment from failing to prevent/dodge and not the main function of the battle.
This is probably also the decision behind the reason why there is “no healer” in game.

The system does not really work though because of low death penalty (including way point in dungeon). So people just does not really care about their health. Taking off way point or have a dungeon lost condition upon total death might force player to be more cautious.

Yes, I have to agree with this to a point; however, there’s still flaws in the system.

Damage mitigation is tied to dodge rolls but the mobs are often so tightly packed in an area dodging a big whammy means getting more mobs on you (unless someone else happens to be hunting in the same area – which despite being an MMO will not always be the case) or, worse yet, the area prevents being able to dodge – Windy Cave in Lornar’s Pass where you’re balancing on a beam or narrow ledge while facing Veteran Shadow Imps is a stark example of this and trying to run the bomb through Griffonrook Run is another.

The limitations on dodging (endurance, rolling off cliffs, agroing more mobs) is not offset enough by the healing skill due to the cooldowns on them being equally as long… one or the other could be adjusted downwards.

The few skills that purge conditions give no immunity to them being immediately re-applied and often have long cooldowns whereas abilities that apply conditions frequently have low or no cooldown… so while I might remove snares/confusion with a use of Consume Conditions, I’ll have to wait 25s to use that skill again and usually get those or other conditions re-applied before the animation has even finished on my ability.

You correctly cut right into the issue of the tools we have not being tailored for the content we have to play against.

Your point about dodging has 3 very different issues but your suggestion only addresses one of them.
The potential to fall off isn’t the only danger. Another is blowing your dodge meter because of terrain getting in the way like the basement of CM.
In fighting games you had a parry mechanic where if your timing was right you could completely prevent any form of damage.
If we had the same thing but it was limited by a concentration meter it would help a lot in the situations we needed to stand still.
Aggroing other mobs is a nuisance even when you are in a team. There simply isn’t a way of staying out of the way of the Ember spawns in that room with the fire demon in Metrica Province or the Worms in Blazeridge Steppes. These type of boss fights make dodging or parrying impractical.
Since it is manageable simply by dividing players up into trash detail and full time DPS on the boss/champion I only see this as a minor problem that doesn’t need to be fixed.

As for conditions there are other ways ArenaNet could tackle this while still promoting team coordination.

After a player purges a debuff they create an AOE bubble temporarily that can be comboed into by another or themselves if they are fast enough and the combo attack will apply a silence effect that locks out the specific debuff they purged for several seconds.

Malin.2490:

Yes, we were all healers and tanks, but not the way you’d think. That guardian light field and a cluster bomb, and suddenly we all have retaliation = 3s of tanking. A water field + death blossom, and suddenly that thief is a healer as well as dps.

While the rest of your post was very good I didn’t want anyone reading this part and assuming it is true. Reflection gives you tanking power but with retaliation you still take the damage that is sent back to the mob.

I’ve only seen one situation where dying was inevitable for people, as in where if you go into that situation, you WILL die.

For the rest it’s about managing your cooldowns, kiting, and evading.

TravisTrout.6803:

Raine Akrune.8416:

TravisTrout.6803:

… one nice example that does not in any way address what I said. You’re right that it’s nice, but that’s not what I asked.

You asked for direction right at the top, you’ve been given lesson one in playing a PvE thief. If you don’t like people giving you play tips don’t ask to be shown things.

Aha, now see this is why it’s important to read threads before chiming in. I’ll break it down for ya’.

See, someone said basically that all classes are equally capable of functioning in all the classic roles. I disagreed, and by way of a very specific example I asked him to explain how a Thief “tanks” equally as well as a Guardian. A point which that person conceded, as should anyone who understands the game or frankly has even played it.

Then you came in, skimmed a couple of posts, and misunderstood what the conversation was about. I assume that’s why you wrote in with something not relevant to what was actually being discussed, which as I said was some very specific example. It’s as if I said, “I can’t find any apple recipes” and you said, “Dude, there are plenty of orange recipes. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Anyway, don’t worry yourself about it. This is just me giving you a lesson in reading comprehension.

“Please direct me to my Thief’s group healing & buffing abilities that are equal to my Guardian’s.” That’s the first sentence of that post. There was no mention of tanking ability as you tried to be a smart kitten.

“I disagreed, and by way of a very specific example I asked him to explain how a Thief “tanks” equally as well as a Guardian." If your going to lie about what you said at least go back and edit your posts

We all agree that Dungeon PvE is broken in its current state.. but why do you request Tanks and healers? Wouldnt be a change to Trash and Bossmechanics a more elegant way to fix the issues?

I tried to adress some of the issues in this posting:

“https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/some-Suggestions-about-Dungeon-Mechanics/first#post371338”

HERO.2057:

Every fight is just a DPS race, until you get overwhelmed and you just die, rez go back and try to finish the rest of the fight with a few more deaths.

There’s your problem. If you’re playing just to max your dps, you will fail as a group. Glass cannons don’t work in this game. You need to be hearty, smart, and supportive. Don’t look out for only yourself. Pop boons whenever you can, heal whenever you can. There is no dps meter for a reason: if all u do is focus on dps you aren’t helping the group. Nobody cares if you do great damage but the party fails. It’s better for the group to succeed so work together as a group.

Did not read most of the OP, nor even most of the thread.

For those of you crying for healers I have two words.

Combo Fields.

Learn how to make them, use them, love them.

My Mesmer can tank. My Guardian can heal, tank, or buff (Boon Bomb anyone?).

Colonel Kernel.7506:

Did not read most of the OP, nor even most of the thread.

For those of you crying for healers I have two words.

Combo Fields.

Learn how to make them, use them, love them.

My Mesmer can tank. My Guardian can heal, tank, or buff (Boon Bomb anyone?).

Yea, I’m not sure that enough people understand how combo’s work yet. Thief + short bow = combo fields == win!

That’s right folks, twice the equals. All non-Asurans can remove their earmuffs now.

UW and FoW were also terribly boring for all the classes involved in the trifecta who could not do anything else. They had to be cookie cutter and spam the same cycle of skills over and over, with the only reprieve being the objective variety of the missions, where some had you defending rather than just killing.

Since the importance of certain builds are downplayed now, I would like to see more of events that transform a character into a certain role, like how boulders are suddenly an overpowered weapon now. It was a joke in GW1, but because of the separated skill bar and character independence, any character can afford to give up their customary role to perform the task associated with an event.

HERO.2057:

I am throwing facts, you guys are throwing opinions.

Ahh yes. This is always a good one. The old, “I am stating facts that this stuff sucks while you are stating a mere opinion that you think it doesn’t suck”.

Good stuff. <——— FACT

HERO.2057:

Hey everyone,

I don’t wanna write a big wall of text, i’ll try to keep my points short and direct.

1. Boss Fights
These boss fights are very simple, too simple for any MMO standart nowadays, people want to be challenged, i want to be challenged when i go kill a boss, the way this is, it’s just very boring to do any boss fight as there is nothing special about it, just like the 10 bosses you fought before.

Zaithan

hide spoiler

You would assume they would put all their skills into making the Zaithan fight at least somewhat interesting, well, you’ll be dissapointed, it’s pretty much impossible to lose and there’s nothing fun about it

2. No healing class

When you ANET were designing the game, did you at some point said “what if instead of healers, we added these waypoints where people can rez?”

No tank, that would be OK, but no healer? Every fight is just a DPS race, until you get overwhelmed and you just die, rez go back and try to finish the rest of the fight with a few more deaths.

I would like you to take a step back and think, this is not working out, it’s definitely not fun at all, you need to change and bring spark back into the game, i hope the next expansion includes a healing class, otherwise i cannot possibly see how can this game will increase it’s player base or keep the people playing.

I hear more negative things about this game than positive, mostly because ANET decided to over-hype things, noone blames you, you tried something different, but didn’t work, swallow your pride and give the community what they want, and not what you think they want.

I for one miss the healer/tank/dps but that is me as I am a old school gamer. In my opinion all you do in this game is run hit run hit kite kite kite done.. Run in circles is all you do it is one of the worst game mechanics ever in my opinion but in about 2 sec there will be a fan boy or someone who works on the game that has a fake user account to seem like a normal player come and flame me so.. oh well so be it.

You never have to group with anyone at all except if you want to do dungeons so it doesn’t promote trying to find a group much at all. Sure there is the dynamic events where you need players but you don’t have to group to do them they are more like a giant zerg hit and run type events that has no real teamwork. WvW is mostly zerg as well…..

I don’t expect them to change the classes at all because after all its there game. They did however lose a huge amount of people from the choices they have made in the design of the game. I went to game design shcool and you know if they really wanted to be different they would have made a different story. One of the first things I was told was stay away from making “end of world” games however about 90 percent of the games that come out are “end of world” games. Save the world!!! (its been done a million times).

So to be different they got rid of the basic D&D model and went with something else (maybe its all the new generation who never palyed D&D). I wonder what David Lance Arneson would have thought of the game?

Uhm… I like how this thread started as two whammo’s complaining about how they can’t be monks.

That aside, wasn’t the whole point that everyone pays attention to the game and not the UI? I’ve been in good and bad dungeon groups. The bad ones seem to be whats being used as an example in this thread alot. That is: mindless zerg attrition whatever.

Then again the good ones? Well, first off, you get dodges. You can run around while you cast. You can speed yourself while slowing down the mobs. You can reflect whatever the mobs throw at you. Just how are you taking damage in the first place? And even if you took “fatal” damage, there are 4 people around you. If they’re any good, they are bandaging ya up in 1s or less after you went to downed state. Dying seems rather impossible with a good group imo.
Well, ofc there is Arah for the extreme difficulty fanatics. But thats another story entirely.

Of course, if you play warrior and don’t really know when you need to pull back for heals or even dodge the AoE heals your allies throw at you, (Yes, there are people who do that for some reason. Pay attention to the game for kitty’s sake!) it might seem that there aren’t enough heals to keep you going and dungeon is nothing but a DPS contest.

DPS contest is not fun content.

scooby treat.8420:

You never have to group with anyone at all except if you want to do dungeons

This is intentional. You just casually group up with whoever is around and doing the same thing. This is why all support skills are AoE, this is why there are no targeted heals, this is why you can share loot. You might not like it, but it’s intended and it was explained well before the game launched.

You never have to group with anyone at all except if you want to do dungeons
So to be different they got rid of the basic D&D model and went with something else

GW1 had heavy Magic: The Gathering influences. GW2 seems to draw from D&D 4th edition, especially the focus on mobility and damage mitigation.

I agree with Fred that the combat system and the class design isn’t the problem but the attitude of the players is. The GW2 class system and combat systems are designed to make the fights more engaging and feel faster paced. I think for the most part they’ve done exactly that.

There are some fights where you can just stand and dps and it feels boring. The opposite is getting into situations where you feel that its impossible to survive with these same tools. Often in impossible situations I’ve found that there is some little thing I’m missing. It may be a different way to pull, it may be that I haven’t noticed the give away to a specific ability. Whatever it may be a little study generally results in a solution and if not there are a couple spots where nerfs were necessary and ANet has been good about dealing with both these as much as possible.

If you are trying to build the highest dps spec possible then you don’t understand the combat system and need to re-evaluate your priorities if you want to participate successfully in PvE content. Its not about the class and its skills nearly as much as its about the player and attention to details.

SevenSigma.7462:

scooby treat.8420:

You never have to group with anyone at all except if you want to do dungeons

This is intentional. You just casually group up with whoever is around and doing the same thing. This is why all support skills are AoE, this is why there are no targeted heals, this is why you can share loot. You might not like it, but it’s intended and it was explained well before the game launched.

You never have to group with anyone at all except if you want to do dungeons
So to be different they got rid of the basic D&D model and went with something else

GW1 had heavy Magic: The Gathering influences. GW2 seems to draw from D&D 4th edition, especially the focus on mobility and damage mitigation.

Ok I should have said classic D&D. Also, i’m not saying that it wasn’t there intention i’m just saying I feel its a very bad model and promotes less teamwork. Which in that case you might as well go play a console game. Whats the point of a MMO if you do most of the content by yourself?

scooby treat.8420:

I feel its a very bad model and promotes less teamwork. Which in that case you might as well go play a console game. Whats the point of a MMO if you do most of the content by yourself?

I don’t think most people feel about this as you do. Kotaku, Eurogamer and several others credited this casual system as being much more social and “multiplayer” than other MMOs.

SevenSigma.7462:

scooby treat.8420:

I feel its a very bad model and promotes less teamwork. Which in that case you might as well go play a console game. Whats the point of a MMO if you do most of the content by yourself?

I don’t think most people feel about this as you do. Kotaku, Eurogamer and several others credited this casual system as being much more social and “multiplayer” than other MMOs.

I agree there is always 2 sides to a fence. Most of the players that feel they way I do have probably left the game already which is just speculation on my part. I do however see many zones empty and a small cluster of people around certain events and a small number looking for dungeon groups but they are very small. Maybe its because i’m on a lower server who knows. I do know at one time though my server had many more players than we do now and I don’t think they all just left for higher servers.

Having a tank hold agro’s and a healer healing and dps taking down enemies gives me much more satisfaction then having a group run in circles until the mob dies. Running in circles doesn’t seem like to much teamwork to me but again thats just my opinion.

scooby treat.8420:

Running in circles doesn’t seem like to much teamwork to me but again thats just my opinion.

I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of GW2’s combat at all. If we’re going to be like this, I could say that “holy trinity” combat involves nothing more than staying put and using autoattack.

It’s all about teamwork and tactics. The group needs to work together as a team – communicating with each other, planning attacks, targeting an enemy and using group focus-fire to maximise damage, managing the use of abilities so that they are not all on cooldown for the entire group.

I play a ranger most of the time, and I always ensure that I have Healing Spring as one of my abilities. I coordinate its use with others in a dungeon run so that we all don’t have healingon cooldown at the same time. When in a zone and fighting a champion, I generally stay at range but will move in closer to drop the Healing Spring on those closer to the champion before heading to the back again. When solo-ing, I will drop the spring and kite the enemy in a circle around it.

It’s all about learning what skills and utilities you have, as well as teamwork. Sure, you can solo your way through, but it’s much more fun in a group of friends, all working together towards the same goal. The Trinity’s demise here is really not a factor once we’re working as a team and not as individuals, which is the entire point.

SevenSigma.7462:

scooby treat.8420:

Running in circles doesn’t seem like to much teamwork to me but again thats just my opinion.

I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of GW2’s combat at all. If we’re going to be like this, I could say that “holy trinity” combat involves nothing more than staying put and using autoattack.

ok fair enough.

HERO.2057:

Hey everyone,

I don’t wanna write a big wall of text, i’ll try to keep my points short and direct.

1. Boss Fights
These boss fights are very simple, too simple for any MMO standart nowadays, people want to be challenged, i want to be challenged when i go kill a boss, the way this is, it’s just very boring to do any boss fight as there is nothing special about it, just like the 10 bosses you fought before.

Zaithan

hide spoiler

You would assume they would put all their skills into making the Zaithan fight at least somewhat interesting, well, you’ll be dissapointed, it’s pretty much impossible to lose and there’s nothing fun about it

2. No healing class

When you ANET were designing the game, did you at some point said “what if instead of healers, we added these waypoints where people can rez?”

No tank, that would be OK, but no healer? Every fight is just a DPS race, until you get overwhelmed and you just die, rez go back and try to finish the rest of the fight with a few more deaths.

I would like you to take a step back and think, this is not working out, it’s definitely not fun at all, you need to change and bring spark back into the game, i hope the next expansion includes a healing class, otherwise i cannot possibly see how can this game will increase it’s player base or keep the people playing.

I hear more negative things about this game than positive, mostly because ANET decided to over-hype things, noone blames you, you tried something different, but didn’t work, swallow your pride and give the community what they want, and not what you think they want.

I’d really rather they take the penalties of repairing away in dungeons where death is assured.

I would like a little bit more teamwork involved, but lets not ask the devs to change this into a different game… This is a casual MMO meant for casual players, not WoW… If you want to play a traditional MMO, go play the dozens that have poped up in the last decade…

“I’d really rather they take the penalties of repairing away in dungeons where death is assured.”

Death isn’t fully assured in anything other then boss fights in dungeons. Either you’re undergear, underleveled or underskilled.

Granted the armour cost needs to be lowered (6s for an exotic is a insane) and stripped off WvW.

It works just fine if your party plays this game how it’s meant to be played and stop trying to play it like other games. Maybe not every fight is balanced well, but that is a separate issue.

How you arrived at the conclusion that having one player mostly just sit there and watch health bars and press a button to make them go back up again makes it more “challenging” is kind of beyond me.

Actually, as you mentioned, the waypoints are one of the main things that make dungeon bosses less challenging, and I think one of the devs said on here somewhere that they were looking at changing that somehow. Then you’ll probably be saying that stuff is too hard because there are no healers. : P

Anyway, it’s obvious that adding a healing class now would break the game. They’d have to redesign everything, basically scrapping all of the work they have done. Nope, not going to happen. Hey, I know of a MMORPG that did that – scrapped everything they had to try to be more like another game. It was called Star Wars Galaxies. I think most here know how that story went, even if, like myself, they never played it.

If you think that system is better, then why not go play any of the myriad games that use it, instead of futilely trying to change one that is different? Why do you even want to play this game at all if you don’t like the combat? That’s the thing I really don’t get.

Scorpio.3821:

I would like a little bit more teamwork involved, but lets not ask the devs to change this into a different game… This is a casual MMO meant for casual players, not WoW… If you want to play a traditional MMO, go play the dozens that have poped up in the last decade…

Should I have my obligatory chuckle at the idea that WoW, at this point, is not a game for “casual” players? How is WoW not casual? Just because they maybe have some dungeons at any given point that are considered hard? The rest of the game doesn’t count?

Are there any MMOs that are that difficult, really? Any good ones, at least? And I don’t mean because of PvP. Of course other players can always be challenging.

(Also, being gear blocked from doing stuff isn’t “challenge.”)

Wouldn’t exactly say gear blocked. For a challenge as a definition “A test of one’s abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking”

Now In order to be challenged there needs to be requirements, Struggle, the need to think. If everything Is always handed to you without any requirements or need of a goal, It becomes way to easy.

-Here have a boss, Stand there attacking it for 5 minutes, no need to think about mechanics or anyone else, welldone on defeating said boss, here’s your reward = loot.

wait what Loot? Why Do I need loot for if there’s nothing in this game that requires the need for it. that’s rather pointless ….

Giving someone a goal in order to succeed in an area of difficulty is not a waste of time, If there is a boss that is to difficult for my friends and I to defeat at our current state, Give us a reason or a goal that will make us strong enough to succeed.. and we will do it.

ATM without a goal that involves struggle.. its pointless because it’s to easy.

Gustoril.4195:

Wouldn’t exactly say gear blocked. For a challenge as a definition “A test of one’s abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking”

Now In order to be challenged there needs to be requirements, Struggle, the need to think. If everything Is always handed to you without any requirements or need of a goal, It becomes way to easy.

-Here have a boss, Stand there attacking it for 5 minutes, no need to think about mechanics or anyone else, welldone on defeating said boss, here’s your reward = loot.

wait what Loot? Why Do I need loot for if there’s nothing in this game that requires the need for it. that’s rather pointless ….

Giving someone a goal in order to succeed in an area of difficulty is not a waste of time, If there is a boss that is to difficult for my friends and I to defeat at our current state, Give us a reason or a goal that will make us strong enough to succeed.. and we will do it.

ATM without a goal that involves struggle.. its pointless because it’s to easy.

And again, I want to know what these MMORPGs are where the majority of the game is challenging, because I surely haven’t played them.

Looking at a small chunk of a game as being representative of the entire game is disingenuous.

Let’s be silly, though, and go with the idea that a MMORPG should be all about instanced dungeons. That’s how World of Warcraft has conditioned people, anyway. Is there anyone who actually thinks that every dungeon in WoW is hard? I haven’t played the game in ages, but all of the comments I ever read about the game are quite to the contrary. I practically slept my way through dungeons in Rift. No real challenge there. Just discovering what the gimmick to a given boss was. Lord of the Rings Online challenging? Don’t make me laugh.

Where are all of these “challenging” MMOs? I must be playing the wrong ones. They are all just about establishing a pattern and sticking with it though well over 90% of the game. (Okay, if you want to be technical, you get a new ability every once in a while that either slightly alters the pattern or that is just for very niche and generally obvious situations.) And most of the rest is usually just about figuring out what the trick is, which of course most people just look up or learn by word of mouth from someone who already did it.

Hey signet of forums.

I can name the MMORPGs I have played and explain my experience.

World of warcraft
Lotro
GW1
Startrek online.
final fantasy

I could post my world of warcarft story that I’ve been working on which states my thoughts on the design of the game and the professions, classes, skills, talents, dungeons, quests. But it would be rather large and it’s not fully completed.

Gustoril.4195:

Hey signet of forums.

I can name the MMORPGs I have played and explain my experience.

World of warcraft
Lotro
GW1
Startrek online.
final fantasy

I could post my world of warcarft story that I’ve been working on which states my thoughts on the design of the game and the professions, classes, skills, talents, dungeons, quests. But it would be rather large and it’s not fully completed.

I know you aren’t seriously suggesting that Star Trek Online is challenging, and furthermore, that it is challenging because it has healers, which is what this thread is about, after all.

And Guild Wars 1 brings up an interesting point, actually: Guild Wars 1, which has healers, is not challenging, except for a tiny handful of places. Just bring a damage mitigation ritualist or something and almost everything in the game is laughable.

In fact, I can clear most zones in hard mode with heroes with the right skill setup and barely even do anything, if I’m so inclined. Yeah, a real challenge. It must be that amazing AI coordination that heroes have. LOL.

Star Trek still had requirements to be met in order to succeed when battling stronger foes.

Also the need to use teamwork when battling these foes, Scientific vessels usually played the role of a support character which would assist larger vessels taking all the hits, such as shielding, repairing using drones, slowing, disabling enemies. crowed control. I found Star trek to hold more challenging content than this game at it’s current state.

This game has potential just it’s limiting itself because it wants to be unique and not follow other MMOs.

And to your edit – I really enjoyed playing my elementalist in GW1 as a support role.

I liked the fact that as we are traveling completing the story zones, I would be in earth element which would allow me to shield and create barriers that reduce damage taken by teammates within.

The only thing that really put me off of GW1 was the control design (click to move, static animations wasnt smooth and had to finish before doing another action, being Australian I experience a lot of lag which causes the character to bounce around)

And this topic isn’t just about healers. We are also discussing boss fights and the challenges involved.

Gustoril.4195:

This game has potential just it’s limiting itself because it wants to be unique and not follow other MMOs.

As far as I’m concerned, what this game has going for it is that it wants to be unique and not follow other MMOs. That’s why I’m playing this, and not said other MMOs. I haven’t even played The Old Republic and I have extremely little interest in it, even as a free-to-play game, as it’s just another, “Yeah, me too,” MMO, as far as I’m concerned…with better stories, perhaps, but…yeah, that doesn’t really do anything for me. I’ll probably give it a shot at some point, but I don’t expect to be blown away or anything.

Star Trek Online, I was really looking forward to for a short time, because it seemed so different. It’s just too bad that it’s kind of dull, in general. I really don’t know what to say if you think that Star Trek Online’s combat is more interesting than Guild Wars 2’s…or pretty much any other notable game’s, for that matter.

It’s not a graveyard race. If you’re dying, you’re already doing it wrong. It’s not about healing either but about not getting damage. That’s a very big difference and requires personal skill. Yes, YOU as a player have to be good in order to not die. Relying on an overgeared healer won’t help you in this game. So man up, take personal responsibility and make sure you actually contribute to the party instead of WPrunning all the time.

it cant be compared really, Space combat vs err how do you explain this? lol

I love the combat on this, This is the first game that has had smooth animations and combat since wow that I have found, With my latency.. this game is god, My only issue with this game is the feeling that I’m playing single player.

In this game we team up with others to complete dungeons, The problem I find is that I don’t need to interact with anyone else in that dungeon until they are knocked down and I need to revive. It’s basically a dps race (everyone for them self) until someone is taken down.

I tried building a healing / support ranger and I couldn’t keep others alive and I became a burden for the DPS, reason was I could no longer do decent DPS, also my heals were pointed because it was based on a Heal over time which most in my group were taking more damage than I was healing.

I’m always seeing people say that “we are our own tank, our own healer and our own DPS” but saying that means I dont need anyone else. I only need to support myself and revive others.

What ever happen to the taking on of an important role, where other will require your aid and you will need theirs.

Signet of Forums.4397:

Scorpio.3821:

I would like a little bit more teamwork involved, but lets not ask the devs to change this into a different game… This is a casual MMO meant for casual players, not WoW… If you want to play a traditional MMO, go play the dozens that have poped up in the last decade…

Should I have my obligatory chuckle at the idea that WoW, at this point, is not a game for “casual” players? How is WoW not casual? Just because they maybe have some dungeons at any given point that are considered hard? The rest of the game doesn’t count?

Are there any MMOs that are that difficult, really? Any good ones, at least? And I don’t mean because of PvP. Of course other players can always be challenging.

(Also, being gear blocked from doing stuff isn’t “challenge.”)

People often refer to WoW as a “casual hardcore”, so I guess it can be seen as both. But when you compare WoW and similar games to GW2 you can see a huge different in pacing. WoW requires long term commitment, while this game doesn’t really make you work for much. You aren’t forced to learn your role in a party in this game, you just play for the fun.

@Leeain.2431

It seems like you didnt read what I wrote… you CANT heal same numbers as you deal in dmg!!! WHY ? because everybody can use AOE HOTs. AND? If it will put out same numbers heals will be TOTALY OP! god what a stupid ideas!
If you play guardian go for 30 trait that grants passive HOT over all party members you can heal for 150 every sec to 5 ppl its 15000 heal over 20 sec to group without healing power and thats freakin lot so please stop this no efficient healing… you just have to find most efficient way…
Look at warrior shout healer… 15000 heal every 25 sec to group without healing power!
Its 6000 heal for single party member passive gain! + self heal
both of those healers just need to use 30 trait points and single master trait… AND i believe that every class is able to do party heals…

“Look at warrior shout healer… 15000 heal every 25 sec to group without healing power!
Its 6000 heal for single party member passive gain! + self heal”

You forgot that heal warriors should also always be a hammer build with “gain adrenaline on shout” so that they also spam a crap ton of stuns. The overall damage output of the enemy drops by around 30%, and you heal most of your teammates for 1/4 of their lives.

yes but sry its not efficient because there isnt pure healing class and tank that will mitigate 90 perc of dmg

dottek.3461:

@Leeain.2431

Look at warrior shout healer… 15000 heal every 25 sec to group without healing power!
Its 6000 heal for single party member passive gain! + self heal

I have been using shout heals, and it does NOT heal for 6000 a person,
or I am getting incomming damage equal to 5000 a second or close,
which makes the shout heal useless, looking at the CD time.
(in WvWvW, with +healing power maxed from traits)

Raging Bull.5048:

No trinity? Fine, cool. Give us something that WORKS and is FUN instead, then. I’m no fan of the trinity system, nor do I hate it. I’m a fan of something cool and fluent, and GW2 certainly doesn’t offer such thing. Whatever they tried to do, they failed hard.

No, they didn’t fail. They did something completely different and you haven’t figured out how to make it work yet.

Go to the Wiki and search on Combo Finishers, read, learn, understand, apply.

I agree with 1 point from the OP.
Fights shouldn’t be balanced around being able to rez, run back, and continue fighting.

The fights should be balanced around NOT being able to use the waypoint until the fight ends.
Essentially, you shouldn’t want to die, but if you die you must be rezzed or you won’t contribute anymore to that particular fight.

“I have been using shout heals, and it does NOT heal for 6000 a person,
or I am getting incomming damage equal to 5000 a second or close,
which makes the shout heal useless, looking at the CD time.
(in WvWvW, with +healing power maxed from traits)”

You want one person to make the group invulvenrable in WvW?

Also : 1’500 x 3 shouts = 4’500 heals per person every 20 seconds. (assuming FGJ, OMM, and SiO).

Healing is a supporting thing. Everyone should have it if they can. Hell, my heals specced ele can bring an area up to full HP in about 5 seconds every 40 seconds.

“The fights should be balanced around NOT being able to use the waypoint until the fight ends.”

A lot of the Arah dungeon has this. They setup walls that blockade you from ressing if you die. Giganticus kittenic. . . I mean lupicus is the only one that doesn’t do that and is a tad insane ATM.

If you need a healer, you’re doing it wrong.

The game was designed to be played without a healer. several million play it without a healer. Many thousands run the dungeons without the healer. If you need a healer while all those other’s don’t, you’re doing it wrong.

Why healers ruin MMOs:

If you have a healing class, the damage output of the enemies of a group (bosses…) has to be raised or the group can’t die. Basically, every boss in WoW will deal (Mainhealer-HPS * duration) + Tank HP – X in damage to the tank over the cause of the fight, as well as (Grouphealer-HPS * duration) + combined group HP – X in AoE-damage. “Duration” is an estimate of boss-HP / group-DPS for a adequately geared group (see tiered equipment for what adequately geared means).

GW2 has no tanks, so the part about Mainhealer and Tank-HP is irrelevant.

GW2 also has no healers. However, GW2 has healing abilities. So the formula has to be adjusted:
(Group-HPS * duration) + combined group HP – X in damage.
If a boss deals this amount of damage to a group of y people, eevry one of them will be left with thei HP-(X/y) at the end of the fight.

You see, mathematically, adding healers into the equation will change only a few things:
- Bosses will have to deal more damage; they will deal as much additional DPS as average healers have HPS.
- You’ll introduce a class without wich nothing goes, you’ll introduce “LF1M healer, then go” to map chat.
- You’ll train players to rely on healers and simply soak damage. unless Healer HPS is astronomic, this will fail, Healers will be blamed.
- If healers can rescue players that don’t dodge, they will be expected to and thus the game will be dumbed down immensely; if dodging is no longer required to succeed, it’s one less skill players have to acquire.

TL;DR: If you bring healers to the game, you are automatically dumbing it down, whether you want to or not. Don’t.

marnick.4305:

It’s not a graveyard race. If you’re dying, you’re already doing it wrong. It’s not about healing either but about not getting damage. That’s a very big difference and requires personal skill. Yes, YOU as a player have to be good in order to not die. Relying on an overgeared healer won’t help you in this game. So man up, take personal responsibility and make sure you actually contribute to the party instead of WPrunning all the time.

I cannot stress this enough.

If you’re relying on someone else to heal your hiney, you’re doing it wrong.

I always enjoy these posts, but I rarely add my opinion….Changed my mind this time.

First of all, I love how people always assume someone is bad at the game, or “doing it wrong” because they have a complaint. Some of you need to realize that just because some of us have negative opinions about certain aspects of the game doesn’t mean we aren’t as good as you.

Example 1: The guy that mentioned dodging / managing your cool downs. Ever fought the Giant in Nageling? I can melee him without ever going down; however, there is an issue with dodging his stomp. On my warrior, I dodged his stomp, ran out of endurance (he stomped twice relatively fast). He then stomped a third time….Now what? Yes, I have some skills that allow me to evade as a warrior, but maybe that weapon isn’t equipped. Why should I be forced to use a specific weapon to get extra dodges? However, without it, other classes meleeing would be one hit by his stomp.

All classes are not equal. If all classes are equal, all classes would be the same. Also, for you dedicated lot get your group of friends together and run EVERY dungeon in the world with the same class type. Rinse and repeat until you’ve tested every class. Track how many times you were downed, killed, and close calls. Now get a diverse group together…..I’ll bet it is easier. BTW, good luck getting past AC path 1 and 3 with all thieves, rangers, warriors, or guardians. I should also mention…..GW2 is meant for all gamers….Even those of us that don’t play it with 4 other friends. So, I should be able to do these dungeons with random groups and not get obliterated….yet, why does that not usually happen?

Now, onto something a bit different, although I believe it ties into the trinity argument. GW2 is supposed to be fun, exciting, and collaborative. No one is supposed to be excluded based on class / level (I mentioned level, assuming you are the proper level to do the dungeon or whatever). However, I can, from personal experience, know this isn’t true. I’ve been kicked from more than one group because I wanted to do an AC explore run on my level 35 alt instead of being on a level 60+ character like the rest of the group.

How is this tied into the trinity argument? Simple. There is one thing that most of you use in your argument without realizing what you are actually saying. Traits. Your armor scales down, your skills scale down, but your traits still work. This breaks the entire idea of their system. Why would you take a shout build warrior that is level 40, and can’t heal you with shouts, when you could take a level 60 shout warrior who can heal you with them? You wouldn’t. Run any dungeon, I prefer AC because from my experiences and conversations with others, it is the hardest dungeon, with characters that meet the minimum level requirement…..Then do it with level 80’s, of the same class type, I will guarantee you it is easier on 80’s. If you’d like, I can throw in the whole argument of what skills you have at level 35 vs 80 too. You with have far fewer because you have far fewer skill points…..Guess what, this affects it too.

I love this game. I’d like to think I am good at this game—I’ve gotten multiple compliments in the past and ran many successful dungeons where people died less than 2-3 times (or not at all). But does that mean everything is perfect? No. It isn’t. Would a monk ruin the game, I seriously doubt it. Most groups all ready have a character who is trying to play as a monk (or, in a dungeon where we had massive trouble, the whole group could be running support builds….Minimal DPS, heals aren’t good enough, you die a lot if teamwork isn’t perfect).

You can hate on my post all you want, I’ll ignore you, but I will do my best to try and provide counter arguments to those posted on mine. This is a good debate and one that needs to be continued.

HERO.2057:

Hey everyone,

I don’t wanna write a big wall of text, i’ll try to keep my points short and direct.

1. Boss Fights
These boss fights are very simple, too simple for any MMO standard nowadays, people want to be challenged, i want to be challenged when i go kill a boss, the way this is, it’s just very boring to do any boss fight as there is nothing special about it, just like the 10 bosses you fought before.

Zaithan

hide spoiler

You would assume they would put all their skills into making the Zaithan fight at least somewhat interesting, well, you’ll be dissapointed, it’s pretty much impossible to lose and there’s nothing fun about it

I agree some bosses need to have more unique mechanics / mechanics reworked so it’s challenging but doable with any group composition (Effigy in CoF needing Poison, for example. This might have changed though in the past few weeks though)

HERO.2057:

2. No healing class

1. When you ANET were designing the game, did you at some point said “what if instead of healers, we added these waypoints where people can rez?”

No tank, that would be OK, but no healer? Every fight is just a DPS race, until you get overwhelmed and you just die, rez go back and try to finish the rest of the fight with a few more deaths.

I would like you to take a step back and think, this is not working out, it’s definitely not fun at all, you need to change and bring spark back into the game, i hope the next expansion includes a healing class, otherwise i cannot possibly see how can this game will increase it’s player base or keep the people playing.

I hear more negative things about this game than positive, mostly because ANET decided to over-hype things, noone blames you, you tried something different, but didn’t work, swallow your pride and give the community what they want, and not what you think they want.

I’ve been in Dungeon runs where we hardly Waypoint zerg. Just saying. Timing abilities, keeping on the move ect all helps. If you approach it with a pew-pew mindset, yes, you’ll die a lot.

Think for a moment. Could it possibly be people are approaching it this way BECAUSE they’ve always had the safety net of a Healer and Tank?

As for ‘giving the community what they want’, I’m pretty sure that not EVERYONE wants a Healer class.

The issue of Challenge is something that should never be put to the table in my opinion. I’ve played several mmorpgs and they all lack challenge when you think about it. how?

standard mmorpg has the healer class, a tank or two and dps classes. The classic method is to let the tank soak up damage while the healer keeps him alive. The DPS classes provide the damage. here the healer is spamming heals and the tank is spamming arrgo skills while the dps classes are focused on doing what they do. this is hardly what one would call a challenge.

GW2 got rid of the healing class and tank cass and sort of speard them out along all the classes. You can evade attacks here, or rather, you HAVE to otherwise even normal mobs can own you in some cases. As opposed to standing one place and just hammering away. you have to stay on the move. However, even with this GW kinda shot itself in the foot with the waypoint system that basically lets you get right back into the fight and you can keep doing it even in a dungeon until it’s cleared. This is the main gripe i have with GW2 system. At the very least, in dungeons, let there only be one waypoint and if someone dies they have to make their way all the way back to the fight.

iIm going to lean towards GW2 more than any other mmorpg i played so far for one simple reason. it’s still a new game that doesn’t even have an expansion yet. I’m sure if given time the devs will balance everything out.