Guild Wars 2

What if heals were taken out of the game and control was the only form of heals via a break in damage.

The idea is that players maintain a high state of health regeneration but damage comes at such a steady rate in combat that players can not sustain “tanking” that damage for any long period of time.

Attacks like stuns and blinds would stop damage for 2-3 seconds and allow for the natural regeneration to recover large chunks of life thus everyone has stuns/blinds/mobility control/pushbacks/blocks or some sort of damage stopping ability and everoney is responsible for keeping each other alive.

Or make heals more percentage based or increase regeneration rates to extreme degrees but very short duration with long cool downs.

This other idea gives everyone very strong heals but not spamable so that one person is not a healer. Now one person might make a clutch heal to keep people alive but they wont be able to do that twice, so now players have to coordinate as a group to do a rotation of heals to keep group survivability going.

I think there are more ways to make players feel more effective in a group than what is currently being played.

but wouldn’t this be the exact same thing as we have now, just more exaggerated? For example: If you increase healing but also increase the cooldown that’s, in the end, the same amount of healing in a given period of time right?

That was pretty much the point. More exaggerated to let players see the effect they have on combat. As it is now, boons and damage interrupts are there and this is the exact purpose they provide, to stop damage but it is not noticeable and almost unnecessary in many cases.

For an action rpg style combat you need to feel like when you push the buttons something happens and I feel that myself and many players have a hard time seeing that effect.

You know, we still do have tanks and healers, just in their true meaning not stand there spam taunt or stand there look at ui bars, click heal, like necros supporting with wells and protection, warriors blocking attacks over 7 seconds with mace and shield, etc

CMF.5461:

That was pretty much the point. More exaggerated to let players see the effect they have on combat. As it is now, boons and damage interrupts are there and this is the exact purpose they provide, to stop damage but it is not noticeable and almost unnecessary in many cases.

For an action rpg style combat you need to feel like when you push the buttons something happens and I feel that myself and many players have a hard time seeing that effect.

Surely the difference between dying and not dying, struggling and not struggling is noticeable?

Actually, no it isn’t. I have been doing more and more group oriented combat and I am having a hard time seeing the effectiveness. I can’t tell what would happen if I don’t give a boon of protection or regeneration cause I did it. Sometimes when I provide a boon or a CC people die anyway. Sometimes they live.

In the reverse, sometimes I don’t provide anything and they die or live regardless of what I do. (

The effects are so small and gradual that it is not registering as a clear and obvious positive action.

With more drastic life or death actions they players can see if they did something right or not.

As far as Andele’s response about we do have tanks and healers, I don’t “want” them. I don’t want to force a square peg into a round hold and call it a tank or a healer. Yes everyone has a survival ability such as a block or a stun, but that is not meant to gain agro and “tank” it. Those are meant for oh no big damage is incoming and I can’t get out so I will brace myself for impact.

Yes players are finding ways to “tank” with those and soak up as much of the damage as they can, but that is because we are stuck with the traditional roles in our heads and we want to make something out of nothing.