Guild Wars 2

This is probably my biggest problem with this game. In order to get experience or loot you must hit the target at least once, if not more. This provides a huge advantage for classes/roles that focus on area attacks, like Warriors using Great Swords. It is a big disadvantage to a thief using daggers as they focus on a single target, while the rest of the enemies are killed off before you can ping them. However, this system does the greatest disservice to those who wish to play in a dedicated support role. I made a build that focused on defense, healing, and condition removal, and had a lot of fun running around ensuring my teammates didn’t die, and reviving them if they were downed…Until the end of the battle when I realized I got pretty much no loot out of it.

It seems to me there are a couple of fairly simple solutions. One is party experience/loot. If everyone in your party, within a set range, got experience and loot for the kills of the other members of the party, not only would it make support roles more rewarding, but it would also make playing in a party a lot more attractive.
The other solution, and this could be done in conjunction with the first, would be to give experience and loot to a healer/supporter for the enemies that the character they healed or supported is doing damage to at the time.

Right now I feel as if I am forced to play an AoE DPS build in any group setting in order to get the greatest reward, and, frankly, it gets really f***ing boring.

I can’t be the only one who thinks this change needs to be made…

Nah, I think you are the only one.

Luckily, you don’t have to deal much damage to enemies to get the full reward.
It may not be perfect, but it really does seem like the best option to encourage participation in fights. As else, people would just sit back and spam heals without any risk.

It currently is just really anti-leech. And I’m ok with that.

@eekzie: Partied experience does not present this problem as you could kick anyone who does not participate to expectation. As for an open world setting, outside of parties, there would probably need to be some limitations, but that doesn’t mean that someone who prefers to heal, revive, and otherwise support other players, doesn’t deserve a reward. I once tried to fight Jormag, but still had gear from a much lower level. I hit him several times, but was dying very quickly, and not doing a lot of damage, so I spend the rest of the fight reviving other players and using healing/condition removal skills. Got no chest at the end despite the time I spent attacking. I was busy helping people the whole fight (Jormag is an annoyingly long fight too) and got nothing for it. This system is broken. It isn’t the best of imperfect options. It is merely the only system they have tried since release. It needs an update.

Im going to agree with the OP.
Although…. in my support builds i always do enough damage to qualify forloot, what im more worried about is: what if someone dies and doesnt receive loot from new mobs?

Theres a really simple solution: in dungeons everyone should automatically qualify for loot.

eekzie.5640:

Luckily, you don’t have to deal much damage to enemies to get the full reward.
It may not be perfect, but it really does seem like the best option to encourage participation in fights. As else, people would just sit back and spam heals without any risk.

It currently is just really anti-leech. And I’m ok with that.

Just discovered the quote button
Another reason a change is needed is that there is no reason a thief should have to run around attacking each opponent once with his dagger just to qualify for loot and experience. It isn’t just a problem of support players not being rewarded. Any single target weapons cause a similar dilemma.

I’d put an emphasis on party loot. I rarely bother with parties in this game, because it is too much work to find people who want to do the same things. Obviously there would have to be distance limits, so people aren’t doing completely different things and sharing loot, but something like this would make looking for a party worthwhile.

This might just be me but grouping (in PvE at least) appears to only be for dungeons and if Im honest the only thing I really care about is doing the dungeon efficiently and getting boss loot / tokens. The rest of the loot tends to be pretty petty and unappealing because you know thakittens usually a load of rubbish. Anet should focus on making random drops more interesting rather than who should get what %age of what rubbish.

Yes support and healing needs to be rewarded.

Dante.8456:

This might just be me but grouping (in PvE at least) appears to only be for dungeons and if Im honest the only thing I really care about is doing the dungeon efficiently and getting boss loot / tokens. The rest of the loot tends to be pretty petty and unappealing because you know thakittens usually a load of rubbish. Anet should focus on making random drops more interesting rather than who should get what %age of what rubbish.

Nobody gets a percentage of anything. Everyone gets their own loot. I have gotten some pretty good stuff from random drops, and don’t necessarily have a problem with the way that works.
Parties only being for dungeons is a problem that this would help address. Not just for sharing of the loot, but for sharing experience and credit for events.